The Miracle Of The Four-Leaf Clover

by Judy Sander Cockrell

For all you non-believers out there, I have a wonderful Christmas story for you. I know it's true, because it happened to me.

It was almost thanksgiving, and I was playing on the eBay auction site, which I do often. I plugged in all the cities of genealogy interest to me and finding nothing interesting, I began inputting family surnames.

Over the years, I have found various old high school yearbooks, childhood toys, and many memory items, amongst them, one of my favorites... A phone book from 1949 that holds many of my relatives' addresses and phone numbers.

On this particular day, I had typed in "rutter family" and found an old, 12-pound table bible. It had some family entries in it that I was sure matched my family history. Excitedly, I grabbed my RUTTER family file, and much to my excitement found that, yes, indeed it was my family's bible. What a find!! What luck!!

Who in the world would have ever thought I would find a bible that was once in the hands of my ancestors? The price was well in my budget; it was, after all so close to Christmas, and I knew my pocketbook was tight. My heart was pounding as I sent in my bid for this wonderful bible.

Now all I had to do was wait...

The day before the end of auction for what I now had deemed "my bible", I received an email alerting me that someone had outbid me...what? I thought, why would anybody want "my" family bible? So, I squeezed my budget a tad and sent in a new bid. Lucky for me, the other person seemed uninterested, and left my bid in place. Whew! Close call.

The day of auctions end, I did something I normally would never do; I set my alarm clock to ring 15 minutes before the end of the bidding. I wanted to be sure to keep the book I had so nervously bid on since before the holidays. The alarm goes off, and I race to my office to get online. Oh my gosh! Someone had just outbid me! What do I do?

I am looking at blowing my budget, but how can I possibly but a price on a family heirloom such as this? Do I let it just slip away? And who is this person that is fighting me for my family bible? Where is my luck when I need it?

I bid again, and wait... It is only minutes before auctions end. Another bid throws me out of the race; I am fighting sheer panic, and raise my bid once again... The auction has now ended...

TO BE CONTINUED...

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