Love Story
February 23, 2006 :: Link :: Favorite Posts | Journal
This is a story my mom told me on my most recent visit to her house. Let me just say, I was pretty shocked, even though she related it in the most mundane way, as if she was talking about a new recipe for egg salad. There I was half listening, paying more attention to the Dawson-era Family Feud on the Game Show Network to tell you the truth, when suddenly the point of her story hit me.
"Wha? Hey...wait, WAIT. BACK UP."
There is luridness in my genes, folks. Anyway the story goes like this.
A long time ago, I'd guess in the late 1920s, my grandpa's brother got a girl pregnant. The trouble was, he was married to someone else at the time. And while divorces may grow on trees these days, back then they were a little more difficult to arrange.
Now, getting pregnant out of wedlock was a scandalous thing back then. But it happened and people understood that. However, even more scandalous -- downright immoral and unforgivable in fact -- was giving birth out of wedlock. That could not be tolerated. If you got knocked up, you had to get married. No questions.
My grandpa's brother really wanted to get a divorce and marry the new girl, who he preferred to his wife anyway. But time kept passing. Birth was imminent. There was only one solution.
My grandpa, who was single at the time, stepped in and married the girl for him.
"Wha? Hey...wait, WAIT. BACK UP."
Think about that situation for a moment. Imagine being married to your brother's mistress, who is pregnant with his child. Meanwhile, your brother is married to someone else, but wants to be married to your wife.
Eventually, the brother got his divorce. Here's where things really get interesting. My grandpa and the girl then divorced each other so that the true lovebirds could finally be together.
My family tree is full of stuff like this. My dad's two brothers, at one time, were married to a mother and daughter. My eldest sisters married two brothers. Likewise, my other sister and my brother wound up with a brother and sister as mates.
No wonder I'm single. Sheesh.
Comments
I should also mention for those people who knew my Grandpa Al, that this was my other grandpa who died before I was born.
Posted by: Barrett | February 23, 2006 12:17 AM
Nice. My mother-in-law just found out that the guy she spent her whole life thinking was her uncle was actually her DAD.
Posted by: Mrs. Kennedy | February 23, 2006 4:57 PM
I find it truly fascinating how every family history is loaded with some type of clusterfuck like this.
The only people who have traditional family trees are the people who haven't been told the truth yet.
Posted by: Paul Lundgren | February 24, 2006 9:01 AM
My great, great, great grand-daddy spent some time in a Confederate prison fer killin' some guy with a machete over a woman. I'm sorta proud of that.
Posted by: vicarious | February 25, 2006 10:33 PM
At a family reunion of mine in 1993, a minivan drove up and out stepped a little nuclear family of people that no one recognized. Turned out, the minivan dad was one of my great aunt's children who she'd given up for adoption 40+ years prior.
At the next family reunion, everyone got t-shirts with the family tree on it, only on that version there were branches with little question marks dangling. :+) What was once scandalous became a family punchline.
People are always talking about how society's gone to hell, but really, I think things are just more out-in-the-open now than they used to be. This shit's always gone on.
Posted by: Mary | February 26, 2006 1:12 AM
Wacky story, but what Mary said.
The guy I thought was my grandpa when I was growing up wasn't, he was just the dude who was married to my grandma. I did get to know my bio-grandpa, but he was always referred to as the "family friend" - and just happened to be in a lot of my mother's childhood photos.
Thankfully when I got knocked up out of wedlock it was no big. And I was doing well enough financially to buy a house on my own to raise the little man in. Guess times have changed.
Posted by: Sharyn | February 26, 2006 1:49 PM
Whoa! You have to wonder what that wedding night was like. For both couplings, actually.
Posted by: Sarah B. | February 27, 2006 4:49 PM