Family Oddities...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Since I’m bored as hell here and have a half hour to kill, I thought I’d start a thread.

People always think I’m lying when I mention that my great-grandfather on my mother’s side left his wife when his kids were very young. Not only that, he left her to go to California…and his last girlfriend was an ex-circus performer…with dyed red hair…and a wooden leg. Once, when my mother was in her early teens, he wrote and asked for permission to come visit the family. A photo was taken at the “reunion.” Great-grandfather on one end, his estranged wife on the other. I’ve seen some very scary things in my life, but the expression on my great-grandmother’s face makes me not only believe in an afterlife, but also in red scaly monsters with pointy little tails (incidentally, my mother was standing in the middle, looking desperately like she wanted to be somewhere else).

I’ve also had at least two relatives run off to join the circus (according to my father, that side of the family was “never quite right”). One of my cousins works as a carnie during the summer.

So, what stories about your families do you use to frighten and amuse your friends?

2

My mother’s side of the family is CRAZY.

Freshman year of college, I went to visit my grandparents…one of my dormmates, who’s family lived way the heck on the other side of the country, decided to go with me. Her big mistake.

Her name is Clarissa, and upon entering my grandfolks house, I introduced her as such. My grandfather squinted at her over his bifocals and said, “Clarissa? Is that one of them fancy names?” He then decided that “Clarissa” was too much of a strain for him and immediately rechristened my friend “Chris.”

Unfortunately, my grandmother, who is a little hard of hearing, thought my friend’s name was “Cliss.” So for a week, this elderly woman would shriek the word “Cliss” at the top of her lungs. All I could do was shake my head and silently think "That sounds dirty.

3

Disclaimer: I swear I am not making this up.

My Granny had a cousin once upon a time who married a real shrew. One of these naggy wives that never lets her husband have any peace --I don’t remember this couple’s actual name so let’s call 'em Millie and George.

Anyhow, Millie and George had a fight one day, and George went into the bedroom and locked the door to get away from her. She pounded on the door for a while, but he wouldn’t let her in.

She went into the kitchen, baked a pecan pie, sat down at the table and ate it. (Did I mention that Millie had diabetes?)

She went into a coma and died.

Yes, you read this correctly. Suicide by pie!

4

Me like pie.

Sorry, can’t think of any really strange relatives, unless Red Skelton counts. He and my grandfather were cousins.

5

I’m a strange relative.

Anyone need to pad out their “crazies we’re kind-of related to” section of the ol’ photo album, give me a call.

6

Yep, me too. My family has always referred to me as Most Likely To Run Away and Join The Circus. They think I am incredibly weird.
I have ADD to an extreme, and with it a slight problem with obsessive behavior, so I tend to throw myself COMPLETELY into things I get interested in… for about six months to a year, after which I lose interest and obsess on something else.

On the other hand, I’m the only one in my family who has thus far managed to hold a marriage together successfully, the only one who does not live hand-to-mouth, and the only one in my generation without any criminal record.

7

My long lost cousin! :smiley:

WV_Woman Death by pie. Did everybody manage to keep a straight face at the funeral? Reminds me (a bit) of that one episode of Northern Exposure where Maggie’s boyfriend gets hit by a satellite…

8

My Mother had an Uncle Buck (no joke) who I heard mentioned once or twice growing up (never had the pleasure) who killed one of his superiors in the Navy for hazing him and spent 25 years in Leavenworth. Sort of an unmentionable item as there are no other felons in our lines that I’m aware of. Also, corroborated by
my Uncle, my Mom’s younger Brother, who says he can remember ole Uncle Buck coming around every couple of years and staying a few days. Says he always kinda liked ole Buck.

9

My grandaddy was one of 5 kids: there was him, JG, P, A, and the only sister, R. All of 'em are dead now except Aunt R.

Anyhow while doing geneaology stuff one day my mother found a sister of my grandfather’s that nobody knew about. She lived and died (I think she was about 4) before any of the rest of them were born. Nobody had ever mentioned her.

So Mom calls up Aunt R and asks her about it.

“What are you talking about? We never had a sister! Where did you hear that?” (saying this really defensively).

Aunt R has never spoken to Mom since.

I smell a mystery …

10

I just had to come out of lurking for this. KalliopeCU, my great grandmothers name actually was Cliss. She was tormented in the schoolyard because it rhymed with piss.

11

My younger brother is weird. He belongs to this thing called the Straight Dope Message Board. He invites these people over to his house and socializes with them! He gets other members of our family to join!

Sheesh! I mean, how weird is that?

<waves to Dave>

12

I dunno if that could really be a mystery, WV. My great-grandparents had a son first who died young before they had my grandmother. They never talked about him. It’s just how a lot of people were back then.

Weird relatives, let’s see…

My uncle was a Rajneeshee. You know, the ones who poisoned the salad bars in Oregon, so the people couldn’t vote? He’s a family counselor now. Nice guy, very sensitive.

My step-greatgrandfather would never talk about where he came from. We think Texas. There’s a sort of rumor that he had killed a guy in a knife fight, but nobody really knows. He was a good provider, anyway, which is better than my real greatgrandfather was. (Come to think of it, I have two deadbeat greatgrandfathers.)

My cousin left college rather than give up the pet rats she wasn’t supposed to keep in her dorm room.

I’ve got plenty more, we’re an odd lot, but I don’t want to bore you.

13

She means me, folks.

14

Whew! Don’t get me started on my huge and messed up family. No-one on either side of the family has died a natural death in one hundred years; they all got hanged, shot, or stabbed for one reason or another.

Well, there was my great-grandfather who married twice, had nineteen kids, was a Ku Klux Klansman, and who treated his wives like servants and his children like slaves. Charming fella!

Then there was the grandfather who died in a Louisiana prison where he was incarcerated for murder. Lovable guy!

Then there was my other grandfather who, following in his daddy’s footsteps, also became a Klansman. He wasn’t much into though, as he preferred moonshine to lynching. He was also the first agnostic in our family.

Then there’s my mom, a certified crack ho, who once threatened to kill her sister because she was pregnant with an illegitimate child. Then, four years later, she got pregnant with me – you guessed it, out of wedlock!

Then there’s my mother’s cousin who got hooked on cocaine, and to support her habit forced her 13-year-old daughter to become a prostitute. The poor kid was drowned by one of her johns, and her mother committed suicide a year later.

Then there’s the cousin who married three times, and had five kids. The first three children all starved to death in infancy, 'cause Daddy couldn’t be bothered to feed 'em. The other two only survived because relatives took 'em away from him.

Then there’s the great-aunt who married Hubby A, divorced him for Hubby B, then divorced Hubby B to remarry Hubby A, and finally divorced Hubby A to remarry Hubby B. That’s right, she married both of 'em twice!

Then there’s the other great-aunt who married three times, but never divorced the first husband, so all the other marriages were bigamous. She ran off to New Orleans and became a prostitute.

Need I go on? I have a hundred more freaky relatives lined up!

.:Nichol:.

15

You know, I went through much of high school desperately hoping no one would discover how strange my family is. Eventually I figured out that no one has a normal family. This thread just proves it.

Actually, my family is only mildly strange. I think the oddest thing I can think of right off is the thing we discovered after my grandfather died.

See, when I was younger, he told us once that he wished he had a different middle name. His first name was quite normal, and his middle name was unusual, but not embarassingly so. He even told us which middle name he would prefer, if he had a choice.

Fast forward twenty years. My mom and uncles and aunts are going through his papers, and what do they find but an old document certifying that my grandfather had changed his name. His last name had been changed to something more Americanized, and what we thought was his middle name had previously been his first name, and vice versa. So I pipe up, “If he didn’t like that name, why didn’t he change it, instead of just switching it to the middle name?”

It’s nothing earth-shattering. It’s just one of those odd things that makes you think, “Hmmm.”

Even odder, this name change dated from the time he married my grandmother, but the whole family went by the Americanized name, and my grandmother never called him by his middle name, or ever mentioned that the family had ever been called anything else. In fact, a few times she spoke as though my grandfather’s family were Irish, but the original form of the name makes it clear they weren’t.

Like I said, not earth shattering, but it makes you wonder. And now there’s no one left to ask about it. Just one of the minor mysteries of life.

16

my maternalgrandmother was orphaned at 5 and sent to a convent in Zaire to be a nun. her stepmother PAID for her to be released and she grew up with her cousins, aunt and uncle in Cape town.

the uncle had only one leg because he had rescued a small child from tram lines, but had be run over himself.
he committed suicide in his 60s when he realised he was addicted to the morphine he used for pain relief from his injuries.

My grandfather was a german-jewish refugee who proposed to her after 4 dates.
she ran away for a year to Johannesburg, before deciding she would marry him after all.

she has lived with us all my life, and doesn’t like the irish weather… so her clothing of choice when at home is 4 large wollen sweaters, 2 wollen hats…and a pair of panty hose.
no skirt, no trousers.

you gotta love the crazy relations!