Something my family should have mentioned earlier

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yesterday I got a phone call from one of my younger sisters. She had stopped by my Gramma’s house and visited for a while. My Gramma’s youngest sister was there too, so that had coffee and chatted.
Jess (my sister) often just says whatever pops into her head, and today it was: “Gram, you’re mom’s name was Helen, wasn’t it?”
It wasn’t, my great-grandmother’s name was the beautiful name Hazel. For the first time ever, though, my grandmother starts talking about her family for generations back.
I’ve tried to encourage her to tell me stories about when she was younger, and about what she knew of her father, mother, grandparents many times. She never did. We’ve all had genealogy projects for school. Gram always said ‘nope, I don’t know a thing about it - go talk to your Uncle Roy.’ Uncle Roy was a very nice man, my Grandfather’s brother, that did some wonderful gemology work on his side of the family.
During this talk with Gram and our Aunt, Jess learns that as far as anyone knows, we’re the sole surviving branch of that family - the rest were killed in Germany during the Holocaust.

This is an important thing. This is something that I should have known much before I was 28.

I mentioned it to my mother, and she, too, was shocked. No one had ever told her, either.

My Gramma had a really hard childhood growing up, and she really doesn’t like to talk about it, but this is where we came from.

It’s important!

2

You know what my mother-in-law found out 5 years ago? That her dad was Jewish. That he and his brother were lined up one day in the Netherlands, and just missed being sent to a concentration camp.

His wife didn’t even know he was Jewish, and he still doesn’t talk about it. He screamed at his sister for mentioning this, then roared and left the house for 4 hours.

I totally understand how you’re feeling right now.

3

It doesn’t really change anything, but at the same time, it colors everything.

4

Gravity, you’re right, it is important.
I would hug you if it would change the fact that your family died at Hitler’s hands.
I’d hug you just to make you feel better, anyway.

I found out recently (two and a half years ago) that all four of my mother’s grandparents died of cancer - three of lung cancer. Why my mother never mentioned this to me was beyond me, especially since by that time I had smoked for 17 years of my life. I quit.

Why our families feel the need to hide information from us is beyond me.

5

Boy o boy, can I identify with this. My sister recently started researching our family and she really came up with some interesting nuggets.

My maternal great-grandfather, long glossed over in our fairly matriarch-oriented family, was a neighborhood grocer who died in a blizzard – delivering milk from his store to families he knew had small children.

My maternal great-grandmother remarried 20 years after his death to a man she had loved for that entire 20 years. And he died one year to the day after their wedding.

And the biggest family secret? We found out WHY my maternal grandmother is insane. Having long dismissed her as just another sick mind, we recently learned that when she was five, she acidentally killed her baby sister - a baby sister none of us ever knew she had.

6

This doesn’t come close to the impact of your discovery, but a close friend of mine also found out significant family news in his 20’s and I saw the effect on him so I can somewhat empathize.

My roommate from college was going through some things at his mother’s house and came across some old letters, etc. He found out that his older sister was really his half sister, as his mom had gone back to his father when pregnant.
It seemed like less of a big deal than he made it, but I eventually understood that it was a blow to his identity and belief that he knew his own past, which is a pretty important part of your psyche.

Like I said, not on the same level, and it didn’t really affect him, but shows how strange it can be to find out things aren’t what you always thought.

7

My grandparents never mentioned that Grandma had been married and widowed before she met Grandfather. When the secret finally came out, I asked Grandfather why he’d never told us - and he said “Because you didn’t ask”.

Apparently Grandma married a very nice man some years older than herself, and he died suddenly before they had children. He was supposed to be in hospital for a minor operation or something. She then met and married Grandfather. When he proposed to her, he added the condition that she never mention her first husband, and she agreed. She stuck to it as well - in 50 years of marriage, she only mentioned it once, and that was to her daughter when she was nearly sick with worry about a relative’s husband who was going through the same operation. I asked Grandfather why he made her promise that, and he said he didn’t want to be second best. He was proud that she’d kept her word.

Nothing like what you’re going through, but family keeps some odd secrets at times.

8

A great novel dealing with this topic is Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis. Of course, it was written several decades ago, so the attitudes expressed in the book are very different from what’s acceptable today. A must-read, in my opinion.

Okay, brief synopsis/teaser: A middle-class suburban white man on the rise in his firm is told one day by his father that they are really the “lost heirs” of England, as they were descended from Katherine of Aragon (as if!). The man does some digging into their ancestry and finds out something his grandparents really, really don’t want him to find out.

9

My story isn’t near the level of Gravity’s, but I thought I’d share:

I was given a packet that contained my dad’s family history. It shows the lineage of our family going back to Germany, 1700 in a sort of flow chart diagram. Sometimes there were some codes in some people’s boxes that indicated certain things, like if one daughter became a Nun, or stuff like that. Part of the family emmegrated to America very early on and the other part stayed in Germany. I noticed on the American branch there was an ancestor that had died in 1943 and a code by his name indicating he died in military service. On the German branch there was also an ancestor that died in 1943 who also showed the same code. I found it fascinating that in my family, I had ancestors that very likely fought for both sides in WWII.

10

My contribution is nowhere near the scale of the OP or some of the others mentioned here, but it still felt really weird all the same - when I was 15, my dad told me he’d been married before. No new siblings for me, or anything, but it still felt odd that he’d had such a “big” secret from me. To this day, I don’t even know if my mom knows that I know.

11

A lot of my family was killed in the Holocaust, which I always knew. My grandfather always said he didn’t know what had happened to his parents, he said he had lost contact with them (they were still in Germany, he had gotten out). The conclusion was obvious.

A year before he died, he mentioned that, actually, he had gotten a letter from a friend, saying that they had been put on a particular train on a particular date. He had researched this train. It was, of course, going to a camp. It had gotten stuck (partially derailed). So they set fire to the whole thing, people inside.

That makes it a little more personal, doesn’t it?

But I can see why he didn’t want to say that to his children, especially when they were young.

miscievous

12

Among the interesting things my grandfather did were have sex with a maid who worked for his mother . . . while he was engaged, I believe. She had a child, and though I really admire his steadfastness (for the most part) in paying child support, he never admitted to any of his other children that he had another son. From what I know this child got a check every month (which is basically how we know about him) and that’s about it. No family recognition.

In hindsight, though, perhaps that’s a good thing, given the royal treatment my father and his siblings got from their father and maternal grandmother. As messed up as my Uncle Paul is now, I shudder to think what might have happened to him if he’d been molested/abused by those two.

There’s more to the story, of course . . . like all the things that came out after my grandfather’s death, which my grandmother steadfastly denied, of course. :rolleyes:

13

Yeah, weird stuff like that cropped up when my dad started researching our genealogy. Growing up, Dad knew that he had a couple of uncles and an aunt on his mother’s side.

Well, it turned out that he had 16 aunts and uncles on his mother’s side. Old g’grandfather Isaac married a total of four times, and there’s a picture of him with a grey beard down to his waist and a two year old son on his lap. Man, but that guy must have been spry.

Apparently, when grandma married grandpa, it was against the wishes of her eldest brother. He cut her off from the rest of the family and only three siblings out of sixteen had the guts to continue talking to her. She never again mentioned the others.

Fairly sad when you think about it, but the happy thing is that we now have cousins coming out of our ears.

14

My family’s weird like that, too.

I pretty much know the history of the maternal side of my family, but I will be forever confounded about the paternal side. My grandmother’s history is pretty simple… her family couldn’t really afford to keep her during the Depression, and sent her to live with relatives that lived in a town (as opposed to a rural area), to go to school and such.

My grandfather on that side is where the mystery comes from. We didn’t know until his funeral that he was married before my grandmother (and I still don’t knowt he story behind that). And there’s some question to whether my family’s last name is correct, or if it was adopted after my great-grandfather deserted the family. My great-grandmother evidently had addiction issues (the 30’s, I guess), and was addicted to morphine. She killed herself by drinking turpentine. It really makes me wonder what we don’t know, yet. It doesn’t change the past or future, but it does give us insight into our family.

15

Some more examples not on par with the OP-- but considering how these have shaken my family up at various times, Gravity, I can only imagine how you feel. In our case, some of the stuff we’ve learned explains a lot about the rampant psychological problems on my mom’s side of the family. (Not that my dad’s side is overflowing with normalcy, it’s just that they talk even less than mom’s side!)

My maternal grandmother’s mother was forced to marry my great-grandfather; she was in love with another man closer to her own age but her sisters, concerned for her financial well-being, told her she’d be deported (they were Czech) if she didn’t marry great-granddad. This part, we knew for years.

What we only found out recently is that Great-Granddad may well have been something of a monster. Rumor has it that he murdered one of his own small children for crying too loud; no one seems to be able to confirm or categorically deny this. Another sibling was supposed to have fallen off the chicken coup, sustaining brain damage he never really recovered from, but in the last few years relatives have hinted that it wasn’t a fall, it was a beating. GGD was killed on the job at a brick yard; someone “accidentally” dumped a load of bricks on his head-- it was probably not an accident.

My grandmother’s first fiance died shortly before they were to be married, and his family didn’t tell her. She found out by going past his house and seeing all the hubbub. There has got to be more to this story than she ever let on, but… she won’t let on.

16

Gravity, I feel for you and your shock of discovery.
It’s hard to imagine why something like this was kept hidden because in our society today, we are so forthcoming.

I had an older brother that was 18 years older than me. When I was an infant, he went of to Vietnam. Came home - like many - totally screwed up. Apparently, (this is the vague part) he decided to marry the first girl he slept with ( or got her pregnant ( I still have no clue)

My parents and grandparents were outraged (good catholics and all) and said brother cut all ties to the family for years. Married, had two children - about two years younger than me - and never amounted to anything. (He was considered a genius by everyone who ever talked about him.)

I grew up only knowing him from the phone calls home asking for money ( he lived maybe two hours away.) Worked dead end jobs -grocery boy, car wash towel guy, gas station, etc- lived on welfare. By the time I was a teen, if he called, I would hang up on him because I was very sick and tired of him sponging off my widowed mother who could not say no to her eldest child. By the time I was 20, I started telling him off. I mean, at what point do you grow up and be accountable for your life and your mistakes?

Last time I saw him was 1984 at our Grandmother’s funeral. Looked like he fell into the Salvation Army’s too crappy to sell clothing bin. I was 15. After paying his respects, he did as I expected, tried to schmooze the shit out of my mother, spend the night and get some money. I had a class A temper tantrum - but dignified (it was through clenched teeth) - and he bailed.

In 1996 he died. Did not affect me at all. I had to attend the funeral, which really ticked me off, but I went for mom.

(At the get together with my late brother’s friends and family, I said hello to my neices - and after murmuring the appropriate “sorry about your dad” things, I told them flat out that they were welcome any time to visit or call their Grandmother ( my mom) but the money stopped when their father died and if I even heard of them asking for a dollar, I would make sure they never had contact with my mother again by changing her phone number, etc. Yeah, it was harsh, but my Aunt (mom’s sister) who is the picture of patience and kindness, had planned to take these girls aside and tell them the very same thing. Mom, to date, has received one letter - which if you looked at the handwriting, would swear it was written by someone who was either in 2nd grade or had suffered a massive head injury, it was so poor written for someone in their mid twenties.)

Afterwards, my mom’s cousins had a get together - our own private irish wake - and I asked the burning question,
“What was the deal with Jimmy (my brother) and getting married and why all the fuss?”

“His wife’s family pressured her to sleep with him because they thought we were loaded.”

This just about made my jaw hit the floor. Apparently, my late brother’s wife family knew my mom’s family as kids. Because my grandfather always worked and always had food on the table and never lost the house during the depression, someone figured erroneously that our family was rich.

Ha, that is too laugh. A rich catholic widow with kids. Snort.

"Why wasn’t I told this? "

“You weren’t old enough to understand and you are a bit of a hothead.”

Bah.

I’ve got other hush hush stories that I’ve supressed, but won’t bore you with.

I read in Smithsonian magazine a couple years back a (white)woman’s quest to find her family tree. Imagine her surprise when she discovered her grandmother was ( a light skinned) black and attended an all girl (white) college. Scandalous!

17

When my great-grandfather emmigrated from Ireland, he brought his wife, as is customary. They had three children, she dies in childbirth, he goes back to Ireland, marries her sister and brings the sister back to the states to raise the kiddies. Or so the story goes.

Recent discoveries state that he SENT the kiddies over to the old country, while continueing to work and stuff here. Then he went back over to Ireland, where my great-great-aunt (Nora) was born. Here’s the kicker: we can’t find a marriage certificate or any indication that great-grandpa actually MARRIED his wife’s sister before having a child!

Keep in mind, my dad went to perocial school. This is one HELLACatholic family. Nora is still alive, but won’t talk about it. My dad gently tried to find out about her childhood, and if she remembered anything about Ireland,but to no avail. This theory was developed about five years ago, when my aunt made peace with Nora’s clan over some squabble about Nora not liking my grandmother or something.

Then there’s my mom’s side. But that’s a whole other story. Irish families are fun.

18

I haven’t seen anyone bring this up but for some of you I think this applies. You do not have a right to know about the details of your ancestors’ private lives. If they share it with you, be grateful, be supportive and understanding. You really should not say “You should have told me this!” because, well, they don’t owe it to you. My grandfather, who I called Nunno, was always ashamed of the fact that the army rejected him on medical grounds when he tried to enlist during WW2. He never spoke of it and I found out from my mother and never brought it up but according to her, he felt shame about that til the day he died. He had 4 brothers adn they all served. 1 of those brothers won the congressional medal of honor. That brother never mentioned it and no one found out until after he died and his family was going through his personal artifacts. If Nunno knew about that, I’ll bet that would have just made him feel worse about himself.
I found out other things about Nunno that make me proud of him, some of those things I only found out after his death but I don’t feel like he should have told me about them. It’s his business if he spent his free time being a good samaritan or invented the thing that picks up and sets bowling pins but sold the rights to a firm because my grandmother didn’t want to have to move out of her town. I’m glad to know but I feel priviledged (sp?), not like I deserved to know or had any right. Well this went on long enough and probably turned into more of a rant than I intended. I don’t mean it that way, just wanted to express another pov.

19

You’re right, they don’t owe us anything. However, I think it’s a natural curiosity to want to know the story of our families, and it helps us see our relatives as people. I think I saw my grandfather as sort of one dimensional, growing up. During my lifetime he was plagued by heart troubles, and I knew very little of what he was outside of that realm. Knowing his past has helped me see him as how he might have been as a young person, not just an old man. No one owes me this knowledge, but it helps me understand what my family has been through, and how we came to be who we are. Someday, I want my successors to know who I was as a person, not just as their old crazy aunt with all the pets (Don’t I paint a bright future for myself? :slight_smile: )

20

I am kinda curious about that stuff in my families history… most of what I know has been put together from what my mom, dad or other relatives let slip. I don’t know much though. Maybe I should ask Grandpa… he was working on a family tree for Dad’s side… and I just wonder about the stories on my Mom’s side… all I know is we’ve traced back as far as 1801 in Nova Scotia when we first came over to be servants to royalty (as near as I’ve been told).

One interesting tidbit I learned from Mom is that BOTH Dad and Mom were engaged to other people before they were broken off and they met each other later. Mom even mentions something about still having the necklace her first fiance gave her. I don’t know about the ring.