Can you tell us a story about your family?

My paternal grandpa was the youngest of 5 born in Latvia and the family was extremely poor. They put my grandpa in an orphanage, I am not sure what age, because he was the youngest and they thought it would affect him less. They could not afford to feed all the children. When their uncle in America sent for them, sponsored them I guess, all 5 children, even the one in the orphanage travelled together to America arriving at Ellis Island in 1920. My grandfather was 14, didn’t speak English, and was slightly hard of hearing. His oldest sister took care of him like a mother would. He was mentally ill, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, but I guess his episodes were mild. He maintained a job in a slipper factory his entire life. Rode the NYC subway every day to and from work. He married my grandmother and they had a son, my father; twins, who died shortly after childbirth from illness (and probably indirectly from poverty) and then a daughter, my aunt.

One sister spent almost her entire adult like in a mental hospital. One brother killed himself after his son was randomly shot dead. No one in the subsequent generations have serious mental illness. I really think their horrific childhood conditions greatly affected their mental stability.

I think my grandpa was one of the most successful people in my family. He was poor his entire life. I have no idea how much education he had, I would think once he was in America at 14 he didn’t attend school, but maybe he did? I know he was working at a very young age. Since English was a new language age 14 is difficult to pick up school, it takes time to assimilate, and it is frustrating for children that age to be in school and not understand well. For all I know he had stopped school even before 14 in Latvia, I have no idea. He read English fluently eventually, and even though he was slightly hard of hearing his language skills were very very good. He barely had any accent at all, grammar was very good. When you look at where he came from, the obstacles he had, and what he accomplished I feel very proud of him. It saddens me he suffered so much in his life.

My dad, grew up very poor obviously, and hated school as a little boy. He spited teachers, didn’t do assignments, and didn’t learn to read until 3rd grade. Luckily, NYC had some great programs (he actually grew ip in The Bronx) and since he was smart, he still wound up in a program that the student did 3 years of Jr. high in 2. Lucky again, NYC had a very good city college, free tuition, that he was able to get into. Later he went on scholarship to Wharton for his PhD, his other offer was from Yale. I’m pretty impressed with his drive also.

It all says to me that where you start does not have to determine where you will wind up, and poverty often is mutually exclusive from intelligence, ambition, and integrity. It taught me to value everyone no matter what their station in life. Also, to be grateful for America, especially freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and being able to feel relatively safe this time in history.

Not so much an anecdote or anything, but a fun little made up story that was told to my dad by his grandpa, and my dad told it to me when I was a kid. So apparently, my great great great great grandfather was a pirate named Charledème. The most cookie cutter pirate ever, who sailed the seven seas, got in fights and has buried treasure somewhere. He had all sorts of adventures and everything. My dad’s grandpa said that he had all his stuff in the attic, sword, pistol, hat, treasure map…but that house actually burned down, so he could never actually ’‘prove’’ to my dad that this pirate really existed. But he said he used to check out the treasure map all the time before it was lost to the fire, and swore he remembered it by heart. He told my dad that eventually both of them will go looking for the treasure together.
Then when I was a kid, my dad told me the same stories, my grandmother did too, and to this day she won’t confirm or deny that we had a pirate in the family lol. Obviously, this Charledème guy was real, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a pirate. I so want to believe it though. :D
So if I ever have kids, I will also conserve the story and tell it to them. I mean I never went with my dad looking for any treasure, nor did he do it with his grandpa, I’m pretty sure the story was made up because it’s good adventure tale fodder to tell little kids, but it was awesome lol.

I come from hillbilly stock. My mom and dad were raised in the Ozark foothills, miles from any town. Dad’s parents were married young, even by hillbilly standards: she was 15, and he was 17.

When my dad was only two, his mom was killed when the Model T she was riding in rolled off a low-water bridge into a creek. When he was 6, his father was shot in the back while riding his horse up the dirt road. The shooter was a neighbor who was convinced that my grandfather was fooling around with his wife. He was never prosecuted.

From then on, my dad and his two brothers were raised by their grandmother. She was, by all accounts, a hard mountain woman. She had no use for niceties like undergarments, and used to just spread her legs and piss when the need arose. It was a thoroughly loveless upbringing.

When I was a young teen, on summer vacation with my parents up in those parts, my dad and I were out driving. He took an unexpected turn. and pulled up to a house I’d never seen. He knocked on the door and announced his name to the woman who answered. She looked a little taken aback, but invited us in. There in the parlor were the rest of the family. Turned out that these were the descendents of the man who had shot my grandfather. This visit was my dad’s way of trying to come to grips with the twist of fate that robbed him of his childhood. The conversation got decidedly awkward at times, but there were some things my dad just had to ask to find some peace. I think he did.

My grandfather left home in Scotland to go to sea at the age of 19 in 1894. He was on ships for years, and ended up on the West Coast in early 1898. He heard about gold in the Yukon, and made it to Seattle, and then on a ferry to Skagway. With little money, he earned enough as a human mule to get a stake that would satisfy the Mounties at the top of Chilkoot Pass.

The Mounties required everyone to have a full ton of food and a ton of equipment to last a year, My grandfather rented himself out as a porter to carry loads up the pass.

Once he had his supplies,he headed off to Dawson. He was able to find enough gold to keep him there until 1914, when he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and fought in WWI.

One of our favorite stories was about Uncle George, who was a drunk and a joker. They had a turkey shoot every year in Hamilton, Ohio at which a turkey was tied behind a log and shooters took turns taking a shot at the turkey when it raised it’s head above the log.
Old George thought it was a joke when he ducked down behind the log, stuck his head up and called, “Gobble, gobble.” They shot him through the head.
One of my nephews checked back in the newspaper from that time. Seems the truth is that George didn’t get killed. He was just shot in the arm.

My grandfather’s brother knew Qaddhafi personally. My grandfather’s brother was a supervisor at a factory of some sort, and I’m not sure what Qaddhafi did. One night, my grandfather’s brother had to leave the factory but Qaddhafi wanted him to stay, so Qaddhafi slashed his tires.

My grandfather was the youngest child in a very large family. His father was married twice and widowed twice before he passed away, and all the children from both the wives were raised by their aunts and older siblings, along with their cousins. There were 18 children living in three households on a farm.

Back in the 1920’s in Vancouver, B.C. it was a day trek to get from Vancouver to New Westminster. My great grandparents were on that trek with their 3 children. They stopped for lunch and then everyone piled back into the car. A couple of kilometres down the road they realized they left my Aunt Mary, who was 2, behind and turned around to get her. As they were driving back they see a car up ahead. As the car gets closer they see Mary in the female passenger’s lap. They honk and wave and follow and, with some difficulty, they get the car to pull over.

They explain that the child they have in their possession is, in fact, their daughter. The couple refused to hand her back. Apparently, finders keepers was their lost child motto. Harsh words elevated to a snatch and run back to the car.

It is a story that has been told and re-told for almost 100 years.

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My Grandfather was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My Grandmother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My Grandfather would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds; pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum . . . it’s breathtaking. I highly suggest you try it.

My mother and the above mentioned grandfather left Oklahoma during the horrible drought in a two cars with two other families. They stopped at many churches along the way – one of the Uncles was a preacher. The girls made quilts while the cars were moving, and sold them at the churches. They also cleaned the churches in exchange for food.

They were on their way to California, but when they reached the Gunnison River in Western Colorado, my Granddad said this is as far as we go. They settled down on a wonderful little farm, and stayed there for at least 50 years.

My grandfather complained to my grandmother that the meal was inedible. She threw a biscuit at him, and split his head open.

LOL blondesjon.

Got it, first sentence.

Grandaddy used to handle snakes in church, Granny drank strychnine.
I guess you could say I had a leg up genetically speaking.

My grandmother was protestant and my grandfather was catholic. He was from a wealthy family who apparently disowned him after he married my grandmother. She had been in service. I’m not sure whether it was her class or religion they were opposed to. They had six children and when the youngest was a baby and my father a toddler, my grandfather died suddenly. She had to take in washing and clean for other people to try to feed her children.

I was told she had to sell her wedding ring to pay for food and rent. She ended up wearing a tiny gold ring as her wedding ring. I have that ring and it’s one of my most precious possessions. My grandmother was one of my life heroes. I know my older aunts and uncles worked at a young age. My father won a scholarship to a very good school but couldn’t take it because she just couldn’t afford the uniform or books he would have needed.

I remember her saying, and she wasn’t very religious, that after my grandfather died the nuns continued to knock on her door looking for donations. She said in stark contrast to this behaviour was the local rabbi, who regularly came around to offer help and just spend time talking to her.

I discovered while researching my family tree that one of my uncles was gassed at the Somme and another on the other side of my family was killed. There may have been others but I only found these two. It made me quite sad. I was told my uncle was a spitfire pilot in WWII, I have looked and found someone with his surname in the archives but haven’t had chance to go further. My own father was in the navy and missed being on a ship with all hands lost because he was late getting back from leave.

My great-grandfather was apparently an accomplished artist and my grandfather was a writer. I wish I had had the foresight to ask my father and my grandmother more about their family before they died. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

@Bellatrix What country was that in?

My father and three of his four brothers served in the Navy during WWII. Dad and his Navy buddy’s were walking around San Diego, when Dad spotted a girl from his home town. He called out “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” They were married in February 1941

My Dad served on the USS Tuna. Here is the relevant entry in wikipedia “Tuna departed San Diego, California, on 19 May 1941 for Pearl Harbor and shakedown training. Operations in Hawaiian waters revealed that the submarine’s torpedo tubes were misaligned. This problem necessitated her returning to Mare Island for repairs. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, Tuna lay in drydock at Mare Island.”

Dad continued to work in the repair shop at Mare Island until his discharge. My brother was born on December 28, 1941. I was born 1 year later, and my sister 11 month after that.

England @JLeslie. My family go back generations in the North of England and then Scotland.

@Bellatrix I wonder if your grandmother had an easier time with the Rabbi because she wasn’t Jewish, so he would not approach her for donations? Your grandfather’s sudden death reminded me of my maternal great grandfather who dropped dead at a wedding on the dance floor! Can you imagine? He had three very young children, he was in his late 30’s at the time. He actually made a great living owning a commercial laundry business. My grandma, his daughter, tells a story of being 5 years old at the funeral, it was horrible, and watching her aunt bang on his coffin angry he left all the money to his wife. His wife, my great grandmother, trusted some people to help her handle the money and a good portion of it was embezzled. I am not sure whatbhappened with the business, maybe it was sold? My grandmother and her brother grew up with some money, but nothing near the wealth they “should” have if the money had not been stolen.

I don’t know @JLeslie. Perhaps he was just a nice, compasionate man. I do know she, and as a consequence my father and perhaps his siblings, had very little respect for the Catholic Church after her experience. She was a very strong woman. All her children went on to live happy and successful lives and they all adored her. She was a very no nonsense type of lady. I remember one of my cousins was quite namby pamby and that didn’t impress my nanna at all. I used to love spending time with her. She treated you with respect and never spoke down to you. Even as a child I recognised this. She was pretty stubborn too. Refused to have electricity in her house. It was an adventure for me staying there. Having to take candles and oil lamps up to bed, no TV, reading by gas mantle light. It was great!

In 1953 my mother’s dad thought that 8 years of school is enough for a girl. My mother’s teacher intervened. He saw her potential. Eventually he and my mother’s mom prevailed. My mother was allowed to continue school and eventually went to university to become a teacher herself.

I suppose the most noteworthy person in our family is my cousin, who decided at a young age to pursue a rock & roll musical career, no matter how far (or not far) it might take him.

He is still a world-class guitar player, and in fact wrote the last song which was a national hit for the Allman Brothers, “No One To Run With”, in 1994. Yeah, Dickie Betts got half the writing credit, but only because my cousin played it for him start-to-finish over cookies and milk one night. Betts showed it to the band, then called my cousin to tell him that the song which “we” wrote would be the next Allman Brothers single….