One minor little mystery has been solved.

One of my long-time friends from my days growing up in Richland, PA, was Randy Klopp.

My mother and his parents, Isobel and Lynn, had known each other when they were growing up, and when our family moved back to Richland in June of 1957 when I was eight years old, the first place we lived in was the apartment that the Klopps rented out on the second story of their house.

This is a photo I took of their house when I drove through Richland with my aunt and uncle back in 2013. It was about the only house that looked almost exactly the way it used to look back in the 1950s. Lynn and Isobel still lived there at the time but they weren’t at home when I snapped the photo.

Notice the outside staircase on the left. That’s how we got up to the second floor apartment.

Anyway, there was another family in town, the Bollingers, Ray and Lillian. Their son Michael was also Randy’s and my age and was in our class. Ray Bollinger was involved in Republican politics. I’m not sure what his title was, but he would have been something like a ward leader or whatever the equivalent was for the county.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, it was from Ray Bollinger that Randy and I got our marching orders when we campaigned for Goldwater.

My recollection is that Randy used to refer to Ray as his uncle, but in recent years when I’ve mentioned that to other Richlandites, they’ve insisted that they were not aware of any relationship between the Bollingers and the Klopps. Including my sister, who used to have a crush on Dwight, Randy’s brother. Or wasn’t I supposed to mention that?

So I’ve been trying to figure out for some time what, if any, relationship, those two families had with each other.

And I’m pleased to announce that I’ve finally cracked the case!

It turns out that Randy’s father Lynn Klopp and Ray Bollinger were 2nd cousins once removed—with the common ancestor being John Becker, whoever that was (I’ll have to look him up sometime).

Thus, it’s very possible that Randy treated Ray as a “play uncle”. Their families were related but not that closely, and it was simply easier to call him uncle than to refer to him as, what would have been in Randy’s case, a 2nd cousin twice removed.

Update: After posting this, it occurred to me that perhaps I never actually heard Randy refer to Ray as his uncle, but because there seemed to be some sort of connection between their families, I merely assumed there was a relationship, and I inferred Ray was his uncle.