That's the crazy thing. It's like my aunt is making the same mistakes all over again. She tried to keep Cory a secret and of course she found and now trying to do the same with this. I just don't get the logic.

Oh, Lord...

My grandmother (mother's side) kept her share of secrets too, and when my sister and I found out what they were, we were just baffled as to why these things needed to be secrets at all.

Her FIRST big secret was that the man we always believed to be our grandfather was actually her second husband. She wouldn't say what happened to the first husband, our mother's biological father. Her only comment to my father was that he, our grandfather, had been "kicked in the head by a mule." We didn't know if that meant he'd literally been kicked in the head, and had died, or that he was stubborn, and the marriage had ended. My grandmother wouldn't elaborate.

Mind you, my sister and I absolutely adored the man we had always known as our grandfather ("Papa"), so we didn't particularly care, but it just seemed to be odd to make such a huge deal about it.

Her SECOND big secret was that our mother wasn't the only child we always thought she was; there was a baby brother who apparently died in infancy. THIS secret my sister and I didn't find out about until our grandmother was well up into her nineties, and near death! One of her younger sisters spilled the beans.

WHY in the world was THIS such a deep secret? People lost children all the time back in those days.

There are lots of ins and outs to both of these stories, but I won't bore everyone with them. However, after Papa died, and after my grandmother died, and after my sister died, and after the internet began to bulge with family research information (and other stuff), I decided to try to track down what might have happened to my biological grandfather. I still don't know if my mother ever knew or remembered him...

I was finally able to find his name in a 1920 census, but couldn't find any record of him after that. It turns out that he was in a mental hospital, suffering from depression. A cousin of mine tried to fill in a few gaps for me, although he didn't know much himself, and what he did know was speculation. Apparently, my grandfather had been a rural mail carrier (by mule -- hence my grandmother's colorful analogy, I guess), and during the period of time when he was delivering mail, there was a terrible flood in that area of Tennessee that's very well documented. My cousin believed that a number of families my grandfather had come to know through delivering their mail had drowned during the flood, and he'd been significantly traumatized by it. This tragedy would have occurred around the time when his infant son also died.

Another of my grandmother's sisters (who might not know much because she was two years younger than my mother!) said that my grandfather had threatened my grandmother during this same period of time, and that this is why she'd left him. However, my cousin says that his father's memories of my grandfather were that he was a very kind, and peaceful sort of man. My cousin's father was my grandmother's brother, so he would have been around when all of this drama was unfolding.

I wrote to the hospital, as my grandfather's sole survivor, to retrieve the records. There wasn't much, but enough for me to know that he had a lot of anxiety, and depression. I presumed that he had died sometime between 1920, and 1930 since I couldn't find him in the 1930 census...

WELL -- not so!!!

A couple of years ago, I was doing some genealogy research, and decided to search my grandfather's name again, since I hadn't done so in a while. This time, my search turned up an obituary -- from 1968; my grandfather had outlived my mother! The information contained in the obituary absolutely astonished me. It turns out that he had remarried and had moved to West Virginia. His second wife was a Hatfield of the famous Hatfield/McCoy feud. Although they weren't able to have children of their own, they adopted a son, and I tracked this son to the midwest -- and telephoned him! I had SO many questions about his father -- my grandfather, and one of the first things he told me was that my grandfather was a wonderful father, and a very kind man. This meant the world to me. He was also kind enough to send me some pictures, one of which blew me away. It was a very old picture of my grandmother, my grandfather, and my toddler mother in front of their house. It's possible that my grandmother was already pregnant with the baby boy who died later.

Now WHY couldn't my grandmother have simply told us that she and my grandfather had been divorced for private reasons, had sadly lost their second child, and then have just gotten on with enjoying her second marriage to Papa? Why the secrets?

Here's the picture, and I can tell you that I absolutely cherish it. I had never seen his face before:




-- Edited by Moore ideas at 13:08, 2008-03-18

The thing about what we call "secrets" I have found is that the older generations just didn't talk about "stuff like that".

It's like pulling teeth to get information!

Even something as simple as a maiden name!!

Yeah -- Branny's right! Secrets always come out sooner or later, and this one is going to be almost impossible to keep anyway! Too many people already know.

Your aunt needs to watch more soaps...

Wow I'm so happy your cousin is ok. I've realized what Tina mentioned about how people just didn't talk about that stuff. My grandma on my dad's side just doesn't bring any of these things up. However if you ask her about them she'll talk about it. My grandpa really took some amazing info wtih him to his grave. I think i'm one of the few people in our family that new that my grandpa unknowingly got caught up in mob wars when he was living in Chicago. It's a crazy and long story. He was running errands for a guy who ended up being involved with the mob. So much more behind it, but I can't remember everything and I'd hate to screw things upl. I think he found out later when the St. Valentine's massacre went down.

He then was caught up in the coal wars here in town. Actually almost everyone in this town was caught up in it because this is an old mining town. There are houses in my home town that still have bullet holes in them. Our local paper was blown up too. My senior year I elected to say back for Spring break and use the money that would have been for that on a car and other expenses I knew I was going to have. So while I and a few other students who either couldn't afford to go or just didn't want to like me got to spend that whole week goofing off and doing research on our town. We went to the Lincoln Library, interviewed the older people in town, and dug up so much awesome dirt and info.

Now my grandma Pat is a completely different story. This is why I love talking to her and don't mind if she keeps me on the phone for ages at a time. She even informed me of some very crazy taudry dirth on my grandma loudene. All I can say is I didn't know people were that freaky back then. My grandma and grandpa walker are just so prim and proper and have always been involved with the church. My gram had ties to the governmetn that got my dad hired at the state. I just never in a million years would have known she was capable of being like that lol.

So to answer your question Kae, I can not understand at all why she is trying to keep it a secret. She definitely must not know a thing about soaps because she's going to find out it's inevitable. I mean as soon as she opens her myspace she's going to know, because before I knew she wasn't supposed to be told I sent her a message offering her a ride to the funeral. Hoenstly I would still tell her. I just don't keep secrets like this from my family. Not to mention even though the rest of the family shunned Cory (the woman's son) I have always considered him family. Sometimes I hated to admit it, but none the less, he needs someone.

She kept Cory a secret from my cousins and in the end it hurt everyone involved so badly. My cousin Angie had to find out from a friend, same with my cousin Jeremie, and Allison is still kind of oblivious to the whole thing. She knows but doesn't want to bother with it. She really needs to do something or else a lot of hurt, anger, and betrayal is going to be felt.

In the end Jean was really the bigger woman. She was hurt so badly by my uncle and aunt, but never did she hold it against my uncle's other children. She invited them to come over for Christmas to visit Cory and gave them gifts. She was always so nice to me. She even lived behind my mom and me for the longest time. She was able to forgive them and move on as best as she could.

I don't think my aunt will ever move on. I don't know if she will ever actually forgive her and until she does it's goign to be an open wound for the rest of her life.

Moore, my step-mother is having the same problem A few years ago she learned that a relative of hers was a survivor of Auschwitz. Unfortunately that means there isn't much info on that part of her family.

Moore, my mother's father was a very secretive man. No one knows when or how he came to Canada (obviously on a ship). He never had a social insurance number, a drivers licence or a Canadian passport, and all his business was conducted in cash. My mother learned this when she finished business college and went to run the company's books. Some cousins have whispered that hew was "connected", and then, right in the middle of the depression, suddenly he had a booming business. He died when I was only 3, so I have no real memories of him. Same for my grandmother, as they died just months apart.

I don't know how I could ever learn of his first wife's demise in Italy. I know the name of the town outside of Naples, but did they even keep records of that in the early 20th century? My mother, who along with her full siblings, was born here has 3 different government documents all with different years of her birth on them! It wasn't until she had broken her hip a year ago that I learned of her real age! She had been using the youngest year of birth all this time!

Oh, KaeEll, that just FASCINATES me!!! (I just saw your post.) You'd almost have to tie me down to keep me from pursuing this thread if it were my family. I'll bet that you could find out a few bits and pieces, if you were persistent.

Have you even tried to search any of this yet? Does Canada have the equivalent of Ellis Island records?

Ancestry.com has a lot of information, and Cyndislist has a gazillion links to other resources. I joined Ancestry many years ago, and am able to search a lot of records, but I don't know if my "package" includes Canada. England and Ireland -- yes -- publications, US census records, and lots of other stuff, but probably not Canada.

If you want me to sniff around, maybe I can at least point you in the right direction. IF you're interested in doing so, that is...

Sounds like a great family mystery. I wouldn't be able to let it alone...

shellyinphx wrote:

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wow, looks like I missed a lot around here...Long day at work and found out at a follow up from my ct scan last week that my nose is indeed pretty screwed up. Will be having surgery on the 8th of April....You guys all have me seriously intrigued with this whole family stuff.

---

what kind of surgery

Wow hon. Good luck with the surgery and also kind of congrats. Now you know you're on the way to recovery.

Well, you guys inspired me. I started my ancestry.com family tree. Oh my word you guys should have been here. Floyd was changing Aiden just now and almost freaked because he had morning happy if ya catch my drift lol. The look on his face was hilarious, and Aiden just laughed at him and thought it was so funny.

Oh now he's playing shy. so cute!!! Ok I'm done gushing.

I think we ALL here have strange and interesting pasts! Jojo, I had no idea you had ties to Mexico. Cool! But you're right, I doubt that you'd have much luck finding anything more detailed in records.

I'm heading over to my parents now for tea (and to reactivate their cell phone for them) and will pump my mom for some infor on her father so I can begin my search. Now I'm really curious!

my mom did a pretty big family tree type thing many years ago when she was preparing for my grandparents 50th anniversary. I was so young then that I don't recall much. I know my grandmother always talks about having been born a twin but we never knew of one so who knows one way or another. And the most that we learned is that my family has been in America for a few hundred years. So I feel comfortable telling people that I am American. Im a mutt but from quite a ways back.

Kae, the septoplasty is what they do for a deviated septum...I really don't know much about the other two. Don't want to read too much so as not to get too scared.
Here is a website though on the first two: septoplasty and turbinate reduction

The third one is the concha bullosa excision. I don't know much about either but I guess there is some kind of polyp in my nose and they are going to get rid of it.

I am a wee scared but am thrilled at the prospect of being able to breathe

Thanks, I am a little scared because this is the first time since I was a kid having knee surgery that I will actually be under anesthetics. That and the whole my nose is incredibly close to both my brain and my eyes. But I just need to not talk with people who keep asking me if I am scared. For the most part I am pretty detached from it and am not allowing myself to think so much.

Anyways, I will try not to post about nothing but surgery stuff for the next 3 weeks. Im hoping to be able to not think of it so much myself.