I've mentioned before that my biological grandfather (Mom's dad) is somewhat of a mystery. Supposedly he and my grandmother divorced when my mom was very young. As the story goes, he was a bad guy, involved in organized crime. I never met him. Around the time I graduated from high school, Mom said she called the Los Angeles police department to check up on him. She said they told her he was still actively being a bad guy. She wouldn't elaborate, and that's the last I ever heard of him.
So if all this is true, how come I can't find anything about him online? No birth record. No death record. No census records. No marriage records. No criminal record. No military record, though he's wearing a uniform in this picture of him and my mom ...
Also missing? My mom's birth certificate, which would have at least some information about him that I could track down. He doesn't look like a bad guy. But then this is the only picture of him that I know of.
So, Mr. Frank Hermans... Who the heck are you? And where and who did you come from? Inquiring minds are at a loss...
While you're pondering that, go check out Sepia Saturday for loads of other vintage photos!
One of my favorite scenes from one of my all time favorite movies, The Princess Bride. Ah, mawwiage. It's an institution my family has a real love for. I mean a REAL love. One of my first posts here was about my utter shock that my mother had been married 5 (!) times. Turns out that this is a time-honored tradition in my family...
Grandma? Twice, as far as I can tell.
Nana (my great grandmother)? Twice for sure, probably 3 times.
Her mother? Four times. Four. Seriously.
There they are, all four of the marrying fools. That's Mom, Grandma, Nana and Gammer. They look awfully innocent, don't they? I've been doing family tree research lately, trying to find out more about these folks since I don't have much to go on. One website in particular has been super helpful. Go check out Family Search if you're into this kind of thing and not familiar with it. It's awesome and totally free. Which makes it even more awesome, but I digress...
Jessie Lair (aka Gammer) was my great-great-grandmother. She was born and raised in Iowa, part of a farming family. Given their spotty census records, I'm guessing they were itinerant farmers. So where did I find everything I know about Jessie? Iowa marriage licenses. Lots of them. She married the first time at the age of 20, when she was about 5 months pregnant with Nana. Oops. I'm not sure how long that lasted, but 5 years later she married again. Okay, I knew that she'd been married twice. It happens. (Heck, it even happened back then.) But she also listed this marriage as her first. That must've been awkward with a 5 year old running around.
Imagine my surprise when I found a 3rd Iowa marriage license for Jessie -- this time about 20 years later. She had the good grace to list this marriage as her 2nd. Not quite true, but closer. I'm not sure how long this husband lasted, but everyone I know who knew Jessie knew her as a single lady, going back to the early 1940s. And, since her last name was Lair when she passed away, and husband #3's last name was Dean, there had to be a 4th gentleman in there somewhere, though I haven't found any evidence of him yet.
What a handful she was. That's her on the left with my great-grandmother and her brother. Apologies for the quality of the photo, but I love that she's cracking up. This must've been taken around 1940. Everyone who remembers her (my mom when she was around and cousins now) talk about how great she was, and how fiercely independent. No surprises there, as the rest of us all followed in her footsteps.
My next project is tracking down husbands for Mom and Grandma. I know they exist, there's just no trace of them on the interwebs that I've been able to find. I'll get to that in a bit, but for now I feel compelled to go watch The Princess Bride.
To recap, for those arriving later to the party: In my parents' papers when they died was an envelope containing a handwritten letter. The return address was from a DEA agent working in Bogota, Colombia. The letter was nothing interesting, the continuation of a conversation about a piece of art. Also inside was a photocopy of my grandparents' marriage certificate. In Spanish.
Fast forward a good long while, and the (now former) DEA agent turns out to be an incredibly gracious guy who's more than happy to answer my questions. Turns out he didn't send the certificate, my mom must've stuck it in the envelope. Also, they were married in Mexico, not Colombia. Guess I should've wedged a bit of Spanish in with those 6 years of French. Ah, well...
The questions that remained were these: Why did my grandparents get married in Mexico? I suppose it's not too much of a stretch since they lived in Southern California... And, more strangely, how did my mom (the cute little girl torturing the cat, to your left) become pen pals with a DEA agent in South America while I was in college?
So back to the DEA agent I went. Did I mention that this guy's incredibly gracious about being pestered regarding a letter he mailed in the 90s? Anyway, he doesn't remember entirely, but thinks he posted an ad somewhere about vintage baseball posters that my mom or someone she knew answered and a correspondence was born. This is weird on several levels. I never knew mom to be a fan of baseball, or antique baseball posters. Also, the letter thanks her for referring Agent Nice Guy to "Bill". I don't know of anyone in my mom's acquaintance named Bill. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal, but with my mom, I began to wonder if he might've been an errant husband she picked up while my stepdad was at the grocery store (See Family Mystery #1 for an explanation that makes that last sentence seem less horrible...). Agent Nice Guy promises to get in touch if he finds any more letters that might shed some light. Here's hoping.
Really, the maddening thing is this: The more I learn about my mother, the more I realize that I really didn't know her at all. Frustrating. Take this picture for example... It's my mom at what I thought was her prom (the timing of the photo is about right), but coincidentally, it's also the year she got married for the first time at the ripe old age of 16. Maybe it's a wedding picture? I really dunno. What do I really know? As a toddler I got in trouble all the time for messing with that lamp. Apparently, it was an antique.
The other thing I know (and am trying really, really hard to remember as I dig through all this craziness) is this:
That crazy lady, the one with the poor fashion sense, who married just about everybody, loved me like crazy. She thought I was pretty much the best thing ever, and made sure I knew it. That counts for a whole lot.
Hi. Welcome to my little slice of blog-o-sphere. This is me:
Actually, it's me and my mom. And it was a really, really long time ago. Mom let me pick out my own glasses, which I chose because they were blue (and sparkly!), and they looked like hers. I wish you could see the blue and sparkly part. It would make it a lot easier to understand my fashion sense. Did I mention that I was 4?
Anyway, that's my mom. As her only kid, I thought I knew everything about her. And when she died, I discovered that I was mistaken. Seriously mistaken. She's the source of several of the family mysteries I'm planning to dig through here. And believe me, there are some humdingers. (She had how many husbands?) Hopefully, I'll get to know her a little bit better in the process. More on that later...
More recently, I've discovered that I'm an obsessive knitter. It was all nice and recreational -- a hat here, a scarf there -- until I found Ravelry at the beginning of this year. After that all bets were off. If you knit, and don't know what a ravelry is, run over there and register. It'll blow your mind. Now, I knit every day. I have a list of projects as long as my arm and it's all I can do to keep it from growing on a daily basis. Really, what I'd like to do is quit my job and take up knitting full-time. It's just that pesky salary business that keeps getting in the way. Ah well.
Here's a peek at my latest accomplishment. It's a hat for me, and was a pretty fun knit. The flower is crochet, which was less fun, mainly because I don't quite know how to crochet. Still, I think it turned out pretty well..
The pattern is Virna, and my project page is here (both are ravelry links that require registration).
Oh, and one small caveat: I've really got absolutely no idea what I'm doing here, so hang in there with me while I fumble around in the dark for a bit. It'll get better. I'm almost sure of it.
