Jaye and I have been helping my 86 year old grandmother, who was adopted as a baby, find out where she came from. She had enough helpful information to go on, and we've been making really good forward motion.
When I called her yesterday, she gave me an ominous tip.
"I've never told anyone about this. No one. Not even your father or aunt or uncle. I've been sitting on this since the day I heard it..."
Grandma was sitting at home with her foster mother when Maddie (that was her adoptive mother's name) looked alarmed, muttered something under her breath and handed Grandma the newspaper. What she read next shocked her so deeply she never spoke of it again...
March 8th 1938: An elderly man named Mr. P got into his car, drove over to another man's house - a man that was considered a friend, a man that Mr. P picked up frequently to drive to work. He was carrying a loaded gun. Mr. P shot his friend to death on the old bygone Valley Road, then turned the gun on himself. The coroner's report stated: "Suicide, gunshot to the heart, death 1:30 pm..."
"That was my biological grandfather," my grandma said, quietly. "To this day no one knew what caused him to do such a thing. There were rumors."
"Rumors?" I asked. "What kind of rumors?"
"A love triangle. The victim's wife was unharmed."
I called my father. He was stunned to hear it, but then slid into a rolling morbid laugh (I know where I get THAT from...) and blurted, "Tennessee Williams..."
"No," I said. "Faulkner." After a pause, "Merry Christmas, Dad!" I blurted sarcastically.
"HAHAHA! Merry Christmas, daughter!"
Southern Gothic strikes again...
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2 comments:
You know, I have an account at ancestry.com. If you could come over to our place sometime, I'd be glad to do some research for you.
Whoa.
Been stirring the family stew myself the last year, in the effort to study family medical stuff, and found out some weird things.
It's a bizarre feeling, no?
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