Serendipitous Mistake or Guidance?

While searching for photobooth pictures for flashback Friday I discovered an obituary my Mother had clipped and saved from her friend Jim. I was very excited to find this slip of paper as it shows the names of his Mother, Sisters and Grandmother. I now have a lead in finding his family to see if they would like the photos I have of him.

In fact, I looked up all four names using familysearch.org, and believe I found out that one of his sisters died in 1992. I may have also found that his mother and grandmother's death dates.

However when I googled his sister "Mildred Hrdina" I found her! I found her through an adoption website where she has listed herself as a birth mother. She is/was searching for a son she gave up for adoption in 1963. She put up the listing 10 years ago and so I am hoping she is still alive and well and still at the same email address. I emailed her through the site and hope to hear from her soon! In the meantime I received a letter from Arlington National Cemetary today about James' missing headstone at Arlington. This is the real reason for the title of today's post.

The letter from the Department of the Army thanked me for informing them of the missing headstone of JAMES LEO FARRELL.

The person whose headstone I wanted to see when I visited the cemetary was

JAMES LEE FERRELL.

Who knew two men could have names so similar, both be in the military and both be buried at the same cemetary. I cannot find where I placed the form I filled out at the cemetary but I am guessing that I may have spelled James' last name with an "a" instead of an "e" and when the clerk looked him up she only looked at the "L" as the middle name instead of the full "Lee" and thus gave me the location of another man. Now I wonder where is James Lee's grave site? I am going to call the Army on Monday and hope to straighten it all out. Wish me luck with that!

Now the real question is:

Did someone beyond the grave guide me to James Leo's headstone

so that he could have a new headstone?

Or was it just a serendipitous mistake?