For every story told in my family, there are innumerable mysteries. I wish I had asked more questions of my relatives when they were alive to get answers to those burning questions I have now.
My grandmother
For instance, my father’s mother – the one who had fourteen children – once told me when I was a teenager that she traveled in every state in the United States, except for two. She died in 1981 at the age of eighty-four and to my knowledge she lived in poverty for most of her life. My grandfather died in 1962 and my grandmother never re-married. I don’t know when or how my grandmother did her traveling. I don’t doubt that she did it, but it surprises me that she had the desire to see our country and that I never heard of her travels.
Ruby
I went to visit my mother’s mother in Washington, D. C. in 1983. Ruby left my mother’s family when my Mom was a baby. She robbed a train and was convicted of her crime. When I visited my grandmother, the woman who I only saw two previous times in my life, I was polite with her, caught up on her current life, let her visit with my eighteen-month-old son, but didn’t ask her too questions about her life. For example, what she did after her prison sentence, what her life was like when she was growing up, how she met her husband – my grandfather, and was it true that she was a secretary for a congressman in Washington, D.C. She did tell me that she grew up Catholic, and that her childhood wasn’t a happy one. She had a doll baby that belonged to my mother that had a ceramic face – and I didn’t ask how it survived her years in prison. I wish I could have that visit over again.
My father – World War II
My Dad was in World War II and his war experience at the age of twenty in Europe in the midst of war, must have been incredible. My sisters and I asked him several times about his war years, but he refused to talk about it. We knew he was injured/wounded three different times, but he would only talk about the funny things. We have re-created his trek through Europe and the battles that he must have been in, but it would have been rich to hear his impression of this personal, but historic adventure. I relished the 50th anniversary of World War II when veterans of this war finally talked about their years in the war.
<Ancestry.com® is having a contest called The Ultimate Family History Journey™ to help their customers find answers to their family mysteries. The winner gets $20,000, 8 hours with a genealogy expert, and additional experts to fill in the blanks. Perhaps that’s how I might get some answers to my questions.
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