My grandfather, Charles Edward Evans , was the father of both of my mothers who were sisters. As I grew up, my parents always told me that I was ‘adopted’ and I didn’t learn who my biological parents were until after my grandfather died. I was 12 years old.

After mom died, I found a photo of him among her pictures. I had known about him being a pilot in the First World War.

I have since found a cousin of my mom’s, Len Metcalfe, making him my first-cousin once-removed. I’ve been meaning to write about that visit for some time and will soon. He was close to my grandather (his uncle) and told me some things about him that I liked.

For now, I’ll just say that one of Charlie’s wartime friends, Bill Metcalfe, came to Vancouver after the war and married his sister, Anne.

After my biological mother Betty died this past April, my sister came to visit from New York. She and I decided that we would like to have everyone who descended from Charles to be commemorated at Mountain View Cemetery in the Evans plot. My sister has a gift for words and created the epitaph.

I wanted him to be remembered with his full name.