Like the bear, I’m probably the nexus of any controversy in my immediate family. In the extended family, some of the men in the past generations helped further the communication of scandals.
Someone had to install the first telephones, right? 
If our neighbors didn’t think we were weird before, they certainly think so now if they saw us yesterday. About 15 of us were dancing in the back yard to music like this.
The title of this thread has reminded me of something I saw on my run this weekend. There’s a house in my little town, a pretty little cape cod with a nice front porch. Around Halloween time a 6’ tall skeleton appeared on the front porch. It’s still there. They’ve changed his clothes since Halloween (he was dressed as the grim reaper) but he’s still there. I guess their skeleton came out of the closet.
Speaking of family skeletons. My mother is recently in contact with her second cousins except that they aren’t her second cousins at all. They are her nieces and nephews. Turns out my grandmother had some children out of wedlock who ended up being raised by her sisters. My mother grew up with cousins who were really her half brother and sister. I’m not even sure how many of them are out there because apparently this happened more than once. Grandma apparently didn’t learn after the first unplanned pregnancy to be more careful. They were big drinkers in my family so I’m sure that has something to do with it. Nothing like being drunk and horny to make you throw caution to the winds.
I won’t even get into the deep dark secrets on my husband’s side of the family. Oy!
My wife and I are the family scandall. We were dating and somehow we got pregnant. :rolleyes: That was a bit of a tough time - she was just getting out of school, was student teaching, and living at home, and I had a crappy job. My mother-in-law to be couldn’t believe it when we told her the news. How could we concieve out of wedlock? It’s not like we were teenagers! Those were her actual words, as if only teenagers were the only ones who were allowed to do that. She finnally told us that she would be supportive but not invasive, but then proceeded to be invasive all over the place. But she came around and was very helpful with the wedding and with our daughter.
I expected my mother to have a similar reaction, but the first thing out of her mouth was “Well, who am I to judge?” She was totally cool about it, but I guess some of my family weren’t too happy, though I never heard from any of them one way or the other, other than my brother-in-law wasn’t sure if he wanted to bring his kids to the wedding to see their pregnant aunt-to-be. He also thinks that wives who don’t change their last name doom the marriage to failure because he sees it all the time.
10 years, 4 months and 2 kids later, and we’re still going strong.
For the MMP, my son has International Day in his Pre-K class this Wednesday. For the day, we have to glue photos of his family on a posterboard so he can share it with his class. Last year, I got the photos together and “helped” glue them to the poster. At International Day, I was showing it to my mother-in-law who looked at it and said “That looks great. Wow, I love all these photos. Where are you?” I was working on getting other family members in it and totally forgot to put me in it other than one photograph from when I was 2 years old and on a tobagan with my dad and two sisters. This year I remembered to put me in it.
Just about everyone West of the Mississippi has Amerindian genes, and they usually seem to be Cherokee. The ones in Mom’s family and Dad’s family even had the same name; the unique moniker of “John Smith”. :rolleyes:
Extra points for you Great great grandmother no being a Cherokee Princess!
My Mother’s brother told me that their Father received the scar on his forehead being belted with bricks by a young lady’s Father. He was under the crawlspace of the house with the young lady.
I was born in San Diego, but I have no native American blood - I’m of full-blooded Polish ancestry!! No doubt somewhere along the line, I’ve got a full-blooded Polish Princess in my ancestry! 
Peasants can also be princesses, right?? Princess of the Polish Peasants?? Right??
The truck from the oil company just left a few minutes ago - we’ve got a full (or almost full) tank - 239 gallons for a total of $955.61 - yoiks! On the plus side, barring a brutally long and cold winter, we shouldn’t have to add any more oil till a top-off this time next year. I must say, it makes $160 for a cord of wood look pretty nice, even when I have to haul and stack it myself!
We also got our replacement filters for the aquarium Reverse Osmosis system. Once the new well is up and running, we’ll be able to get rid of the sand-infested cartridge and put in a fresh, new one. Plus we got a spare. Gotta keep the fishies happy!!
I think I’ll go outside and futz around a bit - after the brownies are done baking, of course. When I was at WalMart, I grabbed a brownie mix since I’ve had a hankerin’ for a week or so… Once they come out of the oven, I’m going to go move some dirt. Good times!
On my way out - the well guys just got here with their big ol’ front end loader. So much for all the grass I planted earlier this month…
Waitaminute! swampy’s gay???:D:cool:
I may have told this one already, but here goes.
Before Dad met Mom, he dated the daughter of a man who for some reason (I never asked, Dad never told) disapproved of Dad as a suitor. Girl was married off to someone her father liked. Then Dad fell for Mom, but never stopped thinking about Girl.
Meanwhile NiceAunt’s first marriage had been annulled because the schmuck was physically abusive. AspbergersAunt was single when Dad told Gramma his intentions. She took him to the Rabbi because how dare the youngest think of getting married while his two older sisters were still not. Rabbi asked if Dad was in love, and he said yes, so Rabbi essentially told Gramma to chill.
So Mom and Dad marry in 1942, and off to war he went. He was granted leave when Sis was born in '43, then back to the war.
Meanwhile Girl got divorced, married again, and by the time Dad came home to stay, Girl was divorced again. She looked Dad up, thus started Dad’s many trips out of town. He was a builder/developer, and he had projects in Albany (NY, swampy, not GA) and in Florida.
Mom suspected but never said anything. Meanwhile, there was a failed pregnancy in '46, my brother was born in '48, and another failed pregnancy in '53. Dad was about to leave Mom to be with Girl (who was on her third divorce) when I came along in '58.
Decades later, Mom dies in '91 and in '94 I shipped Dad off to live with Bro so I could more easily clean out the house pre-sale; I found a letter Dad’s therapist told him to write to GhostMom. In '96 I finally asked Dad about Girl, and he told me the whole story. The only question I had was whether or not I had any half-sibs running around somewhere. No, but he was glad I knew about Girl now, because they had reconnected after having lost touch sometime in the 60s.
Her health now wasn’t any better than Dad’s (which was pretty shaky) but with the help of their respective aides, they had a few lunch dates.
I never met her, even refused an invite Dad offered - I told him I understand the whole sitch, and will eventually forgive him, but I didn’t ever EVER want to be part of it.
and with that, I hope everyone’s Monday is uneventful.
One of my ancestors was hanged as a witch in New England - and survived.
My family closet’s chockfull of skeletons, both sides of my family put the fun is dysfunctional. Some of it I don’t even wanna know.
However, I recently learned that when my Great Granddad was a kid & young man, two different young women lived with his family, (one during the 1900 census, when he was six, and a different one during the 1910 census when he was 16 & after his mother had died? Who are these people & why were they living there? I am very curious & they’re really no one I can ask!
Had a pretty good weekend. Ma’s Birthday went well. & as soon as I complete my to do list (work 1/2 hour on the bedroom, clean upstairs & downstairs bathroom & bake a thank-you loaf of banana bread for my neighbor who took care of Leo when he was lost) I am going to the movies.
Happy Monday All!!!
I’m not sure about my family skeleton- we’ve only just begun to wonder…
My Grandparents divorced when my mother was a toddler, (scandalous enough for the late 50s), and my Grandmother remarried someone I’ll call John because that was his name, and went on to have another daughter (who killed herself about a week before my 21st), leaving my Grandpa to look after my Mum and my Aunt.
Except… last year, my Grandad died, and my mother’s been sorting out the house. Grandpa was the sort of person who kept every single bit of correspondence he ever got: he had the original quotes for the house, from when he bought it in the early 60s; bills dating back to the time he left home; masses and masses of paperwork, including his wedding certificate.
Oddly though, there was no record anywhere of his divorce papers, which in those days, would have been complicated indeed. My Mum searched all over, and nope.
She then did a bit of asking around the older relatives, and found that- though everyone was told there had been a wedding, no-one had actually been invited. Even her pretty non-judgemental brother.
John, incidently, was a paranoid nutter, who did things like leave his son-in-law as the executor of his estate, but also leave strict instructions for the doctor not to inform said son-in-law in the case of his death, in case he absconded with all the loot. He also nailed up his letter-box, and made the neighbour open all his mail, in case someone sent him a letter bomb. I really would not be surprised at any idea he’d come up with.
My Grandmother’s now in a home, and decidedly senile, after John died the year before last. Apparantly, before he died, she’d been telling the nurses, when they said John was coming to visit, that she ‘didn’t have a husband’ and that she’d ‘left him’. Grandpa did occasionally refer to her as his wife, but then he never re-married.
Was my Grandmother a bigamist? Did she even marry John? I don’t know if I’ll ever find out…
Anyway, back to the scheduled Mumping.
It was actually sunny today! First time in weeks, after it was so horribly wet and windy yesterday that I didn’t even bother getting dressed until 6pm. Went down to my allotment to find no storm damage at all- it was muddy as all hell, but no branches down, and nothing had blown away- which is nice. I was expecting chaos, as there’s little branches down all over the street, and friends have had tiles blowing off the roof.
My housemate’s back tonight, and I’m pickin’ her up from the bus station at midnight, ‘cos I’m nice. Well, that and I’m going to juggling club and the pub we go to afterwards has kickin’ out time around then, so I’ll be drivin’ round town anyway
Hoo boy, thanks for the topic of the week, FCM; although I’m pretty sure that I’ve shared my scandalous (or semi-scandalous) tales before, I’ll share them again.
My mother’s mother’s younger sister got pregnant out of wedlock in the early 30s. I’m uncertain if the family knew much before she gave birth, but she did give birth at my grandparents house, and the baby was raised by their older sister and her husband. My mother, 6 years old at the time, was told that they had found the baby by a local creek, but she was precocious and intelligent enough to know the truth. Our mother shared this information with her kids, though swore us all to secrecy - apparently no-one else in the family knew. Until this day, as far as I know, my mother’s cousin does not know her biological parentage. Her biological mother was known to her as her aunt, and never got to acknowledge her daughter or her grandchildren as her own. I don’t know if anyone else in that generation does know – the “baby” is now in her mid-70s, gosh actually closer to 80, and those of her parents generation are all gone, and now her generation is going. My great aunt did marry eventually but never had any other children; it is a shame that she had to treat her child and grandchildren as if they were neices and nephews, imho.
My other tales are nowhere near scandalous, so I shoved them back into the closet … LOL. At any rate, Happy Monday all.
Howdy Y’all! Home from irk a little early. Actually, doin’ some irk from home cause I needed to get out of that office.
Malthus just wow! Really interestin’ account of your ancestor.
Nut whoa! My family really is just a big ol’ loaf of white bread by comparison.
Dindin shall be salmon patties, smashed N.O.T., English peas and bizkits cause I got me a gnawin’ and a cravin’.
And as promised The happy newlyweds! Ain’t they cute!
My parents celebrated their anniversary in February, on my mother’s birthday, every year, which just happens to be 9 months and 5 days before the birth of the oldest child, which is me.
Didn’t find out until 20 years later that they didn’t actually get married until after the 3rd kid was born, lol! So when I call my siblings bastards now, I really mean it!
Lucky! My 9 x great grandma died from her hanging in Salem in 1692.
She was the big family scandal. Everything else of which I am aware was pretty pedestrian.
Lucky? I’m guessing my ancestor really was a witch.
I mean, if they hang you and you live, you must be guilty! What clearer proof of your unnatural powers is needed?
Aw, swampy, they are a cute couple! So, didja do the Chicken Dance at the wedding?? 
The well drillers are all prepped for the morning. The guy with the backhoe dug the mud pit after tearing out some trees and shrubs (I told him he could take 'em all out - I didn’t want them.) It does look like he saved my dogwood, tho - we shall see if it handles the shock.
The drill rig truck is backed into position and ready to raise the tower thingie and make a hole in the ground. There’s also a big ol’ 49HP generator parked on the grass. I expect tomorrow will be noisy.
While (and after) they were setting things up, I raked and prepped a bed for hostas, then transplanted a buttload of different varieties. I left enough room between them for some impatiens which I think I’ll go get tomorrow and plant before the rain comes in. I yonked up 2 small starters of poison ivy, but I was wearing gloves, so I’m pretty sure I won’t get the itchies. Anyway, I’m done with manual labor for the day, except for making supper (chickie, pasta with herb sauce, and some veggie matter.)
Meanwhile, my sweetie just got home!
It’s a miracle! JHVH saved his chosen one!
With mine, God mandated the execution, there was no divine intervention, musta been guilty. ;D
Just had an early dindin. We was hongry ! 'Twas good too. I may get out in da yahd around six-thirty or so and do some stuff. We shall see. It’s still hawt out!
Wow QtM! Did she also weigh the same as a duck? Did she turn somebody into a newt?
MOOOOOOM to answer your question, there was no chicken dance or any other kind of dancin’. After that huge lunch feast there was a lot of moanin’ and groanin’ and I’m sure some button poppin’.
I’ve shared this on the boards before, but within the past year or two I was introduced to our family scandal that frankly outclasses the “living in sin” or “questionable paternity” or “13 year old mother” stories.
To make a long story short, my grandfather found out late in life that his “sister” was really his mother, and his “parents” were really his grandparents. That’s mildly scandalous I guess. But I only learned after my grandfather died something that he never knew, at least I hope: he was partially correct at first. His real, biological birth mother was indeed the woman he had though was his sister. But his real, biological birth father was not some anonymous one-night stand like he had been told; it was the man he always thought was his father.
In other words, he and his mother had the same father. She was his mother and his half-sister.
Now that’s a scandal.
