My father’s mother died when he was two and his father remarried pretty quick. Then a year or so later, his father, the new wife, and his older sister moved from Minnesota to Santa Barbara leaving my Dad to be raised by his paternal grandparents. My aunt hated the new wife because she treated my aunt basically as a live-in maid, and also for separating her from her beloved brother until he left Minnesota to join them at age seventeen. I never found out the second wife’s name; father was too young to remember it and my aunt would only refer to her as “that red-headed woman.” I’m sure she would have loved to apply some other adjectives besides red-headed and probably a different noun as well but she was too Christian to say any of them out loud.
The marriage didn’t last. One Saturday afternoon my aunt and grandfather walked from their house to spend a few hours at the beach. When they got back, wife and every last stick of furniture were no where to be found, and were never seen again. After that my grandfather became the town tom cat, visiting women who were not necessarily single.
My grandmother’s sister was a school teacher in Louisiana, north of New Orleans. When she was young, she fell in love with a guy who took his own life because he was a closeted homosexual. Anyway, the sister started boozing and sleeping around and mortgaged away the old house until there was no money left and she finally went to visit my grandmother in New Orleans. Now, my grandfather was not too happy about the whole thing and, well, you probably can guess the rest of the story.
Tame by today’s standards, but in the 1930’s…my grandmother started dating my grandfather while he was still married to another woman. He was living and working down here in Sacramento and the wife was living up in Oregon. They were separated, but never bothered to divorce. He had to go up and get a divorce so he could marry my grandmother. Oh, and the worst part…he was English! My grandmother was first generation Irish-American.
Let’s see, found out in my 30’s that my uncle, the very holier than thou Baptist preacher, did 5 years for bank robbery as a young man. He was a cashier and served as the inside man. In my 40’s I learned that that uncles son-in-law, knocked up a girl in his senior year in HS and had a son in the Southwest working as a policeman. I didn’t find out this juicy detail until later in life. But I DID learn it about a day after my cousin learned it! In addition to finding out he had a second, older, child, he also found out he was a grandfather since the son had his own kids. Everyone loves each other and gets along great.
On the other side, I met a lot of my 2nd and 3rd cousins over Christmas. Mom introduced me to my cousin, “He’s great uncle x’s son.” later, at home, I mentioned how strong the genes are in moms family because cousin is Great Uncle X’s son but looks just like Great Uncle Y. Mom answered, “Yeah, don’t ever mention that in front of ANY of them.” Apparently, Great Aunt Z made the mistake of pointing it out rather bluntly many years ago and it’s a bit of an uncomfortable situation for those siblings…
Technically not a (blood) relative, but my Godfather murdered his business partner and then committed suicide. I had always thought he died of a heart-attack.
The disgusting farts (“My eyes! The goggles do nothing!”) during Sunday family TV watching did not come from the dog.
My father had been married and had 3 kids before meeting my mother.
My great-great grandfather headed west from Halifax in 1885 with his militia regiment to put down the Riel Resistance. They didn’t see any action, for which I am pleased.
When I was ~30, Mom told me that around 1952, she was dating, but not married to, Dad when she became pregnant with my oldest sister. Then Mom told me her bigger secret: she hadn’t been sure that my Dad was the father. There was another boy, who I’ll call ‘F’. She told Dad and F about the situation. Each boy knew he may or may not be the father, but offered to marry her nonetheless. So she had to choose. When she describes F, I think she might have felt more passion for him, but she chose Dad; probably the more reliable husband and father. They married and had another daughter, then a son (me). F never married, and died in his late ‘40s.
My oldest sister doesn’t look anything like Dad. She looks like F.
