# Mysteries in your family.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 29, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109 "2015-05-29T13:04:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/61 "2015-06-01T17:33:18Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> Some type of schooling perhaps? Maybe nursing school or normal school? Perhaps she felt that, as a widow, it would be a good idea to get a degree or career training. Did she ever have a career outside the home? It’s possible that if she had a career before marriage, she might have needed (or felt the need to) to go back to school to upgrade her qualifications in order to re-enter it. For example, in my parents’ youth, it was pretty easy to become, and stay, a schoolteacher with a bachelor’s degree in more or less anything, especially in a small town. Nowadays, you more or less need a master’s degree if you want to advance past “wannabe provisional temporary” status.
Not at age 63.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/62 "2015-06-01T17:49:11Z")
My maternal grandmother said my great grandfather was Jewish and a veteranian known for being the only vet who would treat the animals of black farmers. There are also hints that her side of the family is a former social Big Deal in the mid-size Georgia city they were in. Which is kinda strange, since my grandfather was a milkman, not exactly a social Big Deal and my grandmother was a nurse. (My grandfather died when my mother was very young, which affected my mother for all her life, as my grandmother was an abusive alcoholic who enjoyed beating my mother). I haven’t been able to find out more than squat about my alleged Jewish great grandfather, as my mother’s side of the family is basically full Southern Gothic and the sturm und drang is tiresome whenever family history comes up.
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### Author:  [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/63 "2015-06-01T18:08:47Z")
MYSTERY #1: Where, when, and how exactly did my grandfather enter the U.S.? We know he was in the German merchant marine (he had been in the German navy just after WWI), and that he was in the States by the mid-1920’s. But he was here illegally; when Social Security was getting started, my grandmother made him go back to Germany and come in legally so he could get a Soc. Sec. number.
MYSTERY #2: Why did my grandfather (same one) _and_ all his brothers decide to change their last name to the particular new name they chose? It’s easy to figure out why, after WWI, you wouldn’t want an obviously German name. But the name they picked is Scandinavian, not particularly American-sounding. There are various stories as to how they came to choose that name, but none of us really knows for sure.
MYSTERY #3: What exactly was said grandfather doing between the time he arrived in the U.S. and when he met my grandmother? He once told my dad he was working for Legs Diamond, but I seriously doubt that. :rolleyes: Still, we have no idea what city he was in before he came to Philly (where my grandmother and her two sisters lived)–or why, after marrying my grandmother, he decided they would pull up stakes and move to Baltimore, where they had no family at all.
He was a real card and a wonderful grandfather, and I would have loved to hear whatever stories he would have spun about all this. He was an old salt and he loved to tell a tale.
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### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/64 "2015-06-01T18:18:43Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> I’d wager that 7-month babies were more common than 9-month ones through the time it became more acceptable to be having premarital sex . . . .
Or, as the old folks used to say, “The first one can come anytime, but all the rest take nine months.”
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/65 "2015-06-01T18:26:15Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> [T]his is how Robert Heinlein’s mysterious first marriage was confirmed. A researcher found his 1932 wedding license with Leslyn… and he was listed as “divorced.” It turned out that the family knew the whole story of the first short, disastrous marriage and no one had ever bothered to ask any of them about it.
I have occasionally wondered if she was the model for Grace Farnham (from _Farnham’s Freehold_), Mrs. Tarbutton (from _Farmer in the Sky_), and the woman who refused to share a compartment with Sir Isaac Newton (in _Between Planets_).
In my own family, the mystery is why my grandfather left my grandmother before my dad was born. Actually, the real mystery is why she married him in the first place; she definitely married beneath her station, to use a very old-fashioned phrasing. (I have seen their marriage license, and, despite what my mother thinks, my dad WAS legitimate.)
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/66 "2015-06-01T18:34:38Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#):
>
> I have occasionally wondered if she was the model for Grace Farnham (from _Farnham’s Freehold_), Mrs. Tarbutton (from _Farmer in the Sky_), and the woman who refused to share a compartment with Sir Isaac Newton (in _Between Planets_).
Leslyn == Grace Farnham is only a partial match, mostly the alcoholism. Heinlein wasn’t exactly a stranger to fussy matrons.
If his first wife Elinor is a model for anyone, it’s some of the Howard Family women. The accepted reason for the failure of the marriage is that she was too wild for the 23yo Bobbo. However much he championed and swooned over group and open marriages later, he wasn’t fond of being in one in 1930.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/67 "2015-06-01T19:10:11Z")
My Great Uncle was a Company Commander in the British Indian Army. He was in Singapore in 1942, which was a bad time to be there.
The thing is that he just upped and disappeared. Killed in action, blown up by some shell you say? Well his brother-in-law and son each later became generals and they did as much research as they could. The British Government gave is a date of death a few years ago, 8th February 1942, the day of the fall of Singapore…aka the date they give everyone who went missing there. Through research, we have discovered the last certifiable thing he eve did, a signal to battalion that his sector was quiet, on IIRC 5th of February 1942.
Many of the men in his Company survived war and captivity and were interviews soon after the Japanese surrender and they given stories varying from
1. Survived the battle and later died in a Japanese holding camp (My theory).
2. Several people swore that they saw him being repatriated after the war. His wife was told many times that he was on his way (not officially). Maybe he died before he could get home
3. Sunk after ship transporting him to Japan was torpedoed
4. Killed before the surrender or murdered just after.
5. Deserted and took up with locals. (My parents perferred explanation)… although he had earlier served in N Africa,so its not like he was a greenhorn,
We will probably never know. But, come on, _someone_ should be able to clue in…and why the varying tales from people who otherwise would know? People would know what happened to their Company Commander.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/68 "2015-06-01T22:44:23Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> There was a lot of mystery (and still some) surrounding the death of my great aunt.
>
> Her name was Alma Lou Craft, and she died when she was just 24 years old (b. 10-Sept-1907, d. 15-Apr-1932). Alma had been the stylist/fashion editor at the Dayton Daily News (DDN) for a number of years. At the time the DDN was published by [James M. Cox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_M._Cox), and rumor has it she was… having an affair with him. When she died, there was a lot whispering within the family on the cause of death. Some suspected she was poisoned. No one talked about it openly.
>
> Last year I sent away for a copy of her death certificate. It says: “Principle Cause of Death: Chronic parenchymatous nephritis, duration = 1 year. Contributory cause: Hypertension over period of four years.” I have no idea what any of that means.
Back in the pre-dialysis days, nephritis (AKA Bright’s disease) was a very common cause of death, and also, when people had hypertension, very little could be done about it. In other words, she had high blood pressure and it destroyed her kidneys.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/69 "2015-06-02T18:47:20Z")
[list=#]Who, exactly, Mom’s father was. All we have is a name on a birth certificate.[li]Why, exactly, why Mom was raised by one of her aunts. All we know is that grandma resided on some sort of county farm two years after Mom was born.[/li][li]Why the 1940 census shows them living in Mom’s cousin’s home with the cousin’s female partner. This woman, whom probably none of us knew about until the census was released, is actually listed as “partner” to the head of household and their type of work had nothing to do with each other. The head of household died around the same time Mom did so we can’t ask her.[/li]The true heritage of Dad’s mother. The woman had a habit of changing her backstory, and maiden name, to whatever was convenient at the time. We know that Dad and all but one of his siblings grew up in a children’s home after his father took ill; his mother refused to call her kids by their given names whenever she managed to visit the home. [/list]
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### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/70 "2015-06-02T19:33:12Z")
My wife’s maternal grandmother was a foundling. As a baby, she was abandoned in a church in Philadelphia, and was adopted by one of the families. Based on the ethnic composition of the neighborhood, people assumed she was probably Irish, but her true background is unknown. She’s been dead for years, so they’ll almost certainly never know the truth.
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/71 "2015-06-02T19:57:08Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> The most peculiar such thing involves a close family friend, a woman around 40 who absolutely panicked if there was even a chance she was caught in a photo. My mother once took a group photo just as “Lee” walked by in the background and glanced that way, and it was a huge issue until she got the Instamatic cartridge back from a one-day photo shop and handed over both the photo and the negative. She was a late grad student and mysterious in many ways. Not likely to be WitPro, not in 1974 or so, and there was no indication she’d ever been married. Never have figured out that one.
Back in the 90’s when I was doing karate, there was a 50-ish woman in our class that we were friends with, but who was very secretive outside of class. We eventually learned that she was ‘on the run’ from an abusive ex-husband and he would find her every couple of years, forcing her to move on and use a different name. Sure enough, one day we got word that he’d found her again and she disappeared.
I hope she ran. I sincerely hope he never caught her. I guess I’ll never know.
Could be a similar situation.
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### Author:  [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/72 "2015-06-03T00:49:50Z")
1. My cousins C and J (sister and brother) had a falling out, after their dad died, regarding his estate, money, who would control it, who got what, etc. This was in 2004. To this day, they don’t speak. She says he stole from her or tried to; he says she and her husband wanted to control everything. We may never know the truth because neither will admit to any wrongdoing and both insist they’re right.
2. My dad was often treated like the black sheep on his side of the fam. We don’t know why.
3. My brother never finished seminary and waited decades to get a theology degree online. Do not know why.
4. My younger niece got married in 2010, split from hubby in 2014. We can never get the full story from anyone about why, just bits and pieces: he was too controlling and possessive, he wanted her to go to Thailand with him on some business venture, she was cheating on him, who knows.
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### Author:  [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/73 "2015-06-08T00:28:43Z")
My family’s mysteries are nothing much compared to this thread, but they still baffle me, so here goes:
[ol]
[li]My parents inherited a 1964 Ford Galaxie in the early '90s. My dad put a lot of effort into its restoration, and kept the original owner’s manual on display in his office. I vaguely remember seeing the manual in the back seat of his truck, and later next to his favorite chair, shortly before his death. The manual disappeared immediately after he died…I personally searched the truck, and the contents of his office were packed up by some extremely trustworthy coworkers. The best explanation I have is that someone swiped it from the house…I wonder if it was the same person who searched his briefcase, then dropped it in a corner of an unused room. (The briefcase thing doesn’t bother me as much, since I had already searched it before the house became so overwhelmed with people…)[/li]
[li]Back in the '50s, an aunt and uncle of my mother’s adopted a little boy who was supposedly the product of an incestuous relationship in the family. He had a massive mental breakdown when he was around twelve, and has been in and out of various hospitals and group homes ever since.[/li]
[li]My mother remembers her grandparents decorating their house lavishly at Christmas…in particular, she remembers all the gorgeous antique blown glass ornaments. When she participated in the big family cleanout of the “old home place” in the late '90s, when all the remaining possessions were to be divided evenly amongst the immediate family, these ornaments were nowhere to be seen. (It’s pretty easy to figure out what happened here though – a combination of breakage over time and sticky-fingered relatives.)[/li]
[li]My paternal grandfather died of a supposed heart attack in the '70s…he was only in his late '40s. His doctors attributed the cause of death to an old piece of shrapnel from a chest wound he sustained in Vietnam. When my father passed away in 2005, his cause of death was attributed to a genetic heart condition, which was also detected in one of his brothers. This has led to speculation that the genetic condition was responsible for the deaths of both my grandfather and great-grandfather (who, according to family legend, died in his late '40s or early '50s after milking the cows one morning).[/li][/ol]
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### Author:  [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/74 "2015-06-08T01:00:47Z")
My great grandmother was killed by my great grandfather in what was described as a gun-cleaning accident. (And my grandmother evidently witnessed the shooting.) My mother always told me that the shooting was not an accident – that my great grandfather had a “fancy woman” in the city he grew up in.
I’d love to know what really happened, and what my grandmother actually saw and/or knew.
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### Author:  [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/75 "2015-06-08T14:00:13Z")
The circumstances surrounding my aunt’s apparent suicide are suspect. She was my father’s sister but they weren’t close and she lived with her husband in a different province. She apparently shot herself, presumably after finding out her cancer returned. The strange part is that apparently after my uncle found her he took the gun and threw it outside - kind of an odd reaction to finding your wife dead, don’t you think? Then he _very quickly_ had a new girlfriend and this woman apparently finished a course my aunt had started. My dad did go to RCMP at the time with his suspicions but nothing ever happened. To this day he swears that my uncle killed her.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/76 "2015-06-08T16:31:56Z")
[quote=“Jeep\_s\_Phoenix, post:73, topic:721109”]
…
[li]My parents inherited a 1964 Ford Galaxie in the early '90s. My dad put a lot of effort into its restoration, and kept the original owner’s manual on display in his office. I vaguely remember seeing the manual in the back seat of his truck, and later next to his favorite chair, shortly before his death. The manual disappeared immediately after he died…I personally searched the truck, and the contents of his office were packed up by some extremely trustworthy coworkers. The best explanation I have is that someone swiped it from the house…I wonder if it was the same person who searched his briefcase, then dropped it in a corner of an unused room. (The briefcase thing doesn’t bother me as much, since I had already searched it before the house became so overwhelmed with people…[/li][/QUOTE]
Are old car owner’s manuals particularly valuable? I would expect that someone eager to commit theft in the confusion of wrapping up someone’s estate would try to grab cash, precious metals, or other things like that that have universal value and are easy to dispose of rather than an old book. Was the manual valuable because it had the name of a famous owner inside? Do you think it was more of an “FU” against the family by someone with a grudge?
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### Author:  [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/77 "2015-06-08T16:36:18Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#):
>
> The circumstances surrounding my aunt’s apparent suicide are suspect. She was my father’s sister but they weren’t close and she lived with her husband in a different province. She apparently shot herself, presumably after finding out her cancer returned. The strange part is that apparently after my uncle found her he took the gun and threw it outside - kind of an odd reaction to finding your wife dead, don’t you think? Then he _very quickly_ had a new girlfriend and this woman apparently finished a course my aunt had started. My dad did go to RCMP at the time with his suspicions but nothing ever happened. To this day he swears that my uncle killed her.
I can see the uncle’s reaction: being so distraught that he either was angry at the weapon, or couldn’t bear to have it in his house, or whatever.
We have some of this in my family. I can’t say in your situation, obviously, but I think it has more to do with psychology than reality. Easier to blame an in-law than an uncaring, unfair universe or the deceased.
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### Author:  [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/78 "2015-06-08T19:00:46Z")
Oh man, so many mysteries:
Why did my father’s father commit suicide? Was he really wrongly told he was going blind, or was that just gratuitous drama thrown in by someone?
How did my father’s mother really die? Did she fall, or was she pushed down the stairs? Was she really insane from untreated syphilis? (this could play into the answer to the first question)
Why did my mother’s mother leave her first husband and basically hide for 40 years? Why did she only take one of her children with her and leave the other with her mother to raise? Why did she and my grandfather only get married long after they had grandchildren? My theory is she WAS hiding from her first husband - but why? Did she know that he moved out to California (from Pennsylvania) a few years after she and my grandfather did?
And finally, was my family supportive and respectful to Aunt Grace and Aunt Ruth? I’d like to think they were; Aunt Ruth is buried next to Aunt Grace in one of our family plots, just like all the other spouses and families. I can only imagine what life was like for them in the early years of the 20th century.
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### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/79 "2015-06-08T20:58:48Z")
My grandfather was born in 1915 and raised by his grandparents, whom he believed to be his natural parents until he was in his 60s himself and learned that his real biological mother was the woman he thought was his older sister. At the time, he believed his dad must have been a one-night stand.
After my grandfather passed away, my own research revealed that he had been born about a year after his sister/mother’s mother had died, and before her father remarried. I also turned up family gossip going back a couple generations that my grandfather’s father was not some anonymous fling, but actually his own grandfather (the one who raised him). In other words, according to whispered tradition, my grandfather was the product of father-daughter incest. I’d love to know the truth, but probably never will.
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### Author:  [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)
#### Post date: [June 8, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mysteries-in-your-family/721109/80 "2015-06-08T23:06:26Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> Are old car owner’s manuals particularly valuable? I would expect that someone eager to commit theft in the confusion of wrapping up someone’s estate would try to grab cash, precious metals, or other things like that that have universal value and are easy to dispose of rather than an old book. Was the manual valuable because it had the name of a famous owner inside? Do you think it was more of an “FU” against the family by someone with a grudge?
Some may be, but this one was pure sentimental value. I sort of think it was swiped by either someone with a grudge, or someone who wanted a keepsake of sorts. If someone had truly wanted to steal something valuable, there was plenty of easily swiped stuff – particularly jewelry - available. The only really valuable item lost was the $50 taken from Dad’s wallet and given to some concerned friends after my mom told them that the truck needed gas. (It was a Suburban…most of that gas was still in the tank when we sold the truck. :smack:)
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