Week 11 (March 11-17): Large Family

Large Family

Week 10 (March 4-10): Bachelor Uncle

Bachelor Uncle

The only Bachelor Uncle that I can think of is our mother's brother, Charlie.  He was single until I was a teenager - and upon some quick research just now, I found he married in 1971 -  while I was 15. 

Another quick snoop around shows that his wife was one year OLDER than our mom... I never knew this.  Hooray for new info!!

He was the FUN uncle!  He bought me my first lottery ticket!  He bought me my first "maxi-dress"  (actually, mom picked it out, but it was from him!)  He always had a joke to tell... and he had a working SLOT MACHINE!  Oh... those times when he would bring the slot machine downstairs at Grandma and Grandpa's house-   He had lived with them until he married at age 41. 

But then he met Ginny.  She was fine at first.  They had a house with a pool -  and I remember a party for one of her daughters from a previous marriage - on her engagement.  I'm not sure about attending the wedding... I think Ma went-  but I don't know if we were invited.

Eventually, they moved into a new home (with too many bedrooms, as I recall)... but Ginny NEEDED room. She NEEDED THINGS. She was a bit of a gold digger -  

But that was the first home - including that of ALL OF MY FRIENDS - that had VIDEO GAMES!  There's that same old Uncle Charlie!  THE FUN STUFF... It was only "Pong" ... but I had never seen it before- and I loved it!

At some point even his niece (my sister) MB was being paid to work there... doing SOMETHING -  I'm not even really sure what-  I guess that would be a good conversation starter!

Slowly things were falling apart for the nieces.  I mean how can you compare a niece to an actual child of HER OWN???? 

Ginny's influence seemed to be getting stronger- and Uncle Charlie seemed to be acquiescing to Ginny's every WANT.

When Daddy died suddenly in 1975, Uncle Charlie sold Ma a car (since the one I had been driving was totaled in an accident- and the other was a 9 passenger station wagon).  It was probably the LAST KIND GESTURE between the two siblings.

Once at Thanksgiving in Waretown, NJ-  Grandma and Grandpa's home -  she announced at the dinner table which things around the house SHE was going to inherit when they died!  She put round stickers on things claiming ... THIS ONE IS MINE WHEN YOU'RE DEAD!

Shortly after, he borrowed a LARGE SUM OF MONEY from Ma (which she really couldn't afford to loan)... and later SWORE he paid her back.  It took some quick thinking-  and a pretty DUMB brother (and eventually a letter from a lawyer) to get the money back-  but that was the end of the relationship.

Ma sent him a note saying... Charlie, I really need you to pay back that $20,000 that I loaned to you.   You promised to pay it back, and you haven't paid me a thing!  He quickly wrote back -  Gloria, you KNOW you only loaned me $15,000 - and enough said.

The letter from the lawyer and HIS OWN CONFESSION forced his hand for payback.

Ginny was done with Ma now hahahahaha

To make a long story longer-  many years later (in 2008) Ma was gone, Ken and I moved out of Paramus to Bayville, NJ... The VERY FIRST DAY that I opened the local paper... what did I see????

I was mad and sad at the same time.   They were having his wake 10 minutes from my new home... and you can be damn sure I was going to be there.

I walked into the wake.  Signed the book (with a name they did NOT know- because they had cut off communications before I was even dating Ken) and boldly walked to the coffin saying nothing to anyone.  As I knelt at the coffin, saying a prayer, I could hear the witches behind me whispering... "Who is that"... "I have no clue, I will look at the book"... and finally-  "It's one of GLORIA'S DAUGHTERS."

I gave him an air kiss, goodbye and exited the funeral home as quickly as I entered.  I had to say goodbye to my favorite Bachelor Uncle, but wouldn't give them a second of my time-  or my condolences.  They had killed off the real Uncle Charlie years ago.

Week 9 (February 25-March 3): At the Courthouse

At the Courthouse

So, I have fallen behind again. I'm on vacation (well... it's an ALL WINTER vacation) and have a hard time finding the time or energy to get it done.

Today, I will catch up!

At the Courthouse -  I have one thought on this... well, actually two, but one has been discussed in an earlier post (with the title SURPRISE!)

The problem I have with this is I DO NOT understand what the verdict even means-  but it has been cited over the years in the Supreme Court.  I will link to one of the articles I find when Google our name-  and maybe someday I will take the time to really understand the legalese used in the retelling of the issue.  The BIGGEST problem is-  any of the newspaper articles that might discuss the topic CHARGE A FEE and I refuse to pay for one more service!!!

Here goes-   

The case was called Biggins vs. Oltmer Iron Works. 
A free link to the case is below:
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1478488/biggins-v-oltmer-iron-works/

As often as I have tried to get through it, I just no longer have the patience to do it.

I know it has to do with a partial summary judgement ??? But it alludes to specific rules (Rule 54(b)) and I just get lost.

At any rate - it happened in 1944.  There was a ton of money (for that time) involved.  I guess we kind of won, but also lost-  but I know it's used in Supreme Court rulings even today - this verdict has been cited 122 times.  UGH. Lawyers. 

That's all I've got.

Week 8 (February 18-24): Family Photo

Family Photo

So.  I do happen to have some great family photos-  I'll start with my direct family-  because the outfits have so much to say: 

I'm not sure of the year on the above photo.  MB looks to be about 3-  that would make it 1964 or so.

Clearly later than the previous photo.  Patty, with the lovely chip bowl on her heard.  Mom wearing the standard Easter CAKE on her head... and I have the infamous veiled hat that I BEGGED Aunt Lise to buy for me and then proceeded to get slapped in church for pulling the veil down over my eyes, pretending to be some mysterious widow.  (True story).

Another FAMOUS family photo-  Unfortunately, I can only identify ONE man and ONE woman in the photo-  this, of course, lead to a very funny story!

While in college (in 1977) we hung all sorts of crazy things on the walls in our off-campus house-  

It was a rental with 7 girls living upstairs and 6 guys living downstairs.  We hung anything and everything, including a duck stolen off someone's yard - and then later turned into a phone - but I digress ...  drawings that we created, newspaper articles that related to nothing at all... college event flyers  AND THIS PHOTO.  Someone found it behind the couch and so it was stapled right onto the wall... and we called them our house grandparents.  Of course, NO ONE had a clue who these mystery people were.

One day when my sister came to visit, she was admiring the wall art and exclaimed, "Why is this picture of Uncle Joe and Aunt Katherine hanging on your wall?"  

WHAT??

I took a closer look.. and what do you know???  The man on the left is Uncle Joe (a cigar-smoking man married to my Grandfather's sister.. and that is honestly ALL I can say about him) and Aunt Katherine is on the far right.   It hung on the wall for two years- and we made fun of these "unknown" people all that time... come to find out -  they were MY relatives!  It still gives me a chuckle.

Week 7 (February 11-17): Love

Love

I guess I have to think about this one.  I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone here today, catching up on Week 6.  I don't know that I have a Love Story.

Week 6 (February 4-10): Surprise

Surprise!

Sorry to be late with this one.  I THOUGHT I had an idea, but since "the old aunts" prepared a bunch of our paternal history-  and I eventually was in touch with someone on the maternal side who prepared that family history, I think I knew a lot of basics already.

There was one surprise that I keep finding and losing - every time I get a new computer.   I finally found a few additional details, but have never found the full-on horror story.

Apparently, our Grandfather's brother was a bit of a lady's man.   There was one particular person that I seemed to find a few different articles about so I've included them below.   Basically (between wives  -  I said a lady's man, not a cheater lol) there was one woman with whom he was apparently love-stricken-  and SHE was married.

At one point our great uncle was chased through Hoboken and jumped off a cliff to escape the husband of his paramour. (that's documented in the article to the right)... but the awful surprise is the story with no documentation -  where at this same person's home, someone was shot and killed.  Darn, I hope I someday come across the details... anyway... SURPRISE! hahaha.   

OK...  this IS A LIVE document-  and searching for the "chased through Hoboken" article, I came across the shooting article!  Sadly, it dealt with ... well, dear reader of blogs, you can read it below.  "Old Uncle Chris" was NOT directly involved, but his paramour was the one shot and killed-  in front of her kids - now I'm sorry I laughed.

______________________________________________

And then there's the one about the fortune teller:

OH MY.  It must have been difficult being Christian's brother, but Grandpa pulled it off!  I'm thinking maybe this is why we NEVER heard any stories about this guy.

Week 5 (January 29-February 4): At the Library

At the Library

Seriously?  I have nothing.

When I first moved from North Jersey to the Jersey shore, I immediately joined the library-  and realized that Ancestry was FREE if you went to the physical library.  I did that for a while-  and advanced a bit in my findings, but it was more than 10 years ago.

I've had a paid subscription off and on for the last little while.  But there were no librarians in the family that I have come across in my research.

I worked at a library for 5 years- but as I said above...

Seriously, I have nothing.