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It's funny to me how so many people act as if people were so innocent back in the day or that everyone waited until marriage to have sex, but come on now! I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who's heard of young women who had to be sent down South to have a baby out-of-wedlock or found out that a certain "Aunt" was really a sister. Didn't Jack Nicholson grow up thinking the woman who he thought was his older sister really his biological mother?
One of my friends was telling me about an "emergency" family reunion they had to have this past summer in Alabama because a couple of teenage cousins who didn't know they were related were messing around and the girl wound up pregnant, so they wanted everyone to get together so they could all know who was who. And no, the girl is not having the baby. I guess their grandfather was a rolling stone who spread his seed all over that region of the state, so he all sorts of half-siblings running around and I guess they didn't realize how related they were
I had a Great Aunt who had married when she was 16 to get out of the house and left him for another man a few years later. I don't remember the entire story, but I guess the first marriage was never dissolved and there were some legal issues that came up when she passed away because of this. People showing up to the funeral claiming to be related to her first husband. It was a mess
It seems those from that generation (Pre-Baby Boomers) seemed to know how to keep secrets to their grave. My Grandmother always said "there's nothing new under the sun!". I have a feeling I have a few relatives who are not really full-blooded or there was some story behind how they got here. Not that it matters.
Have any of you ever discovered some sort of crazy family secret that an older relative had?
Yep! I found out when I was 12 that my oldest sister is actually my half sister. Mom was married twice before my father. The three other kids from the first marriage were never really introduced to us although one time, one half sister stayed with us and mom just said she was a friend. The second marriage produced my oldest sister (as we were raised together). The third marriage produced me, another sister and my brother. We don't think in terms of "half" when she's been part of my life MY WHOLE LIFE.
Thing is, mom got married a lot. We don't know the whole story. Even if she were still walking the earth, she'd deny every last detail. So, while she lived, we pretended we didn't know half the things we did so as not to upset her and create hell on earth. Again, she'd deny it anyway.
I just wish I knew because that's part of her kids' life. We want to know but not b/c we judged her...I think that was a very big fear of hers. Anyway, it's interesting family bits that make us interesting, I guess!!
My wife's mom's side of the family has so many secrets that no one knows what to do with them all. Everything from 13 year olds having sex and their offspring were called "siblings," to who is really whose dad. You name it.
On the outside? They are perfectly normal, church-going, God-fearing people. (Rolling my eyes here; hard to type that.) What is even better is that one particular sibling assumes that no one knows, but everyone does. And to top it off, my wife's dad's side is tangled up in her mom's side, too! Geeperz!
My aunt Betty is a rather severe woman, the kind who wears barbed wire next to the skin and kills rats with her teeth. She was married for years to my Uncle Bill, who was kind of an affable, if colorless guy.
Bill died in 1991 after a lengthy illness. A few months later, a letter arrived in my mother's mailbox, along with a number of other people Betty knew. As it turns out, it was from Betty's longtime lover, a man with whom she'd had a 30-year affair. The letter detailed when, where, and how the affair went on.
As it turns out, the guy had waited 30 years to marry Betty, but the minute Uncle Bill was buried she immediately went after another guy, the guy she eventually married. So this guy broke into her home, stole all her clothes, loaded them into his Buick and drove back to the retirement home where he proceeded to bang out this letter and send it out.
My mother, having had to play second fiddle to Betty, the perfect daughter, all these years just couldn't stand not telling me about this. So she let is slip. Having not got along with my Aunt Betty myself, I told my mother, "I'll give you $500 to read that letter." To which Mom replied that she had burned the letter, but not before telling me about the contents with a little too much satisfaction.
Then again, there's my mother who has been living with a married man for 12 years now. He won't divorce his wife because he doesn't want to give up his military retiree pension. Mom isn't even in the guy's will. At one point, she and David were considering buying a house together before I intervened. I said, "Mom, you realize that David has prostate cancer and heart problems. If you bought a house with him and something happened to the guy, guess who you'd be dealing with? The woman whose husband you're sleeping with." That put an end to things right away.
Meanwhile my sister divorced my BIL after she had any number of adventures. Now she's broke and just barely scraping by selling insurance, despite having an MBA. So she's borrowing my mother's married lover's car to drive all over the place and sell long-term health insurance to retirees. I just can't believe my family sometimes.
What's funny to me is that when I was growing up (and maybe even a bit now), I thought we had such a great family. And it's not like I don't love them and most of the time, they're not too bad. Oh, I know we have serious issues and secrets, but somehow I still feel relatively normal. When I say it out loud (or type it), I think, WOW, we're a crazy bunch of weirdos!!
Yes, it's interesting how as I get older, the more and more "family dirt" comes out - or also, the kind of stuff you "figure out" on your own. I found out all kinds of dirt on my relatives once I got "old enough" - either just by putting two and two together or from family stories. One of my grandmothers was quite the "traveler" - even left her kids for a few years to try and pursue a career as a lounge singer in New York.
Another story - a friend of mine figured out that her grandfather was the "town player" - he had a slew of girlfriends all over town. How did he maintain all these relationships with these women? Even though he was married, he and his wife never lived together, but he paid all the bills at her house.
Easy to see multiple women if you don't live with your wife, right!?!?! LOL.
Have any of you ever discovered some sort of crazy family secret that an older relative had?
There were secrets but nobody talked about it much. My grandmother was divorced in the early 1920s from a man who, apparently was unfaithful. My grandmother, who was an Italian Catholic, by the way, apparently raised her three children for several years by working at an Olive plant in California until she met my grandfather. They were married and had my mother when my grandmother was 42 years old. Quite a scandal for the time, I expect.
I also had an aunt who was "wild" and apparently another sister of hers went to stay with her for a time in Kansas City. Apparently the second sister "got into trouble" and I presume had an abortion which was blamed when she died many years later from cancer of the "female parts". Ironically, the wild sister lived to a ripe old age of 80-something.
I also had a cousin who got pregnant when she was 16 and unmarried. And all of my relatives on my fathers side was batsh|t crazy.
I just wish I knew because that's part of her kids' life. We want to know but not b/c we judged her...I think that was a very big fear of hers. Anyway, it's interesting family bits that make us interesting, I guess!!
Yes. When folks are sorry for certain sins, they generally keep those sins to themselves. That makes it difficult for the children, who really do want to know who they are, but at the same time, the parents don't want the children to think badly of them, even though the children are only interested in hearing the truth and not interested in condemning.
So figure this one out. Here's a child who is the youngest child of two older siblings, and is the oldest child of two younger siblings, resulting in her being the middle child, and also the only child.
I found out my father had been married before when I brought in the mail and found a postcard addressed to him, signed "your wife Helen. " My mother was named Helen but this was not her handwriting. Not sure they would ever have told us. He married 2 women with the same first name.
My aunt "kept company" with a married man, usually driving to the next town or beyond to spend the night (or weekend) in a motel. Everybody in town knew about it.
She got pregnant, had the kid and gave him to a sister who couldn't have children. Then she proceeded to get pregnant again by the same guy! She kept this son and raised him. This poor kid has two or three little boys with a wife who divorced him and left him and the kids.
And then my great-grandfather took off and took up with a "widder woman" on the other side of the mountain at the same time my great-grandmother was delivering their third child (this was in 1904). She didn't know where he was, and nobody would tell her.
Finally, somebody did tell her. She took the two older kids and the new baby and walked to this woman's house to ask her husband to come home. He wouldn't even talk to her.
She eventually wound up in the state asylum for the insane. He had another family with the new woman. I don't think he ever actually divorced my great-grandmother.
Yes, many of my relatives were (and are) idiots.
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When I say it out loud (or type it), I think, WOW, we're a crazy bunch of weirdos!! 
Figure This One Out!
