A Remarkable Meeting

Last year I Goggled the name Floria. Through some digging and a letter I talked with a Kevin Floria on the phone. We apparently have some common ancestry. This summer I made arrangements to meet with he and his family in a little UP community called Engadine. I know from past discussions with my father that he had an Uncle Art Floria living in Engadine, but I never met the man. It turns out, that Art had a brother Charles and these men would've been brothers to my grandfather Burt Floria. Charles had a son Charles who married a woman named Arlene and she is the mother of Kevin Floria.

Saturday, July 5, 2008 I drove to Engadine and met Kevin and his brother Rick Floria, and the mother Arlene. I also met Kevin's wife, Janice and Rick's wife Barbera. We gathered around the dining room table in the family vacation home in Engadine located just across the street from Millecoquins Lake just east of Engadine.

We did trace our ancestry back to a common thread named Joe Flory. It seems old Joe was a bit of a rounder. He had a family in Ohio, probably near Toledo, and abandoned that family and moved to Mecosta County, MI. Joe married a lady named Eva Bancroft and had eight children with her. These children include Burt, my grandfather, Art the Uncle in Engadine and Charles, grandfather to Kevin and Rick. Upon moving from Ohio to Michigan Joe Flory changed his name to Floria. Joe Floria eventually left his family in Michigan and moved to Oregon where he apparently started another family. Joe died, or committed suicide on a train heading east to visit. Where he his buried is not known.

Kevin and Rick have two other brothers and a sister. Kevin and Rick live in the Lansing area, one brother lives in Chicago and another in Cheboygan, MI. They love the outdoors, hunt deer, fish and hunt ducks. They were a fun group to meet and we were together for perhaps two hours. Nice folks and a chance meeting that was very enjoyable.