There’s always a black sheep in every family.
If there isn’t…well, somebody must have scared ’em off long ago !
There was a certain aunt in my hubby’s family who was evidently removed from the planet at some point. I stumbled upon her on an early census. She lived at home with her parents and two brothers until she was about 20. Then all of a sudden she is married, and widowed within about a year. Hmmm. His death certificate (signed by her) states his cause of death as homicide, fatal gun shot wound. His body was claimed by his parents and I as far as I can tell, was hauled back to Tennessee. See ya Robert ! That’s around the time that Aunt Mary walked off the face of the earth. Poof! Gone.
Now heaven knows, my bloodline is not Saint-laden. I am probably descended from more than my share of bootleggers, moonshiners, batterers and hatchet murdering types than I care to claim. A couple of them even got caught!
Honestly, one end of my gene-pool had a real “thing” for smacking others in the head with a hammer. I can’t imagine it was their fault. Maybe hammers were just laying around waiting in those days…maybe it’s what most women carried in their handbags…maybe they didn’t know how to “use your words” to settle differences. I’m not really sure, but as far as I’ve found, none of them ever seemed to have been ever proven directly fatal.
Some tales are a bit less violent, but illegal nonetheless. Like the bootlegger faction of the family who warehoused their stock on underground shelves dug into the sidewalls of the outhouse. Bathtub Gin was the (out)house specialty. When a buy order came in, one of the kids was lowered down the hole–yes, that hole–by rope to retrieve the merchandise.
I would like to think that the customers sat on the front porch or maybe stood around on the curb chatting while their order was being filled from the “stockroom”. But, who knows, maybe they didn’t give a…
Well, you could guess where that was about to go!
So think aloud around the table today and dig up a few of your “less than suitable for Sainthood” stories. You could start by Googling some names of cousins or other “contemporaries.” They could be more recent than you think!
Who knows what you may or may not find. But if it’s ‘juicy’…you know what Mom always says:
Maybe someone should write that down!
Maybe someone should write that down... 