ENID, Okla. — Sometimes it seems like bad news dominates the headlines.

While 2019 had its share of bad news, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were plenty of stories that made us all feel good, that brought a smile to our faces.

While we can’t go back over them all, we can bring back a few. Smile all over again.

Angel at home

For a Chihuahua mix named Angel, 2019 was a good year.

The little dog, abandoned outside Enid Animal Control in late December 2018, settled into a new home in 2019. A video showing Angel being left tied to a sign outside animal control reached nearly 100,000 viewers on Enid Police Department’s Facebook page.

Enid resident Malia Bachman, though, was just looking for a pet.

“We were just looking for a dog. My dad has dementia, and I thought he needed a friend,” she said. “We went out there and she was first kennel we walked across. She just stuck out and we didn’t know anything about her.”

It wasn’t until SPCA officials told Bachman of Angel’s history that she remembered seeing the video on Facebook.

“She was real timid. She does not like leashes and she barks at men,” Bachman said in January. “She seems to be more comfortable with women. She seemed well. She seems fine.”

And when she got Angel home, “She fit right in. We went and got her a bed and she got right in it. She seemed to be right at home.”

Bachman said when it was decided to get a dog, she knew she wanted to get a rescue.

“I know there’s a lot of dogs out there that need homes and we had one,” she said. “I was just happy to give her a home. It didn’t matter where she came from.”

Hello brother

Norma Roy, 95, of Enid, has seen a lot of things in her life. But, until February 2019, she’d never seen her brother, Harry.

Harry E. Nash Jr., 79, of Ione, Calif., said the story started when his father got out of the Army in 1917, and decided to travel cross-country “with a couple of his buddies, to seek their fortunes in California.”

“What we never knew, was he made a stop in Oklahoma for a couple of years, got married and had a son and daughter,” Nash said.

Roy said her mother, Beulah Benell Nash, met her father while he was working in the co-op elevator in Hillsdale. The couple married, and in 1922 Harry D. Nash was born, followed by Roy in 1923.

After two years in Oklahoma, their father moved on to California, where he met and married Nash’s mother, leaving behind Roy and his first son named Harry. Once settled and remarried in California, their father had three more children — Nash is the youngest and sole surviving sibling from that marriage.

Roy said she and her brother, Harry D. Nash, grew up in Hillsdale not knowing their father. He left before Roy was born, with Harry less than 2 years old.

In 1943 Roy married Jack Roy, also of Hillsdale. At the time, Jack was working in a shipyard in California, and the couple had the wedding there. Roy’s only just recently learned that wedding took place less than 30 miles from her unknown father’s home.

Her father died in 1966, but that was unknown to Roy. She only learned bits of his history later, from distant relatives.

“Back in the ’70s, I’d heard from some of my dad’s relatives back in Illinois he’d moved to California and had two sons,” Roy said. “I always hoped I’d meet one of them someday.”

In California, Nash grew up, started a family of his own, worked 33 years for the phone company and retired.

The two siblings continued on with their lives, unknown to each other, until their children took up genealogy, and underwent DNA testing.

Julie, Roy’s youngest daughter, had a DNA test done and found ties to the Nash blood line in California. Meanwhile, Nash’s oldest son, Steve, also took a DNA test, and found a connection to Julie.

Julie and Steve connected by email in December 2018, and before long they made the connection of their grandfather, and of their parents.

Roy said she was thrilled when Julie revealed to her the brother she’d only heard hints of decades earlier.

“She said, ‘You have a brother in California,’ and that’s how all this started,” Roy said. “It was really a thrill to me.”

While Roy had heard of a possible sibling, Nash said the existence of a sibling in Oklahoma was a complete surprise to him.

“I couldn’t believe it, because my father never mentioned another family,” Nash said. “I never knew he’d been married before or had any children. I’m quite sure my mother never knew of it.”

Roy and Nash connected by phone, and before long were planning a meeting in person.

Roy said it was an exciting first meeting with her previously unknown brother.

“It’s exciting to me, because for so many years I was hoping I’d get to meet my dad,” Roy said, “so to meet a brother is the best.”

A little too late

Teirna Adair and Eric Cantrell were about six minutes too late Sept. 25, 2019, when the Carmen couple were on their way to have their baby at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center.

“She was born at sunset at Sunset,” Cantrell said of Tally Mae.

The baby girl wouldn’t wait to go the extra two miles to the hospital, so Cantrell had to pull into the parking lot of the old Hastings store in Sunset Plaza at Garriott and Cleveland.

Adair said her original due date was Sept. 30, but it got pushed up to Sept. 25. She said she was at work that day when she began having contractions. The registered nurse continued her day until the contractions got closer and closer.

“I grabbed one of the kids from day care and one from school,” she said. “I texted Eric and told him he might ought to come home.”

The family loaded up in Cantrell’s oil field truck and began the trip from Carmen. They had almost made it when Tally decided she wasn’t going to wait.

Adair said she gave her son her cellphone and told him to call 911 if she told him to.

Adair said Cantrell was on the phone with dispatch during the birth, telling dispatchers there were no more contractions and she just “calved out in the Hastings parking lot.”

Enid Police Department Officer Andy Morris arrived and helped keep dad and brother calm. Enid Fire Department personnel were close behind. They checked mother and child’s vitals until LifeEMS arrived to help the pair make the last bit of their trip.

Tally’s birth was recorded as 7:16 p.m. Official sunset for the day was 7:24.

Giving back

In December 2018, Oscar Ramirez was approached by Enid Police Department officers Shirley Blodgett and Jonathan Stadler.

The officers were handing out $50 in cash to Enid residents for the holidays, as part of a larger sum donated by a family so the department could spread some holiday cheer.

The two approached Ramirez outside of Jumbo Foods on 30th as he loaded groceries into his car. He told the officers the money certainly would help this year because he had recently suffered a heart attack and would not be able to go back to work for another month.

“It’s amazing,” he told the Enid News & Eagle at the time. “It’s great, you know. There’s no words.”

Fast forward to November 2019. Ramirez met with Chief Brian O’Rourke, Capt. Tim Jacobi and the department’s Street Crimes Unit, including Sgt. Zeke Frazee and officers Tyler Evans and Jose Torres.

He recalled the day he was approached outside the grocery store, telling them, “It was amazing. Words cannot explain.”

Ramirez recalled the troubles he’d been having at the time and the promise he made to his son, who was with him that day.

“I think I was out of the hospital three days from a heart attack,” he said. “I told my son, next year, hopefully, we can give a little back. He reminded me last week, and I said we would.”

Ramirez works for Marsau Enterprises Inc. and cashed in some of his vacation time to donate the money to the department to hand out this holiday. When others at the company heard what Ramirez was doing, they donated money, too.

Ramirez handed O’Rourke an envelope containing $1,560. He told the chief, “You guys do a lot for us.”

“Over the last few years, we were able to spread some kindness in the holiday season,” O’Rourke said. ” I am glad that Oscar was helped at his time of need. It is incredible what he did to pay it forward for others this year with the help of other Marsau employees.”