Can a blog really do this? Friends re-united after 50 years

Byron and Dorothy Bloomfield by Dru Bloomfield - At Home in Scottsdale

I got a call on Friday from a gentleman, Richard Waterhouse.  He said he had an old friend named Byron Bloomfield that he’d been trying reconnect with.  Said he’d been trying to find him on the Internet, and asked me if I know how many Byron Bloomfield’s there were in the United States.  He said he’d read a post of mine mentioning Byron, and the Byron he knew was an architect, too.

Mr. Waterhouse had a lovely British accent, and sounded like he might be of the same generation as my father-in-law, who was born in the 1920’s.  Richard asked if I’d married Byron’s son, and if I knew how to get a hold of Byron.  He wanted to know if Byron was still alive,  where he lived, what kind of house he lived in, and more.   In this suspicious age we live in, I was getting a bit nervous giving out information.  Richard said he and Byron had worked together and been friends in Washington DC almost 50 years ago.  He asked me if I would give him Byron’s phone number.

I paused.  Oddly, we were disconnected at that point. 

It took a couple tries, but I got Richard back on the line.  I’d already convinced myself that it was OK to give him Byron’s phone number.  I realized that this earlier generation was the one that left their doors unlocked and did business with a handshake, so what harm could a simple phone call do.  My father-in-law always had the option of hanging up.

I shared the phone number, wished him luck, and walked into my lunch appointment.

An hour later, I was back in my car, checking my voice mail, listening to Dorothy, my mother-in-law, thanking me wholeheartedly for giving Dick their phone number.  She said that he’d already called and that they’d had a lovely conversation, which had made their day.  That they couldn’t believe that they’d been reunited after 50 years. 

Yesterday, my husband made his weekly call to check in with his folks, and they were still savoring the call from a long lost friend.

Who would have thought that a simple post, from the heart, written late last year, could have created this reunion?

A Very Special House – It’s Called a “Home”

Wow.

Tagged as: blog, Byron Bloomfield, Dorothy Bloomfield, renunion