The question of who my grandfather was and why he left my father in a state operated boarding home in 1928, at three months old, had always been a part of my ancestry. My dad was told as a child that he was the son of a Texas rancher and that his mother was a red-headed woman from France. As I uncovered information based on my dad's birth certificate, I found that he was not from Texas and she was not from France. The clues I uncovered led me to Oregon, Washington, Iowa, Utah, and on to Liberia, Africa. It was strange to find that one question you finally answer has a hundred more questions attached to it. What I discovered was that the children of Monrovia, Liberia loved Al Helmick, their "Joe Blow." To the people of Monrovia in 1946, Joe Blow and Al Helmick were one and the same. This is his story, my dad's and mine.