Lonnie David Gordon

In my Great Flora Hunt, I ran across a name that sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn't think anything about it. A name is a name and some of them are more common than others, and I figured this one - Lonnie David Gordon - I probably heard from a relative at some point. The man was my great-uncle, my favorite grandfather's uncle, so I figured at some point I heard the name from him. Lonnie was Flora's oldest son.

Out of curiosity, I Googled the name, "Lonnie David Gordon." I was trying to find records about the gentleman born on February 19, 1893 and died in October 1966 in Michigan. Instead, I found another Lonnie David Gordon (hereby known as LDG 2), who died in 2008 in the same town in MI as the first Lonnie. The circumstances of his death were grim - he died from hypothermia, as he was a homeless felon on parole. I really thought that this man was a distant relation, but no more. Today I confirmed it, thanks to his obituary that I finally found, that LDG2 was the Original Lonnie's grandson which made him Flora's great-grandson.

Thanks to this man, LDG2, homelessness awareness was risen in the MI area. I remember seeing this in the national news at the time and thinking it was a shame. This man was my second cousin. I never met him, but after reading several stories about him and the circumstances surrounding his death, I feel like I do. From what I gathered, he didn't know his daughter that well and he had two grandchildren. I don't know what kind of man he was, but I do know that he was in the Marines at one point (according to his obituary, I'm looking to verify, but I have no doubts to what I read in the obit.)

I'll be researching him further, of course, but because I know so much, he's more than just a name and a birthdate/deathdate on a family tree. He's a relative.