My mother’s parents eloped to Elkton MD, and my Mom was born 7 months later … I didn’t figure that one out until I was a teen. 
Several years ago, when my Mom was first diagnosed with the cancer that would take her in a few months, she revealed that both she and my Dad had electroshock therapy back in the early 60s. :eek: I knew that they had been treated by therapists, but I never knew about the electroshock therapy–that was a … shock. 
Apparently, it was done quite frequently then.
Its best not to assume that family members who do not look alike are not “blood” related in the tradition sense because, occasionally, the gene pool throws a curve ball.
Here is a picture of my family. On the left is my nephew (the little boy), my brother (far left, in black) and my nephew’s mother (also my brother’s ex-girlfriend and my best friend, its a long story. Anyway, she next to my brother in green.) Everyone who sees my nephew thinks he’s asian, but his parents are very Northern European. He is my brother child, there was a paternity test. (Sigh, another long story.)
Where did this phenotype come from? Beats me. My best guess is that my nephew inherited his paternal grandfather’s (my father’s) olive skin.
It turns out one of my ancestors was one of the Hessians captured by Washington after the crossing of the Delaware. He was later released in a prisoner exchange and wound up settling in North Carolina. That one surprised the hell out of me.
His grandson knocked up my great-great grandmother (unmarried) before joining the Confederate army and getting killed at Antietam. My great-grandmother was the result of this union, and was a toddler when Sherman’s army came through these parts.
My maternal grandfather was one of the pioneers of electroshock therapy.
Posting under my real name I will skip my parents, but there are a few things about my grandparents.
The first one is very German. My grandmother had never hidden the fact that she was in the BDM (Hitler Youth for girls.) In her photo album there were pictures of her in uniform. I never thought too much about that. Embarassingly late I thought of her birth date and did the math. She was slightly but clearly too old for the regular service. Something didn’t add up. It turns out that before her training as an occupational councelor she worked there. In her late teens and early twenties she was a district leader in charge of 20 000 girls. :eek:
My (other) grandfather OTOH surprises me most when he shows me what I don’t know about him. Besides himself and my grandmother nobody seems to know much about his life between the end of the war and their marriage in the fifties. e.g. when I talked about the city where I go to university his reply was: “Oh, I lived there for a while when I worked for Count XY. I won a lot of money in the casino.” That was the first time I heard about any of this.
Other bits and pieces that I found out recently include that I am 1/8 Huguenot or that my great-grandfather returned from WWI as a vocal atheist pacifist - that didn’t go down too well in the Third Reich.
I am ashamed to admit that it took me until after high school to calculate that there are only six months between my August birthday and my parents’ February anniversary.
Driving home from college my freshman year, my Chicago-raised mom told me for the first time that the reason she ended up in Akron (where I was born). After passing her sophomore year at Southern Illinois U. by the skin of her teeth, she decided to drop out. Then, a week before school was to start she changed her mind, but after she dropped out, Southern took her off the rolls. But her cousin Lynn worked in Akron U’s admissions office and got my mom added to the list of incoming transfers, probably improperly. So she ended up in Akron.
Of me, my parents, and my sister, I’m the only one who managed to get my bachelor’s degree in four years at a single school.
–Cliffy
I found out a bunch of weird stuff back when I was in high school:
Well, I’ve got two secret stepbrothers, one from each side of my family. On my dad’s side he’s in his forties because my dad, well, knocked up his girlfriend in their teens, I guess. I met him once and he creeped me out. On my mom’s side I think he might be in his thirties. He’d been sent to an orphanage and no one seems to know what happened to him. One day I’ll hire a private inspector or something.
My dad also wanted me to be aborted. :eek: But my mom didn’t do it.
It was also weird to find out that my mom had just made up her first name when she came to the States. I understand a lot of people from Asian countries (or with weird names in general, probably) do this, but her real name is pretty common and easy to pronounce. She was trying to be very American.
Also, I think my paternal grandfather may have died of electrocution, but I’m not sure if my dad was pulling my leg when he told me.
Family legend is Great Grandfather Goob came to America from Poland because he killed a man.
Keeping to the OP, a secret I learned about Mom and Dad after cleaning out the house after Dad died was the chest of B&D stuff in the bedroom closet. EEEEWWWWWWWW!
My Dad has dropped a couple suprises from time to time.
My Dad is an extremely smart guy. He also never really talked about work when I was growing up. He is a very modest guy*. He has a PHD in math and did nuclear reactor saftey research for a living.
My parents came out to visit me when I was living in Virginia and we went to the Simthsonian. While walking through an exhibit on Three Mile Island he mentioned that he was asked to head the clean up of TMI but turned it down. He said it was the best career decision he ever made. I knew he was well respected in his field and pretty high up but I had no idea that he was that high up. A little while later he told me that the Vice President called our house. I answered the phone and spoke to his secretary. Apparently when TMI happened the VP called because he wanted my Dad to get out to TMI as soon as possible. I was nine at the time and don’t really remember.
Another time he mentioned that he had known Richard Feynman and that Dick, my Dads best friend, worked with Feynman for a while.
When I was about 18 I asked my Dad about a little rocket model he had on one of his shelves. I had seen this thing thousands of times but never thought to ask about it. It turns out that he recieved the model because he worked on the design of the rocket before he started doing nuclear research.
Slee
I was pretty shocked when I learned that my father had once had a serious romance with a woman who later became a co-worker and friend of mine. I was even more shocked to learn from my dad that this matronly, dignified lady, when she was in college, had gone by the nickname “Tits ‘n’ Diamonds” because she liked to wear rhinestone brooches and tight sweaters. And my state of shock reached a peak when dad rummaged around in a drawer and came out with some nekkid photos that he’d taken of the woman in question. I never told my co-worker about any of this. Figured she was better off not knowing that those pictures were still out there.
Well, they’re not REALLY out there until you post them here, are they?
When my dad died, we found his marriage certificate in his bedroom drawer.
From a previous marriage.
That none of us had known about.
Which lasted about two years.
To a woman whose age was listed as 34.
When his age was listed as 19.
Not a peep from him, though, and I’ll bet there was an interesting story there, too.
I was an adult when I learned that my mother had been married to someone else before my father. Her first husband had been a ball-turret gunner in a bomber during World War II and his plane was lost at sea during a training accident.
My mom had dated my father briefly before she got engaged to this other guy, and then started seeing him again after she was widowed. Her first husband was apparently quite a catch – good family, Catholic, in medical school before he quit to join the service. My father, by contrast, was a Protestant from a tiny town in Oklahoma – what a let-down it must have been for my grandmother!
But my parents have been happily married for 60 years now.
Ask her! I don’t know how old your mom is, but mine’s gone, and it seems like every day something comes up that I want to ask her about.
My dad (who I never knew) died in April, in California. Long story short, I ended up talking with his old boss. After my dad retired, he worked part-time as a receptionist at a women’s prison. He was a soft touch, and sent money regularly to one woman after she was released. Basically impoverished himself, helping this woman out.
I expect there are a lot of things I didn’t know about my mom, dad, and stepdad. For one thing, when my stepdad came to the US from England in the late 40’s, he changed his entire name. I’ve always wondered why he did that. What’s wrong with Benjamin? He would have been Benny Hill, but Benny Hill wasn’t around in the 40’s.
I was snooping in mom’s stuff one day and found a pornographic book, with photos, and one of the women looked a lot like mom. I never had the guts to ask her.
My dad died when I was 14, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him about his father, who died when I was 1.
But I googled my grandfather’s name, and found pictures of the gravesites of his first wife and daughter. They died during a flu epidemic in Texas in the early 30’s.
I knew he had been married before, and apparently he was an ornery cuss during my father’s life. Now I can understand why, and also why dad didn’t really care to spend too much time with any members of his family. But I found it sobering (to say the least) to come across the gravesite of a relative of mine, with my last name, who died at the age of three, the same age my son was.
I may have mentioned this before…but I’ll do it again.
'Bout a year ago, my husband and I took my Dad out to dinner. Dad drops the bomb on me that I have a half sister somewhere on the east coast by a woman who didn’t want to marry my dad when they were young. I think he expected me to go find this person, but I haven’t. On one hand, I’m a little weirded out by it, and on the other, it’s really no big deal to have a random person in the world for a relative.
My full sister and my mother do not know about this. Which probably contributes to the weird feeling.
Dear me, if that’s any indication of how desperate they’ve become for new members…
Hmm…kinda puts your Mom not liking water in perspective, eh Chefguy ? 
