Roots
I would really hate to think that I'm running out of things to write about. That's impossible! It may well be true.
There comes a time in everyone's life when we go searching for roots. Yeah, I'm talking genealogy, here. Roots...where we came from and what keeps us anchored. This is actually the biggest puzzle possible since the pieces are real people. At least, they were.
Writing can help us establish roots. Maybe the characters we write about are people that we know. The names have been changed, of course, to protect the innocent. Maybe our characters are people we would like to know. In this case, it is a little of both.
My father was born in Calhoun County, West Virginia. The city was Grantsville. He doesn't remember all that much about West Virginia, but he can tell you about the two-room school house and moving from the one house to another. Of course, everything seemed large back then. He was, of course, small at the time. He remembers a man in a pick up truck. We believe this is his only memory of his father.
At the age of 6, my father came to Ohio with his family minus his father. He has two brothers and one sister. To the best of our knowledge, his father has been dead for years. When my grandmother remarried in 1959, her fiance made it known that her husband was dead. This could actually mean any number of things.
Back in 1930, cities and counties weren't all that great with their record keeping. The census was done April 1, 1930. It was probably performed by door-to-door census-takers. It was completed by hand, too. In April 1930, my grandmother would have been 19 and my uncle would have been one month old. We have been unable to find a record in the census of either. Presuming that my grandmother actually married the father of her children, we should find a family of three; we don't have a record of the marriage either.
My grandmother died in 1993. What information we have on my grandfather, we got from her. We believe others in the family may have knowledge that we don't possess, but they are protecting her memory. At this point, it wouldn't make a huge difference whether she was married or not. In today's age, more and more families are not of the traditional nature.
I often wonder, though, if they were married and after being missing for so many years, he might have been declared dead for legal purposes. We really have no way of knowing since those players are long gone. Grandma's second "husband" died shortly before she did. It is entirely possible that he had the man investigated, but he never shared the specifics. At least, he didn't share them with us.
My grandmother spent her last months with her family. For years, she and Max (her husband since 1959) were in Florida and then California, but when Max was ready to die, he brought his wife home. He knew her family would take care of her. He had been on dialysis and decided he'd had enough. I'll never forget some of his stories, though. We'll save those for another time.
Grandma lived with her youngest son after Max died. She had Parkinson's disease. I'm not sure if this is when the confession was made, but she told my uncle that the well-remembered family "friend" was actually his father. This "friend" passed away a few years back, but my father even remembered him.
So, my grandfather, who is listed as the father of all of grandma's children, may be a figment of someone's imagination. In the genealogy world, they call this a brick wall. In my world, I just wonder...
There comes a time in everyone's life when we go searching for roots. Yeah, I'm talking genealogy, here. Roots...where we came from and what keeps us anchored. This is actually the biggest puzzle possible since the pieces are real people. At least, they were.
Writing can help us establish roots. Maybe the characters we write about are people that we know. The names have been changed, of course, to protect the innocent. Maybe our characters are people we would like to know. In this case, it is a little of both.
My father was born in Calhoun County, West Virginia. The city was Grantsville. He doesn't remember all that much about West Virginia, but he can tell you about the two-room school house and moving from the one house to another. Of course, everything seemed large back then. He was, of course, small at the time. He remembers a man in a pick up truck. We believe this is his only memory of his father.
At the age of 6, my father came to Ohio with his family minus his father. He has two brothers and one sister. To the best of our knowledge, his father has been dead for years. When my grandmother remarried in 1959, her fiance made it known that her husband was dead. This could actually mean any number of things.
Back in 1930, cities and counties weren't all that great with their record keeping. The census was done April 1, 1930. It was probably performed by door-to-door census-takers. It was completed by hand, too. In April 1930, my grandmother would have been 19 and my uncle would have been one month old. We have been unable to find a record in the census of either. Presuming that my grandmother actually married the father of her children, we should find a family of three; we don't have a record of the marriage either.
My grandmother died in 1993. What information we have on my grandfather, we got from her. We believe others in the family may have knowledge that we don't possess, but they are protecting her memory. At this point, it wouldn't make a huge difference whether she was married or not. In today's age, more and more families are not of the traditional nature.
I often wonder, though, if they were married and after being missing for so many years, he might have been declared dead for legal purposes. We really have no way of knowing since those players are long gone. Grandma's second "husband" died shortly before she did. It is entirely possible that he had the man investigated, but he never shared the specifics. At least, he didn't share them with us.
My grandmother spent her last months with her family. For years, she and Max (her husband since 1959) were in Florida and then California, but when Max was ready to die, he brought his wife home. He knew her family would take care of her. He had been on dialysis and decided he'd had enough. I'll never forget some of his stories, though. We'll save those for another time.
Grandma lived with her youngest son after Max died. She had Parkinson's disease. I'm not sure if this is when the confession was made, but she told my uncle that the well-remembered family "friend" was actually his father. This "friend" passed away a few years back, but my father even remembered him.
So, my grandfather, who is listed as the father of all of grandma's children, may be a figment of someone's imagination. In the genealogy world, they call this a brick wall. In my world, I just wonder...
posted by Vickie at 9:43 PM
2 Comments:
what an interesting family mystery V. I mean, frustrating I'm sure for the geneology search, but what an interesting tidbit to mull over eh?
you can only imagine. I have been able to build quite extensive branches on 3 of my 4 grandparents. That 4th branch is merely a nub. Funny, too, I only knew one out of four and that was the grandmother we've been trying to locate in the 1930s. If we had more information about him, her whereabouts wouldn't be as important.
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