Who we are now

Terry Lynn Dale and her brother, Michael Wayne Dale, were captured on her first birthday by a News Leader photographer.

The first Dale I remembering being born was not my sister. I was only 3 years old when she came along. But Terry Lynn Dale, my brother Jimmy's daughter, was born on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1954, when I was 11. Terry already had an older brother, Michael Wayne Dale, who had been born Aug. 28, 1951, but I had not yet met Jimmy and his wife, Shirley, when Mike was born.

When Terry was a year old, the News Leader splashed a series of feature pictures of her and her birthday cake and her brother across the front page as a St. Patrick's Day feature. With her strawberry blonde curls, she was a holiday natural.

Our eldest sister, Dorothy Dale Warren, and her husband, William Russell Warren, already had two children before I met them. William Russell Warren Jr. was born Oct. 13, 1948, and Mary Elizabeth Warren was born April 28, 1950.

I remember well when Bobby, our middle brother, married Camilla Robinson on Sept. 9, 1961. My mother and father and my sister Dianne and I attended their wedding together. By that time I was already a sophomore at the University of Richmond. Their daughter, Evelyn Annette Dale, was born Oct. 22, 1963, when I was still in college. But I was in the Air Force in Germany when her younger brother, Jeffrey Vernon Dale, was born on May 17, 1968. His parents asked me to be Jeffrey's godfather. Jeffrey Dale, my godson and nephew, married Beverley Stone, and they have a daughter, Lindley Caldwell Dale, who was born June 2, 2007.

Michael Wayne Dale, my nephew, grew up to attend the University of Richmond, where he majored in journalism. He told me recently that his decision on a major was influenced by me, although I had had no idea of that at the time. He married Mary Rebecca Massie on May 19, 1973, and they now have two grown and accomplished -- and very smart -- daughters, Jennifer Lynn Dale, born March 17, 1978 (St. Patrick's Day, her Aunt Terry's birthday), and Melissa Brooke Dale, born Dec. 15, 1979. In an ironic "roots" way, Melissa is now living in Savannah, which is where the earliest Dale of whom we are aware lived before the Civil War.

Jennifer, my great-niece, married Nathan Hammer Miller, and they now have a daughter, my great-great-niece. She is Rowan Massie Miller, born Aug. 25, 2007.

My nephew Billy (Dorothy's son) has been married twice. His children are Lisa Dale Warren (my great-niece), David McGinn Warren (my great nephew), and Bryan Eliot Pyles Warren (my great-nephew). Bryan's aunt, my niece Mary, dotes on him. My great-niece Lisa married Greg Your, and they have a daughter, Jaqueline, and a son, Conner -- my great-great-niece and great-great-nephew.

My niece Terry Lynn Dale married James Ray Cavet on June 8, 1996. They are in the process of adopting a child from rural Honduras, who has lived with them here in Richmond since he was 4 months old. Carlos Eduardo Carbajal, who was born June 9, 2004, suffered injuries to his left hand and a portion of his scalp in a crib fire when he was an infant in Honduras. Terry, who spent much of her career as a pediatric nurse, and James have provided a loving home for Carlos, who, I must admit, is the apple of my eye. Despite the troubles he had as an infant, Carlos is now a cheerful, inquisitive, optimistic, affectionate, independent -- and sometimes, yes, stubborn -- little boy. With his dark good looks, irrepressible smile and big brown eyes, he will be a heartbreaker in another few years.