ألمتين في 070409


لقد وصلت هذه الرسالة الى موقع المتين  تطلب المساعدة في تحديد التعرّف الى  عائلة متينية اهدت احد متاحف الولايات المتحدة قطعة قيّمة من القماش  الآتي من لبنان .من المؤكد ان اسم الرجل مشوه  كما اسم الام والفتاتين .فهل يستطيع احد المساهمة في فك هذه الرموز وفي ما يلي نص الرسالة
للاتصال:contact@mtein.org

The staff of Ellis Island Immigration Museum is in the process of the redoing our “Treasures From Home” exhibit on the third floor and we are considering installing an exhibit about the Diab Catoni Thomas family. The exhibit will mainly focus on Lebanese textiles that he and his family brought to America over a hundred years ago. In 1998 a member of the family donated the collection to the Museum. Diab Catoni Thomas immigrated to this country from Mtein , Lebanon in 1892. (From what we understand, his name was something like Tonas or Tomas in the old country.) After staying in this country for a few years, he returned to Lebanon where he met and married Mary Ramah. They had two children in Lebanon . Their names were Salene and Alene. Sometime before 1907 Mr. Thomas returned to the United States . He sent for his wife and children in 1907. He lived most of his life in West Virginia . According to a newspaper article, he died there in 1971 at the age of 103. We would love to know more about the life of this family in Lebanon . Since they were Christian, we thought that it might be possible to contact the local church (churches) in the Mtein. Church records could possibly indicate a bit more about the family. It would also be great to learn more about the town, the textile factories and the kinds of materials they made. It seems that either the mother or one of the children worked in the mills. At the very least it would be fantastic to include at least one image or ideally a couple of images of the town around the time the family lived there. In the next couple of months we are going to have to finalize the design of the exhibit and after that it will not be possible to make to many changes to the case. We would greatly appreciate any help you can give us.