Although we claimed the same great-grandfather, my first

meeting with Martha Dickinson Bianchi was accidental. For

me, it proved a happy and exciting event. I had not planned

it and I am certain that she was innocent of my existence.

My grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson Jr., was one of

the younger brothers of Edward--Emily's father. The fact

that my grandfather left Amherst when he was barely twenty,

and went to Georgia to try to make his own way in the world,

and that he succeeded there, and only went back to Amherst

on occasional visits, caused him to be something of a stranger

to his own birthplace. During the War between the States, he

and my own father espoused the cause of the Secessionists.

That must have created a rift between them and the family in

Amherst, for I can remember the story being told of my great

uncles in Massachusetts advertising a reward for my father's

capture, "alive or dead."

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