I've been way behind in my blogging lately. And I've been even more behind in sharing stories about my crazy family history. But I'm aiming to get back on the wagon this week. I miss you guys!
Sharing the family stuff was no problem early on. I had a list of crazy mysteries that I'd unearthed, could lay out and work on. Easy enough. But digging deeper, it gets harder to come up with answers. Plus which, it can be a bit emotional.
So I took a little break. And now I'm back to working on family stories, and digging through pictures. I'm happy to report that I have one tiny mystery solved!
It's this guy.
I have, scattered through 6 boxes of loose photos and a dozen old albums, approximately 18 (but who's counting?) grainy copies of this picture of this handsome guy in his uniform. I knew the vintage was WWII, but didn't recognize him. And not a single one of these pictures had anything written on the back. My cousin (actually, she's my grandmother's cousi n - Hi Shari!) didn't recognize him either. Into the unknown pile for him...
Fast forward to a few days before Christmas when I, in a desperate search for some plaid ribbon, pulled two huge boxes down from the corner of the craft room closet. Inside? One zillion loose pictures that I'd forgotten about, dating back to the late 1800s. Yikes. I'd forgotten about them. Also inside? 3 more copies of this infamous picture. And... written on the back of one: Donald. I'm pleased to introduce you to my uncle Donald, my grandmother's little brother. And a great big thanks to my Nana (my great grandmother) for taking 2 seconds to jot it down. Yay!
Here's Donald in his younger days, with my very lovely grandma...
All that to say, I'm working away on figuring out the family again, and promise to share a bit more often. You know, in between cabling rows on my mittens.
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.
Really, I meant to post this all weekend, but was too busy having fun with Mr. Right (before he left town again this morning - sigh) to spend much time online. Last week, I finally tracked down the DEA agent featured in Mystery #4. Remember him? He's no longer with the DEA, but working in the private sector in a high profile job (high profile enough that I was able to leave a voice mail for his secretary, which he returned within the hour. Stellar guy, really. He remembered corresponding with my mom, but didn't remember sending her my grandparents' marriage certificate. I scanned everything, (his letter, the picture, the document) and emailed it to him. He emailed back the next morning with his cell phone number (really, super stellar guy).
It turns out that my grandparents, these folks here, were not married in Columbia. They were, instead, married in Mexico. And the DEA agent in question did not mail my mother the marriage certificate. Instead, she stuffed it into the envelope. This is still pretty weird -- why did my grandparents get married in Mexico? They were NOT globetrotters, and as far as I knew trotted farther than Phoenix (from Southern California) a total of once for a vacation in Hawaii. Also weird, how did my mom come to be pen pals with a DEA agent in South America? I'm thinking of asking him this, but he's been so nice I don't want to seem like I'm accusing him of anything. It's just a curiosity, you know? We'll see if I can work my courage up this week. I also want to ping cousin #2 and see if she remembers anything about why my grandparents ran away to get married. At least Grandpa wasn't some sort of drug king pin. That's a relief...
I think I needed a few days off to get a second wind with all this wacky family stuff. It's all very interesting from far away, but it's a bit weird when it's the folks who tucked you in at night. You know? Anyway, here are the rest of the skeletons, fresh from the closet...
Mystery #4
My Grandparents Did WHAT?
See these people over there? They were my heart. They spoiled me rotten (I was their only grandchild), and doted on me. Grandpa was from Kansas. He fought in WWII, spent some time in the military after that, and then became a bearing salesman. Exciting, no? Grandma was a California girl who worked as a secretary. They lived in southern California when I was little, and always had (except for a couple of years in Arizona).
Imagine my surprise when, in digging through my parents' papers, I found a letter to my mother from a DEA (yep, that's the Drug Enforcement Agency) agent. It was a long, handwritten thing discussing in detail a piece of art that they had talked about, complete with picture. Weird. Weirder? Also enclosed was my grandparents' marriage certificate. From Bogota. Colombia. Wait, what? My grandparents got married in the drug capital of the world? What the heck were they doing there? Why does a DEA agent have their marriage certificate? A quick search of the 'net tells me he's still around. An answer might be just an email away. So why is it so scary to send it? I will, though. Really.
Mystery #5
Grandpa's Car Accident
When I was 8, my grandpa (the guy who used to climb up on the roof on Christmas Eve, horseshoes in hand, to clop around so that I could hear reindeer hooves), was killed in a car accident. Mom said he was coming home from work and his car veered off an overpass. He died in the hospital about a week later from complications related to his injuries. Sad.
Back to my parents' office... I found Grandpa's death certificate. It said his car hit a tree. No mention of an overpass, and no explanation. Why the discrepancy? And how did this happen in Orange County in the middle of the afternoon? With no witnesses? I'm not sure there's any way to solve this one, but maybe the DEA guy will be able to shed some light. Maybe Grandpa was some sort of bearing-selling super hero in disguise. It'd be nicer than thinking his life got cut short for no reason at all.
That's pretty much the extent of it. At least as far as I know now. I'm sure there will be at least a few more that pop up as I dig into all of this. Here's hoping they're neither as weird or as scary as some of these.
For the moment, I'm going to pick up my knitting for a while. I'm a little bit obsessed with having some good progress with Mr. Right's sweater to report for this week's Work In Progress Wednesday. No, I'm not competitive at all, why do you ask?
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!
