Tuesday, November 17, 2009
As many long-time readers know, I am an expert genealogist. I have done extensive research on my own family, on the families of friends (Jimbo is a distant cousin), and on the families living here in Tucson.
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I have written histories for my ancestral families, and recently an aunt asked me for a copy of my father's family. Well, she ended up telling my sister that I had hurt her feelings because I did not whitewash things enough.
My evil grandmother was married twice. She divorced her first husband, the father of my father and aunt, and married her hired hand. He was a younger, pliable man from a poor background. She was able to control him, and as a result she was able to get away with the nastiest fucking shit imaginable. The version of the history I sent my aunt was very sanitized, but I did note that the evil-fucking-bitch-from-hell had married the "hired hand." My aunt and now my sister would prefer that I excise the first husband, my biological grandfather, pretend he didn't exist. He certainly wasn't a perfect man, but he tried his best to remain in my father and aunt's lives, but was unable to do so because of EFBFH Grandma.
In addition, my sister keeps saying, "EFBFH Grandma wasn't really that bad!" Right... From 1973 until her death in 1989 I never saw her in person, even though she lived a few houses away from my nice grandmother. I was one of her evil grandchildren, at age 10 I was so evil she couldn't see me or send a card. I did not exist. Perhaps that was just as well. She ruined every person she touched.
So anyways, not going to sanitize things any more. Not going to feel bad about hurting the feelings of assorted relatives. If EFBFH grandmother wanted to be remembered as a nice person, she should have been nice. Isn't that easy?
I don't have many photographs of EFBFH, and perhaps that is just as well. In contrast, I do have lots of photographs on my mother's side. Here's one below:
Back row: Francis, John, Emma, Ebenezer, Leland, Colonel, and Harrison.
Front row: Perry, Elijah, Charles, Edna, and Ada.
Not that these people were saints. In the photo you can spot a child molester, the parent of an illegitimate child, someone who abandoned their family for months at a time, and so on. They were a very well-respected family.