Family Affair

My mother was the oldest of five siblings.

She is survived by two brothers...

...and two sisters.

One brother and one sister are sort of local; one sister lives in South Carolina and one brother lives in Rhode Island.  Despite the distance, it's a tightly-knit crew.









Because of the distance, though, and careers and busy lives and kids and grandkids, it's rare to get everyone - especially with their spouses - together in one spot.

They were all here last weekend, though, and they spent an entire precious afternoon at my place.

Inevitably, the conversation turned to family history.  Much of the lore is fairly common knowledge; some of it, though, comes out in bits from this person and pieces from another, depending on who talked to whom over the years.

There's great-great Uncle Buzz, born in 1893, who worked as a cook on a schooner on the Maine to Bermuda route.  On one trip, the captain died, and Buzz, being the most qualified of the crew, brought the schooner home.  Apparently he also had fair certain knowledge of the whereabouts of buried treasure (the existence of which along the Maine coast has long been rumored), which he took to his grave.  Who knew?

Then there's my great-great-grandmother Maude, who was widowed young in 1897 and whose only daughter became the object of a custody battle with her late husband's family over an imagined inheritance (they lost).   There are shadow stories of a second pregnancy which was forcibly terminated by the late husband.

Or how about my great-great-great-grandmother Etta, who is the first woman in the family who experienced clairvoyant dreams and visions?  One of Etta's sons nearly lost his life in a terrible storm at sea - the details of which Etta could describe accurately before the son even came home to share his tale.  (This gift is shared by my grandmother and one of my aunts, but skipped my line, thank heavens).

Someday we shall write a book.