Nancy Clark Alt and her family always knew they had cousins in Michigan, they just never knew anything about them or had ever communicated with them. That all changed about a year ago, when Nancy’s cousin from Clinton, Mich., Lorenza Clark Jr., found one of her local brothers,Vernon Clark, on the Internet. According to Nancy, Lorenza came to Bayard and Maysville four years ago searching for his family, but did not succeed in finding them. This time, he found Vernon by searching the Internet for “Maysville, W.Va.” Vernon got Lorenza in touch with another of Nancy’s brothers, Joe Clark, Maysville, and they began connecting the ties of a long, lost family bond. Lorenza’s father, Lorenza Clark Sr., was a brother to Nancy’s dad, Tom Clark. Lorenza Sr. lived in Detroit and came back to West Virginia for a visit in 1939. He died in 1957.

Lorenza, now retired from an automobile factory in Michigan, traveled to the area with wife Elaine, July 17.
He and his wife stayed with Joe, visiting with family and traveling around to local cemeteries, where some of his relatives are buried.
Lorenza and Elaine attended the Clark family reunion, July 19, at the Patterson Creek Ruritan, to come face-to-face with the relatives he had never met.
Nancy and husband Jim Alt, Vernon and wife Sherry Clark and Joe and wife Betty Clark were at the reunion as well.
“He (Lorenza) acted like he had always been there,” said Nancy. “I told him to come back next summer and bring some of his brothers and sisters.”
She also added that they reminisced with Lorenza about their parents.
Others in attendance were: Wayne and Helen Clark, Paul and Deloris Clark, Carlos and Dorothy Clark Kimble, Allen Clark, Gary and Janet Clark Whetzel, Norma Clark Hott, Elaine Clark Rohrbaugh, Dave and Crystal Dove, Shannon, Sydney, Logan and Ashley Kessel, Michael and Brenda Kessel, Cameron Kessel, Kristen Wratchford, Kermit McDonald, Jordan and Kayden Rohrbaugh, Kevin, Lindsey and Lane Heavener, Michelle, Levi and John Alexander and Amanda, Jacob, Morgan and Madison Hawk.