When I was 10, I fervently hoped somewhere in the background of all our pious family histories (my family is riddled with do-gooders and deacon elders) there might be an outlaw or two to spice things up. I sincerely believed I might be a throw-back to an otherwise unremarkable family. Being I was the one child in like the entire family who hated church, being good or even particularly Christian, I wanted proof that we had some wild blood somewhere.
Now 20 years later, I’m realizing something: the current family members are the “throw-backs”. We have an entire family of outlaws; and if anything, I’m pretty sure much of current family are outlaws, but they spend so much time hiding it, we’re just not aware of what they’re doing. I can’t even in good conscious call myself the “black sheep” because comparatively, I’m a lamb when held against the others’ exploits.
For years, I would ask the aunts for family tidbits. Women=gossip, right? No, these guys were massive “cover up agents” and if I mentioned so much as the thought of “wouldn’t it be cool to have an outlaw in the family”, I got a half-hour lecture. Apparently I was approaching the wrong sources.
Last Memorial Day, Dad and I walked at Perche Church among the gravemarkers (because that’s the sort of morbid thing my family does), and he caught me up on stories. I was standing next to the marker of John Marshall [my last name], recalling he was the son of Adam Wirth (the one who died in the Confederate war), and was flummoxed by the marker next to him. George.
“Who’s George?”
“Oh, he was one of my uncles.”
“He’s by himself. He didn’t get married?” I mean everyone in my family gets married, usually a couple times.
“Yes. But she left him, so she’s buried somewhere else.”
She left him? Scandal! “Really?” I said. “Why was that?”
“Oh, he was wild. He shot a man and killed him.”
I gaped at my father, who deadpanned this bit of trivia. What? “He didn’t go to jail?”
“No, he got off. Pappy got a lawyer and they were able to get him off.” Dad stared at the stone, nodding. “Come to think of it, it was a cousin who turned George in for the reward, because up til then he was on the lam, then he gave the money to Pappy to pay for the lawyer.”
While I’m still gaping at this—with sudden clear revelation that this is the “relative” that the aunts hinted at but refused to talk about, awesome!—and Dad pointed out another headstone. “This cousin got married the day she had a baby. Nobody knew she was pregnant.” How can that be? I thought that only happened in The Enquirer.
“Oh, come on.”
“No, really. Her mother went and got her sister to help figure out what was wrong, and it was her sister who said, ‘She’s going to have a baby.’ They found the man she’d been with and she got married. She put the day of her wedding on her marker, see; and the baby died that day too…so we could all tell when she had the baby.” Very tragic, but at the same time, proof positive I'm not a throw-back.
Nothing but outlaws in my family.
How about you? Any salacious bits of gossip you’ve discerned over the years? You should hear my dad talk about the teacher who shot one of his students (in a fit of road rage, no less) and got off!
The personal anecdotes of one MsHellion...okay, not so personal, I probably shared them with you the last time we went drinking...but if that's been a while, catch up here. If you want to catch up on my writing anecdotes, you can find me sailing at: HTTP://YOHOWRITERSLIFEFORME.BLOGSPOT.COM
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13 comments:
At least you no longer have to try to explain yourself away as adopted or dropped by aliens.
I'm sure there are a ton of stories about my family that I don't know. And the stuff I've learned in my adult years is enough to make me not want to know anymore. Like I have a female relative that is the result of a three way so there's no way to figure out who her father was. And the two men involved where uncle and nephew. AND that was in 1945!!! Who knew?!
My cousins on my mom's side win the prize for black sheep. My sister and I could never compete. Former strippers, biker chicks, multiple baby daddies, running away from home, running away from husbands, yadda yadda yadda. You see why I'm not willing to keep up with them.
And then there's the cousin that has been in a committed relationship with the same man for over 10 years. He's married, just not to my cousin. Very scandilous!
My family has more than its fair share of service-oriented, righteous-living people--lots of teachers and five generations of preachers on my mother's side and nurses, medical researchers, and psycholgists on my dad's side with a smattering of business-types thrown in. But we also have a handful of scandalous figures: the alcoholic cousin who won a fortune in a poker game and hid it in an Atlanta church but was too drunk to remember which church; the solid-gold engineer married to a pediatrician with the requisite two golden children who turned on, dropped out, and joined a commune out west somewhere; the family beauty of my mother's generation who became a homewrecker; the cousin, like Terri's, who for 25 years has been in a committed relationship with a man married to someone else. But my favorite is from my grandmother's generation, the cousin whose name was whispered, whose possessions were envied, who spent a significant part of her life as mistress to a politician well-known within the state.
I should have known Terri would top me instantly; but Janga, the hidden depths! Love it! And am still giggling over the guy who can't remember what church he hid the money in!
You all have outclassed (or underclassed) me. My grandfather used to drop his glass eye into drinks at parties...does that count?
Maggie - you have to write that into a story. LOL! Classic!
How did I know Janga could never be a black sheep. She's so much glassier than the rest of us broads.
Hellion - never fear. I'm sure there's a stripper in that family somewhere. With your penchant for flashing I'm sure the gene is in the pool somewhere. I'd search the shallow end...
I don't know if I have super scandalous relatives. My mother never tells me anything about them. And my father doesn't talk to his mother and she disowned us. Damn, i feel underclassed.
Di
I just realized I called Janga glassier. LOL!
Prool read, Ter. Proof read.
Janga would be classier of course but y'all knew that.
What a relief! I so much prefer being thought of as "classier" to being labeled "glassier." I couldn't decide if I was more fragile, more transparent, or harder-hearted than the rest of you. LOL!
there's not much fun in my family...
my great aunt was raped and had a child out of wedlock. the child was raised and passed off as her sister.
my great-great-great-etc. grandfather was a train robber, a member of the 'reno gang.' and another of my relatives was a famous civil war general, jesse reno.
but that's about it. lol
Gee, Kayla, how boring.
*insert eye roll here*
My grandma's sister had a child out of wedlock and it he was raised as their brother. He died of cancer shortly after coming back from Vietnam.
My great, great, great, great grandfather got into this country by stowing away on a ship. He was about 12 at the time and when he was caught a few days into the voyage and the captain decided not to throw him overboard which was the punishment at the time for being a stowaway. Instead he gave him a job on the ship and made him work for his passage to the states. It’s a good thing too, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.
On my mom's side of the family we can also trace our ancestry to Abraham Lincoln's step mother. Not quite related but close enough I guess.
As for other rebels in my family, my dad's cousin was cheating on her husband and when he found out he killed her and then himself. I meet them both just two years before it happend. I felt so bad for their kids.
I also have a cousin who is in prision. This time for violeting his parol.
Wow, I didn't think I had that many black sheep in the family until I started to think about it. But I have a huge family so there are bound to be a few.
As you know from yesterday, Hellion, my mother's uncles and cousins were all Nazi soldiers! I don't know how I could have forgotten that...but their alternative was to be conscripted or shot. They were a practical bunch. One of them came back to make wine...really delicious stuff. My American grandfather ( a Mayflower descendent) could have dropped his glass eye into it.
*LOL* Hey, I can be very practical. Most of our ancestors were on the Confederate side of the War of Northern Agression--and technically speaking, that's as bad. After all, while yours were conscripted--mine likely CHOSE to be Confederates. (And I'm for Southern Pride, don't get me wrong, but I suspect many of them joined up for the very reasons that would keep a modern girl wanting to hide their skeletons in the closet...)
These are all...well, not always hysterical--the poor woman who was raped makes me want to go find the guy and lynch him--but definitely "black sheep". Awesome. We all come from good stock. :)
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