Dear Donna and Mini:

Thank you both for the years which you gave to the care and love of my brother Jesse Horace Stevenson. I am sure that your dedication was out of love for him. But my thanks are to you because a person cannot do such care without the giving up of their own life, time, and fulfillment. It is not an easy task I know. Having worked with nursing homes and my own mother, I have much appreciation for what you have done. I was in junior high when my mother had a stroke which paralyzed her right side. When she came home from the hospital, I became the primary care giver since my father worked away during the week.

I'm sorry that the Stevenson family has been so distant that you haven't known how much Jesse meant to us. In this age it is easy to have the family structure to dissolve and split in all directions at once. With everyone having children of their own and no center for the extended family to collect around, it is hard not to become just another part of the lonely crowd. That is what happened after our mother died.

Jesse Horace Stevenson was my oldest brother but in fact he was more of what a father is supposed to be to me than our father. He wrote to me when he was away, whether in Canada - the south sea islands - or in Vietnam.

He taught me how to fish, first as a child in the Concho River near San Angelo, and later as a young teenager in the bays along the Texas coast. He had me visit him where ever he was living. He took me to work with him so that I would know what he was doing (when it was not classified). He gave me my first gun and taught me how to shoot. He showed me the life of faith and religion. He encouraged me to dedicate myself to God and the call of Jesus Christ. When I was with my father I was uneasy and fearful. When I was with Jesse, every thing was alright. Jesse built "family" in my childhood and gave me confidence to try anything I had the opportunity to do. After our mother died, there was no nucleous of a family and life was very uncertain.

Upon graduation from public schools, I got an offer to work in a warehouse in Corpus Christi for a Houston firm starting a new business there. Jesse was the person who packed me up and carried me to Corpus, made sure that I had the job and found me a place to stay with a month's rent paid and settled me in.

I know that he would not live forever on this earth but I never dreamed that I would not have a chance to say goodby. When his funeral came and went without an opportunity to attend, I was crushed. I could have flown in for the funeral! We had planned to go to Lubbock and get Thomas and then drive to Miami for the funeral, but I would have flown had I known it was going to be that soon. My deepest apologies to Jesse. I never told him what his love meant to me.

Christian ministry is a fulfilling calling to answer, but it makes it difficult to keep up with your family unless you have a family reunion each year. And you find it hard to stay in touch with your friends. Now that I am retired from fultime Christian service, I have the time {but much less money) but the best seems to be gone.

Here I am at three A.M. still in shock that Jesse is gone! It has been an emotional time since his death but life goes on whether we are ready or not. I hope that you both are doing well and that I may be able to visit with you in the year ahead. I apologize if this is an upsetting letter but it is healing for me.

As uncle, and brother-in-law;

Grace and Peace to each of you.

Henry Forrest Stevenson