Post 6.3.0.0 Dirt for the Family Tree

Family oddities and child support

In his late teens or early twenties, my uncle L got two 'girls' pregnant at the same time. My sole source of information on this is my father (mother was in the room, but I mostly remember her as doing the verbal equivalent of nodding along) and the anomalous entry on grandma's page of cousin L's genealogy.

The entry showed a daughter for uncle L and J, and a date of marriage. I only knew about my cousin R, the son of uncle L and J, who I had assumed were divorced. Dad explained the double yolk event and that L had been pressured to marry the girl who was the daughter of one of grandma's friends, rather than the one he actually liked. (gunny sacked resentment against grandma)

After drama, there had been a divorce and child support and visitation. Then baby mama had remarried and grandma advised him that if he wanted to stop paying child support, he should be sure to always go to their house to pick her up and to flirt with her mom, in front of the new husband, while he was there. This would inspire new husband to want to adopt the daughter, disqualifying her for further child support and visitation.

Dad was disappointed that his mother would advise this. He was also disappointed that his brother went for it. You could tell by the way he told the story that he couldn't decide whether L was weak for being influenced in a bad way or if he was negligent and uncaring for liking the idea.

Sadly, it worked exactly as described. So my sisters and I had a cousin that we never saw and that no one ever talked about. Of course, grandma had some sort of ongoing connection.

The whole thing would never have come up if she hadn't tried to shoehorn this cousin into the list. Dad always thought that if L had married J, they would have made a go of it. He was also sure that L only dated baby mama because grandma's friends daughter couldn't find someone to date and was feeling bad. If the older women had stayed out of it, there wouldn't have been a second pregnancy.

Possibly this all occurred just before L shipped out and the big event and subsequent marriage ended his time in the service, which dad had hoped would distance L from their mother and make a man of him.

post 6.2.0.0 She Had Him Committed

She had him committed.

'she' is uncle Chris's third wife. There was an undercurrent of disapproval when his sisters discussed it, as if having a third wife was a sign, right there, that he was not showing good judgement in the ordering of his life. As a child I just accepted the disapproval. It fit in with my dad's disapproval of Chris, so it was familiar.

Later, it dawned on me that one of the disapproves had been married three times, the third marriage being a bad enough idea that it could be annulled. And she had been bad enough at being married that she had gone on to just live with a series of at least two men instead of marrying. That last in the fifties when that sort of thing just wasn't done.

Very later, I learned that both of the disapproving sisters were pregnant when they first married. Or maybe didn't marry, in the case of Aunt M. (Not Great Aunt M - she was sensitive about her age, too, and just aunt was simpler.) Just recently, I learned that grandma had an ongoing thing for servicemen.

But back to uncle Chris's third wife. She was a Mormon, which was an excuse to disapprove, right there. That was the expected thing in those times. That was one thing to disapprove of.

He converted to make her happy. Or she demanded that he convert. Or something. That was another thing to disapprove of. The idea being that you were supposed to be dedicated to your brand of religion and switching was a sign that you didn't show proper reverence or devotion, or that you could be led by your pecker or were pussy whipped, although they didn't actually say the last two out loud, at least not with me around.

A third point of complaint was that he kept asking for genealogy information. I'm not sure if the main reason that was offensive was that it would go to the Mormon genealogy files, when they weren't Mormon; or if he was presuming to ask for the information when they weren't talking to him; or if he was demanding the information instead of asking nicely; or if he asked and then started nagging when it didn't come fast enough; or some combination of the above.

I don't remember any complaints about the Mormons baptizing dead ancestors in absentia, but that could just mean that the small child that I was at the time didn't understand the concept enough to take it in. It's not like I was paying particular attention to the disapproval of arguing or commiserating adults around me. They were always disapproving about something.

But back to the third wife.

After he converted for her, and after he annoyed his relatives for her, and after (insert trombone sound to represent the speech of adults a la peanuts), she went and had him committed in a mental asylum and divorced him while he was in it. I remember a certain smugness which seemed to imply that someone from the abused family that he had turned his back on had had to get him sprung. Not that I remember specifics. I couldn't even tell you third wife's name.

Of, course, by the time they were discussing this around me, he had been sprung and divorced for a long time and they only referred to her as Chris's third wife. I'm pretty sure they didn't remember her name by then.

Post 6.0.0.0 Beware of People Filling in Your Family Tree

Uncle Chris

I'm reading an article on why Romney's Mormonism should be taken into account when deciding whether or not to vote for him.  The article, by Nathan Nebeker, contributor to the Business Insider's political blog, says:  " . . . public knowledge of Mormonism is limited to some superficial cultural impressions, with an underlying feeling of vague suspicion.

My mind being an associative jumping monkey, I immediately think of my own family's suspicions regarding Mormonism and then I think of Uncle Chris.  The monkey keeps jumping to Grandma L and her sisters, my Great Aunts, and their closed ranks around 'don't tell Uncle Chris' when I started asking questions about my family for a high school biology assignment.  (Further monkey jumps:  the birthday card, the sewing machine, she had him committed, an image of Grandma's dining room, and 'damn, they're almost all dead now.)

The assignment was to trace three heritable traits through three generations.  I think I had eye color, hair color, and something else - maybe height.  But Grandma pulled out a genealogy that a second or third cousin had researched.  She had sent Grandma a copy because she had been so helpful and supportive. And Grandma was relative proud and jumped at the chance to talk about them, about her mother especially.  That was OK.  I was happy to overdo assignments.

The cousin lived in Iowa and we all lived in southern California.  With Grandma helping out with information about her (Grandma's) mother and other relatives of that generation, and offering to do the leg work to get the basics on everyone in California, Cousin got enough information about us collaterals to keep her from asking anyone else and maybe finding out a few things about Grandma and her kids and grandkids that she didn't want the relatives back in Iowa to know. 

I had to ask my parents about a couple of things and found out about a couple of folks no longer in contact with anyone (except maybe Grandma - she had an odd penchant for finding excuses to keep contacts with people secret from each other) due to divorce, annulment, non-payment of child support, and such. 

Oddly, if she'd just left those people out of the charts, instead of trying to shoehorn them in where they obviously didn't belong, I'd never have asked what the heck was going on.  Grandma had a habit of being clever like that, and of telling us about her being clever.  (His big feet will step on your toys - microwaving the book - they're pin-on curls - it was my sewing machine, he was just making a few payments on it because they were borrowing it)  She never seemed to consider that bragging about the effective lie she thought of telling to get her way could possibly cause anyone to perhaps not take the advice and information she was always promoting as gospel. 

The genealogy was the first experience with her misinformation that stood out in my mind.  After that, I noticed when she did it, noticed it as deliberate misinformation instead of, say, an odd way of thinking or a bad idea or a quick urge that shouldn't have been followed immediately, but thought over some more.  She did have an established MO of providing bad information, and different bad information to different people.  She did think it was clever.  She approved of it.  She bragged about it when she thought it went well.  What a clever girl. 

She bragged/declaimed about how accurate her gut feelings were and how she had learned not to discount her impulses.  She saw her whims as mystic revelations from the future.  But the lesson of follow your urge was supported by one single story, and that was a case of either mother's intuition (which is not mystic, nor from the future) or a simple coincidence.  From that, all her urges became sacred.  Her urges forestalled danger and should be acknowledged and appreciated for the gift that they were instead of dismissed or opposed or mislabeled as meddling or manipulation.

 - She and her sisters had a habit of declaiming in competition with each other

- arguments about family favorites. 

- gossiping just like a grown up

 - Uncle Lonny and laying on of hands

 - how old were we when Uncle Lonny had his accident?  Cause Mom said that they stopped drinking after that.  And if they were drinking, maybe Dad had more than an emotional and convenience reason to keep us sequestered from them. 

727 words  plus about 1100 last night.  That puts me over the daily quota.