Family Secrets That Ain't No Surprise

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

My mom has over one hundred first cousins, so I’ve got lots of familial skeletons, just from the aggregate mass of family members out there. One cousin in particular stands out. He’s easily the richest person in my family, worth several million dollars. Despite that (or because of it) he’s so cheap that he goes to the local YMCA every day to shower, so he doesn’t have to use his own water. The source of his money? He owns a lucrative river-boat/whorehouse.

Not so much a scandal (let alone a secret) but another cousin passed away at the age of 18 when, on a hiking trip with his high school class, he was struck by a heart attack and fell off a cliff. Because just doing one or the other wouldn’t have been enough, I guess.

102

For those who were wondering why anyone would bother changing a birthdate: I know two people who had that done to them, and it was for kindergarten registration purposes. One girl found out at age 16 that she was really a month younger than she had always thought.
We’re all very boring in this generation–well, I do have an uncle who was a Rajneeshi, but that wasn’t secret. My grandparents’ families were pretty interesting. None of it was secret though, and can’t come close to this stuff.

103

My grandfather on my mom’s side went to jail for attacking one of his neighbors. They got into an argument, and my grandfather grabbed a hatchet off the porch and hacked the guy’s hand off.

My brother and I found out just a few years ago. Mom’s pretty sure that her younger sibs don’t know about it.

104

In my family, we tend to keep our skeletons out of the closet for all to see. The biggest open secret is about one of my cousins, who is gay. Everyone in the family knew it for years. His mother is still in deep denial, and she has a weird habit when she talks about it. My cousin tends to drift about, moving in with one guy, leaving him, and then moving in with another in rapid succession. My aunt developed the habit of saying that he was living with a woman…and if the guy’s name could be converted to a female name, she’d do it. So when she told us my cousin had a new girlfriend named Stephanie, it was obvious that he’d just taken up with a guy named Steve.

105

Same here, or thereabouts.

That’s OK, it pales in comparison to my husband, who not only knows exactly what day he was conceived on because his dad told him, plus details about how drunk he was, the weather, etc., I know it too because his dad shared that info with me too. And with anyone else he can get to listen. He’s awfully proud because he’s sure it’s some kind of “technique” he used to get a boy, since the previous several attempts all resulted in girls. Well, the ones that lived and they knew about, at least, since he talks about all the miscarriages his wife had, too.

I had a first cousin once removed who learned in her late teens or early 20s that her “aunt” who raised her was really her biological mother. Her mother was from another country and was definitely raised with the concept that getting pregnant young and without being married was a Very Shameful Thing. I forget if the story was that the real mother was dead, or couldn’t care for her, or what. I’m also not sure exactly when the woman’s husband, my biological cousin, found out this fact - if he learned it early on and went along with the deception or if it was a surprise to him too. This same first cousin once removed killed herself within about 5 years; no idea if this secrecy, etc., contributed to it or not.

106

Having 5 blue eyed kids with a brown eyed wife, I looked into this pretty heavily - but some time ago. (The girls are now greener than blue, but they changed in late elementary school, so it took us by surpise.) Looks like they can’t really explain it, but blue eyed parents can have brown eyed kids:

Carry on. I have no family secrets. Or at least know of none.

107

I didn’t find out until I was 14 that my dad wasn’t my biological father.

My parents were all broken up about it (I was told by an angry relative) but it’s really no big deal to me.

I gather that my bio dad is dead now. No one talks about it.
I had a maternal uncle who died “cleaning his gun.” I don’t know, but strongly suspect, it was suicide. No one talks about that either.

108

So my great grandfather, an immigrant from Estonia, was quite a drinker. He was so much of a drinker that he didn’t really get along so well with my great-grandma. He went to California to find his fortunes, leaving her to raise her kids in Wisconsin alone. But then he got in some kind of trouble- the rumor is he killed a man in a bar fight. He told the judge that he couldn’t go to jail because he had a wife and kids to support. The judge said okay, but demanded that he produce the wife and kids. So he wrote a letter and great-grandma moved out to California. Where they promptly got a for-reals divorce. She worked the rest of her life in a factory and raised two boys.

109

I’m not sure exactly how secret this is within my extended family, because no one ever talks about it, at least at big family gatherings. When I was about 8 or 9, my uncle started an affair with a married woman. She may actually have been separated at the time, because I’m fairly sure they lived together for at least a short time, but I was young enough that I’m a little vague on some of the details. At any rate, there was a series of escalating confrontations between her husband and my uncle that culminated in my uncle shooting and killing him. He was convicted of manslaughter and went to prison for, IIRC, about 3 years.

Now, I was old enough to have at least some idea of what was going on, particularly by the time he got out of jail, but I have a number of cousins who were either too young to remember or not born yet at the time. Because, as I mentioned above, no one ever talks about it, I have no idea whether or not they’re aware of my uncle’s past, and I’m not really close enough to any of them to be the one who opens up that can of worms by asking “So, uh, did your parents ever tell you about the time Uncle Dave killed someone?”

Actually, that uncle’s a good one for family secrets. Almost 9 years ago, he nearly gave my grandparents a heart attack by turning up at their house carrying a newborn infant, and introducing them to their newest grandson. The mother of that child, who he has subsequently married, is a year younger than I am, but no one realized that for some time because he told us that she was older than she is, and he told her that I was younger than I am. None of this came out until she started going on about how impressive it was that I graduated from university at 20!

110

Off the top of my head I can count sixteen illegitimate children under 10, plus two unborn, between one of my friends and her immediate family (a handful of brothers) plus one cousin. I think if I expanded the tree a few generations up or a couple of uncles and aunts to the left and right, I could probably staff a sizeable army with illegitimate children and ruined-life parents.

111

Valentine’s Day: Me (Nov. 17), Sister (Nov. 18), and Brother (Nov. 15)
St. Patrick’s Day: Sister (Dec. 21) and Brother (Dec. 25)
4th of July: Sister (12 April)

Mom and Dad were consistent.

Now my son won’t be able to figure out anything about the circumstances of his conception unless he checks the video store records for that month :smiley: .

Family secrets:

Great-grandpa was disbarred and jailed for embezzlement (he apparently used the money to play the stock market in the 1920s). I didn’t find out until after grandma’s death).

A cousin is a member of a racist biker gang and has been in federal prison for weapons charges.

Other cousins from a different side of the family can’t possibly be his if you figure in his military service overseas with their birthdates; but he and my aunt have been together for nearing fifty years.

My Italian great-grandparents, we’ve recently found out, were Albanian (as my mom says, “Now I know why I failed Italian in college.”) That Irish ancestry? Scottish (had we known that, I’m sure mom and dad would have skipped St. Paddies’ day for Burns Night.)

Finally, the skeleton I uncovered, a great-uncle who was an turn-of-the-century labour organizer. He ‘fell’ to his death from the roof of the factory where he worked. No one among my living relatives knew he’d even existed.

112

My great aunt was gay. Well, she musta been a wild one. WW1 army nurse. My daughters stand to inherit some of the jewelry that her male lovers gave her. One piece she gave my grandmother (her sister) sometime in the 1920’s and said it was from her final affair. Thereafter, she took up with another army nurse for the next 60 years until they both passed away.

I never met the aunt because for some reason they visited my parents when my big brother was a baby and already put down for the night. My mother wouldn’t wake up my brother, great aunt and friend left and never came back. At least that is the official family line. No idea how true that may be.

about 40 years after the above incident my father (its his aunt) and his new wife went to visit and re-established good relations. My step mother got loads of jewelry from the ex male lovers from way back.

My father is really open about this now - but Mr. Minister along with former missionary wife sure never mentioned jack when I was growing up.

also have a gay uncle. Well, not officially confirmed since my father the retired minister has a “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in the family. I only saw said uncle a handful of times growing up and last time when I was about 20.

My mother, the ex missionary, was doing the missionary position with at least 2 other men that I learned of after the fact. Both looked a lot like her father :eek: One was an ex-minister while she was married to a serving minister, and went on to marry.

113

I learned from a classmate that my mother was once a lady wrestler. I thought it was a “your mama wears army boots” style taunt, but soon after found out that nope, it was more like a blue wrestling suit and yellow cape.

When my father’s oldest son called to ask him to undergo testing to help determine a family medical history for his grandson (oldest son’s son), it was the first my father knew that he had a son older than my brother D_____ or that he was a grandfather. The kid was born when my father was 17/18 to a woman who “went to visit family” for a few months and whose kid was privately adopted by distant relatives. My father was proved to be his father (he was 50ish at the time) and tried to forge a relationship of sorts with him (it was quite awkward) but got basically a respectful but cool “no thanks, I have parents, I just need to know something about your kidneys”. (It turned out my father didn’t have whatever it was they were looking for about kidneys, which I’ve long since forgotten if I ever knew, and other than a card when the old man died nobody’s had any contact with the oldest boy (whose name, ironically, is D____, same as my father’s official oldest son- the odds of having two kids with an underscore and consonant as their name must be overwhelming). He would be about 60 now and lived in California when last heard from.

The family all thought my grandfather, Mustang, got his nickname from being a wild and rambunctious little boy, “wild as a dang Mustang”. He in fact got it from the first woman he ever had sex with, a prostitute in a Birmingham AL whorehouse ca. 1909. He confided this in me when he was dying and had already told my cousin (who was/is our grandfather’s equal in libido). It also turns out he had something of an open marriage (“something of” because my grandmother didn’t cheat, but genuinely couldn’t care less that my grandfather did “as long as you don’t bring home any bedbugs or bastards”). I suspect she may have been a lesbian; she told him flat-out she’d rather him have sex with other women than with her as long as he was discreet. Most of my family doesn’t know this (I have two cousins who do) and it’s the part of a memoir I’m most debating whether or not to include.

Mustang’s sister Hattie was always looked upon with some scorn by the other women in the family and his sister Reba was looked upon with pity, even when both were old women and married with 14 children between them. This was in the 1970s that I knew them. The reason: in the 1910s Hattie had been taken by her father to receive an illegal abortion when she was impregnated by a married boyfriend and she still was judged for it 60 years later. In the 1920s Reba had been (this is so melodramatic, but true) abducted by a white slaver who “fell in love and eloped with” her overnight when she was about 15 and then on their “honeymoon” sold her to a man who sold her to a man (etc.) who sold her to a brothel in Chicago, where she was essentially a sexual prisoner for several weeks. Unlike most of the girls her spirit never broke and she was not ashamed to go back to her family and she was able to smuggle a message out through a cook she promised a $50 reward to once her family came. This is a story with a moral: don’t freaking abduct a hillbilly girl from Alabama who has 10 brothers, a father, more uncles and he-cousins than you can imagine, all of them armed and not a one of them with the least itty bitty reason to be afraid of a damned thing or a damned person in Chicago, and if you ever agree to help a girl in a whorehouse don’t do it just because she promised you $50 cuz you ain’t getting it “for doin’ what any decent person oulda done for free… and if you wuz a decent person doin’ it for free, then I’da give you $50.”

I have the distinct feeling that there are some MAJOR secrets that will probably never be known in the family, most in particularly an incestuous liaison I suspect and a case of parentage I seriously doubt, and there are many mysteries (such as why did my grandfather [not Mustang but my father’s father], who was a good looking highly popular ladies man who was derisive of higher education and had an almost OCD neat streak, marry my grandmother, a thoroughly unattractive self-absorbed bookworm who was to nastiness what Vitruvius was to grids.

Some interesting stories about the night I found my aunt crying later.

114

I didn’t find out till my grandmother wrote her autobiography that the man she married not only wasn’t my mom’s father, he married my grandmother as an act of kindness so she could get the proper papers to get herself and my mother out of France one step ahead of Hitler. My mother’s father was a married man who only saw her once, when she was three weeks old. A few years ago I made connections with my cousins, his grandchildren, and they told me he only saw them once or twice in their lives as well. Why did my grandmother fall for such a prize jerk?

The same book told me about the two women my grandmother had shared homes with in her lifetime. My mother’s adamant that they were just roommates. The writing in the book makes it clear they were not.

I think that’s pretty neat, actually. I wish I’d been able to get Gran to annotate a copy of that book just for me before she died. There are so many other little clues in it here and there that I wish I knew more about.

My birth was (my mother told me) the result of a diaphragm that didn’t do its job. My brothers and I figured out the rest of the story: One brother born about 9 months after Valentines Day, one brother born about 9 months after my father’s birthday, one brother born about 9 months after New Year’s Eve. One miscarriage that would have been another 9-months-after-Dad’s-birthday arrival. My brothers didn’t know about that, though. I was the only one home when it happened and my mom adamantly refused to let me call an ambulance. She just wanted her doctor, who could not be reached in those pre-beeper days. I was sixteen.

I’ve tried not to have that kind of “little secret” from my kids.

115

My husband and I both have green eyes, and our son, who I guarantee is our child, has hazel eyes that look brown.

My husband’s oldest brother and his (now ex) wife both have brown eyes and their daughter has blue eyes. Yes, I know this is genetically OK. But the combination of eye colors among the six of us led to a lot of interesting comments when the kids were little.

116

My husband and his oldest brother are two years and two days apart. His brother’s birthday is EXACTLY 9 months after their parents’ anniversary.

Think the inlaws finally caught on, though, because the next younger sibling came along five years later. Of course, he’s a 9-months-after-Valentines kid.

117

Yup. My two are Rh+ and Rh-.

And therein lies a funny story.

Our family doctor at the time the kids were born was a very, very conservative fundamentalist Christian. He did not make a big deal about his beliefs or try to proselytize or anything, but we certainly knew where he stood.

The day after my daughter dragonblink was born, I was peacefully sitting in my hospital bed and Dr. Fundie walked in. “I’ve just seen the baby,” he said, not quite looking me in the eye, “and all her tests look good.”

Pause.

“Her blood type is A negative,” said the doctor, giving me quite the fish eye, since he knew full well that my husband and I both have A positive blood.

Knowing full well, myself, what was on **his **mind, I said “Probably because both our mothers have Rh negative blood.” (which is entirely true)

The look of utter relief on that doctor’s face was hysterical. I had a hard time waiting till he left the room to burst out laughing.

118

Yep - my mother has blue-green eyes, my father has blue eyes, I have blue eyes, and my little brother has… brown. And there’s no mistake that he’s theirs, since he’s the spit and image of both of them, as am I. And my mother has no sisters. :wink: However, both of my grandmothers have the same dark brown eyes as my little bro. (Don’t. Even. Think about it.)

We recently discovered through some missing puzzle pieces that we are direct descendants of some irish lady pirate. Of course, trying to research this just pulls up a whole load of other people who claim to also be the direct descendant of the same pirate, which is highly probable and I think it’s cool, because they must be family, right? But when I tried to correspond with a couple of them, they seemed a little loony, and insisted they were the only ones. Yeah, okay. :dubious: Anyway, now the cool little plaque-like thingy we’ve had in the family for generations makes sense: some picture of a pig or a boar, and a knight’s helm over it, and says something like “Connaught” under it, the family name above it, and has something written in a banner that I can’t pronounce or understand. My mom is rather disappointed in this whole “pirate” business. My mother is very prim and ladylike, doesn’t curse, smoke, or drink. She was hoping for a bishop in our past, not some dingy old pirate! Me, I think it’s pretty cool. My husband says it explains a lot. You know, the eyepatch, the petty theivery, the big big boots, the little mustachio I’ve been trying to grow, the fact that I wake up in the morning and say “YARRR!” and keep a parrot on my shoulder. Things like that. I’ve been looking into styles of peg leg, or possibly a shiny hook.

Lessee, what else… my father’s sister was anorexic for years, I was bulemic for years… not much of a secret there, since we were pretty scrawny. Now I’m chunky, but by god, I earned it. My aunt still has trouble, and I still think about it, especially now that I’m bigger. It never really goes away.

My grandmother left her husband long before I was born, but hasn’t gotten a divorce… something to do with being Catholic, or so my mom tells me. She’s had a “boyfriend” since I was two years old. He only moved in with her about four or five years ago - and sleeps in a separate room! The family knows, and no one thinks any lesser of her for it, but she’s trying to impress God. Or so my mom tells me (starting to see where I get all of my information?) We’ve discussed it with her so many times, just tell the priest your situation, and maybe you can get an annulment (her husband was an abusive drunk, and continues to do drugs and is involved in other shady dealings even today - he’s not my grandfather. We disowned him long ago. He only calls us when he wants money.) Anyway, my dearest Nanny, she’s too shy. She’s embarrassed to tell anyone outside of the family, and thinks she is partly responsible for her marriage failing, because she used to drink, too. So, to appease God, she never got a divorce, and keeps her boyfriend in a room at the opposite end of her house.

Then there’s that lie about Caligula on my father’s side that his siblings keep flashing around - the only secret there is that there is none. They loooooove to tell people that we are descendants of Caligula, with a wink and smile. Some of them believe it. I was fairly certain there were no descendants of his left alive, and Mississipienne recently confirmed as much (merci!) I think it started off as a joke way back when, but somewhere along the line, some of them bought it. I’m thinking they didn’t study their history texts very well; who would want to be related to that?! :eek: Not something I’d be bragging about.

Speaking of sex ( :stuck_out_tongue: ), my poor, as yet unconceived kids… they will one day do the math, figure out what day they were conceived… it may or may not be a holiday of religious or romantic origins, but one thing I can guarantee: “I’m not sure of the exact date. But you were conceived three or four times that day*!” And I’ll laugh. And they’ll gag. And then I’ll point and laugh.

That’s a joke, you see. I know how conception works. But it gets the point across nicely. :smiley:

119

Anastasaeon- would the Irish lady Pirate be Granuaile?
That would be cool.

This is the O’Malley crest anyway.

120

Thanks. I read that laughed and shot a piece of popcorn I was wating out my nose*.

Slee

  • That was unpleasant.