Re: More on my grandfather

1

Wow, that's so, so strange. I wonder if Eli (and other relatives who remember him?) might come up with more about his motivations, even if it's scrappy and incoherent, if you spend more time talking about him.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 1:37 PM
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2

We're hopeful. Also Eli's wife is the one with the memory for details, he said, and she knew Aaron for 15 years. (He died 30 years ago.) They seemed so nice and warm, I'm sure we'll get to know them over time.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 1:48 PM
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3

That is one wacky twist to this tale!


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 1:53 PM
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4

Maybe the one-sided secrecy was because the other side was all assholes but in a way that isn't obvious on brief contact. You've ruined all you grandfather worked for.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 1:55 PM
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5

The obvious answer is that we're the assholes and he was protecting them, the way your love affair knows all about your awful wife, but not the other direction. But I swear we're lovely. I like us a lot.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 1:59 PM
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6

Unless I've forgotten a contradictory detail, if he's out to your grandmother, and to his family, then it's wife #1 and people connected to her he's hiding from, and feels he has to keep your family isolated from.

Do you know anything about W#1's later life?


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 1:59 PM
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7

There's probably a dead hooker behind all this.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 2:01 PM
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8

My theory is that it's all about the relationship with W2: A was passing when they met, and so he couldn't tell her the truth at the beginning. Then he never wanted to admit to W2 that everything he'd ever told her (and, presumably, everyone else) was false.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 2:28 PM
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9

But I thought Heebie had discovered letters from W2 showing that she did know.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 2:42 PM
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10

9 -- W2 knew about W1, but didn't know the truth about A's background and family.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 2:45 PM
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11

What Charley says.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:10 PM
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12

And 8 is our working theory too, but it still feels surreal and sad.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:11 PM
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13

Wow, this is all so bizarre.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:13 PM
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14

I misunderstood what the letters showed W2 knew; I assumed the whole thing.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:18 PM
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15

Passing in the sense of pretending to be a rural gentile, was that?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:24 PM
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16

Could this have been about trying to hide his Jewish origins, for reasons of professional advancement? Have you ever watched "Gentleman's Agreement"? Watch it for an idea of what things might have been like for him in the 40's.


Posted by: Stanton | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:25 PM
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17

15: yes.

16: sure, my other grandfather also changed his last name for that reason. My grandmother, W2, was ethnically Jewish though, so the reasons to hide his family from her must be more along the lines of 8.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:29 PM
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18

This phone call tied the moment when I saw photos of him labelled with his birth name for sheer shocking moments of my life.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:31 PM
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19

And I made bad jokes about it. Sorry.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:35 PM
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20

We all have our roles to play, Moby.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:36 PM
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21

I laughed, Mobes. It's not like I found out I'm no fun.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:40 PM
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22

This is all going to end up with a reveal that Heebie is Jammies' step-sister.


Posted by: Tim "Ripper" Owens | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:42 PM
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23

If somebody did really kill a prostitute, then I'll feel bad.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:47 PM
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24

I remember Gentleman's Agreement; it was shown at a church youth group retreat in the late 60s—liberal protestants. Even then it seemed weirdly dated.

I know it's true, but I have trouble wrapping my head around a world where rural gentile would be a chosen identity, and not a source of embarrassment, at least among the kind of people we are.

My daughter's boyfriend, a brilliant grad student, is pretty embarrassed about it, she tells us, and almost idealizes our family's style. He had the kind of "Christmas with the folks" stories some people shared here, and my daughter passed them on to us.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 3:49 PM
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25

Being a brilliant grad student isn't that embarrassing, is it?


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 4:56 PM
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26

Holy smokes, heebie. How strange and sad and (now) heartwarming. Good on you for following this trail where it leads, but whew. I hope you are documenting the twists and turns for the youngest generation.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 5:06 PM
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27

If he kept contact with his first family, I'm inclined to think sunk-cost pressure over shame at assimilation.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 5:27 PM
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28

17.2: I think a lot of the perceived benefits of assimilation would have persisted even marrying a Jewish woman - given how the woman's identity is sort of obliterated in the "traditional" marriage.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 5:35 PM
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29

If he told them about your clan, how could he know none of them would initiate contact? Somehow it must've been communicated, whether explicitly or im.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 5:43 PM
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30

He had internet messenger back then.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 6:03 PM
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31

This story is nuts!


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 7:57 PM
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32

This guy gets two wives and don't have any?


Posted by: Opinionated, Put-out MIT Professor | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 9:33 PM
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33

You just need to get your head out of the shtetl and adopt a new goyishe identity, dude.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-31-14 10:59 PM
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34

I heard two stories like this last time I was in Wobegon. One guy found out at age 60+ that he had a sister-cousin: while his father had been in WWII, his uncle and his mother had cheated. The two met and it was quite nice. (No Appalachian ethnic connection at all, but it was a very poor, Appalachianlike area).

The other (born about 1940-1950) knew that her mother and grandmother had been abandoned by her grandfather, something that blighted or ruined both of their lives. He was a charismatic pioneer sort who headed off for California and promised to send for them but didn't. Her research found that he had remarried in Colorado and also had an earlier family in Michigan. Basically a late frontier pioneer scumbag.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 01- 2-15 12:06 AM
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35

The part that makes this so sad and weird as a story of passing is that he didn't do it to be able to get into a new cultural group but to end up in one where he'd have belonged anyway. Charley's 8 or something similar is the most likely explanation but it's still weird and so sad. And I think repeated contact with the new cousin should bring out at least what cover story was used to keep his wife from, say, finding your mom on facebook or whatever and probably some other revealing threads you may be able to trace in productive directions.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 01- 2-15 6:04 AM
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36

35: W1 = rural gentile.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 01- 2-15 9:00 AM
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37

I'm still not clear about this. Was W1 an actual r/g, or was the cover story that she was, so that W2 can be aware there was a W1, but not who, what she was?


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 01- 2-15 9:09 AM
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38

34 -- I unearthed a similar story a couple years ago. One of my gggmother's brothers left Iowa as a young man and went to sea. He jumped ship in Australia, married, and had a kid (well less than 9 mos later). And then split. The wife remarried a few years later, as a widow. The husband went back to Iowa, married again (without disclosing first marriage) and had kids. That marriage failed too after some years.

Together some of the Australian descendants and I figured this out.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 01- 2-15 9:12 AM
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39

So did he use the new identity with W1 as well? I'll have to reread the old post to make sure I'm getting the details, because this is fascinating!


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 01- 2-15 9:13 AM
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40

I don't know how reliable the Ancestry DNA tests actually are, but a relative of mine took one and it's called into question his already questionable parentage. It seems that his dad may have been from the British Isles, not the Germanic lands. There are no birth records with his father's name; his mother never married.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01- 3-15 2:02 AM
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41

Plenty of Germanic ancestry in the British Isles, son.


Posted by: Opinionated Sweyn Forkbeard | Link to this comment | 01- 3-15 4:47 AM
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