Mawwiage

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.

Have fun storming the castle!

Mystery #2, Solved Sadly

My mother kept just about every letter everyone ever sent her (except for anything that might help me figure this stuff out -- that she tossed).  When she died, I went through tons of correspondence.  Congratulations from her high school graduation, Christmas letters from eons ago, baby cards from my birth, all sorts of stuff. She looks fairly proud of herself, doesn't she?

Anyway, I also ran across a letter from her cousin.  Odd, as I didn't know she had a cousin.  I pulled the woman's contact info from my mom's address book and stashed it.  For about 4 years.  When I finally got up the courage to call this cousin I didn't know existed, the number was disconnected.  More Internet searching ensued.  I finally found her on classmates.com (no linky since they drive me crazy with spam email...), held my breath and sent her a note.  She responded right away, and was lovely.

It turns out she's my grandmother's cousin, not my mom's.  That means my great, great grandmother (Gammer to all of us) was her grandmother.  She was surprised when I asked her about Gammer's suicide, but called another cousin (family everywhere!  this is awesome!) and checked.  Apparently, it's true.  This beautiful lady...

pictured here with her husband and 3 oldest children, took her own life at the age of 84 because her sons (the boy with the fancy tie up there, and another son not yet born at the time of this photo) planned to put her into a nursing home.  It's an awfully sad story, but definitely reflects her character (at least as I imagine it was).  Gammer lived her life on her own terms, fighting through all sorts of craziness as she went.  She died the same way.  I think she'd be glad to know her daughter, granddaughter, great granddaughter and great-great granddaughter were all fighters too.

Now, I want to learn more about her, and the other folks in this photo.  The girl on the right is my great grandmother, age 12.  Her littlest brother Max, age 3, died shortly after this picture was taken, but I don't know how or why.  Her little brother James grew up and had a family, but I don't know anything about them.  Hoping to hear more stories from the cousins soon, and promise to report anything interesting that comes up!

Those Crazy Family Mysteries -- Part I

As promised, here's a glance at all those family mysteries I'm working on.  But first, a little bit of history:  I'm my mom's only child.  My dad was much older (19 years or so) than my mom and had 3 mostly grown kids when they married.  He was sick pretty much my whole life and passed away when I was 7.  Mom remarried almost immediately.  Then (anyone else seeing a pattern here?) remarried again about 2 years later.  She was married to this one -- my step dad -- until they died a few years ago about 4 months apart.  That's when the real fun started, with the cleaning out of the house.  Here's what we found:

Mystery #1
My mom was married how many times??  Look at that sweet little face!  Who'd have guessed she'd be married 5 (!!) times??  Not me, that's for sure...

Two of my best guy friends landed the unfortunate task of cleaning out the papers in the den, and set to work sorting papers into keep and toss piles.  Mr. Right and I were working in the kitchen I think, when, at 15 minute intervals, one of my friends began shouting, "I found another husband!".  Seriously.  After the 2nd declaration, we had to stop and go for dinner.  There may or may not have been a margarita involved.  I knew Mom had been married 3 times (seemed like plenty to me), but it turns out my father was #3, not #1.  She married the first time when she was 16, divorced and married again at about 18.  They divorced when she was about 21.  And she never. said. a. word.  Not ever.

So, the questions at hand are:  Who were these guys?  Why did she get married so young? 


Mystery #2

My biological grandfather did what for a living?

When I was in college, my mom and grandmother were talking and let it slip that Grandma had been married to someone before Grandpa, and Hubby #1 was my mom's biological father.  As the story goes, he wasn't a great guy and was heavily involved in organized crime.  Seriously?  I always thought this picture of my grandma (it's my favorite, isn't it great?) was a Halloween costume or a joke.  Maybe it was just a candid family photo?

The questions at hand:  Is this true?  What's his story?  Is he still alive?  I have a name, so it's time to start doing some digging on the ol' interwebs...

Mystery #3

My great-great grandmother died how?

Family history says that my great-great grandmother on my mom's side committed suicide well into her 80s.  This was a lady who'd come to California in a covered wagon, raised a whole pile of kids (3 or 4 at least), and been married at least two (likely 3) times. What on earth would bring her to end it all at that late date?  Here's a picture of her with 3 of her children, my great grandmother (aka Nana), and 2 great, great uncles...

She's the cute old lady in the chair.  I want to know why she decided to make an early (does it count as early if you're 80 something?) exit.  I have a few leads on extended family to chase down.  I'm hoping one of them will remember her.

And that is it... for now.  I have at least 3 more mysteries to chase down, but I'll save them for another time.  Since it appears that the earlier generations of my family have squeezed all of the exciting (read dramatic) genes out of our blood line, I'm off to pack up leftover tuna casserole for Mr. Right and I for lunch tomorrow.  What can I say, it's my fate!