Reading the Sunday New York Times Book Review, I came across this book ANCESTER TROUBLE, by Maud Newton. In the review they give this quote by Nanette Vonnegut, the daughter of Kurt Vonnegut "At the root of a lot of Art is an injury that needs addressing." I think that is certainly true and it made me think of the root of my search for ancestry: My mother's mysteriously missing parentage. For most of my early childhod, Grandmom and Grandpop Lyons were just that, my Grandparents. It wasn't until later, I am not even sure when, that it was revealed to me that Grandmom Lyons was actually my mother's Aunt and that she had addopted my mother and her sister Sally from the Camden Friendless Children's Home. I am not kidding, that was the name of the orphanage, which I have no doubt sent a shiver of outrage through my Grandmom Lyons every time she saw it on the front of the building where her nieces were being cared for until she wasold enough and married and could adopt them.
Probably this personal history emerged during my early teaching years when there was a passion for Oral History and teachers were given workshops on it. It may be that the trend was inspired by the Foxfire Books in which a teacher in George got his somewhat disaffected students to gather folk tales, recipes, and craft lore from the mountain neighbors around them. The Foxfire Books were instant best sellers and started a resurgence of interest in history and in particular local hisstory and family history.
But my questions never succeeded in gathering any relevant information and got brushed off and deflected. It was clear my Grandmother did not want to talk about my mother's parents, and my mother, herself, showed little serious interest in the past although she did offer some observations about the wome who ran the "Camden Friendless Children's Home." She told me they were nice young women who worked there, kind and polite and well educated. I am assuming they were young ladie from the middle class doing a kind of Charity work. My mother said the food was good and she didn't remember being unhappy there but she did remember one terrifying night when men came in through a window and kidnapped a child.
She also recounted how her Grandfather often visited her with a bag of candy which she would eat until she got a stomach ache. She also remembered he was drunk.
Sometimes when I pestered my Grandmother for more information, she made up implausible and ridiculous lies and totally fictional names which put me off the track in my search. Some of her stories were that my mother's parents were killed in an automobile crash, that my mother's father was the son of a wealthy beer manufacturing family.
I don't know why this mystery should have engaged me as it did for all the years, no one else seemed to care, but I couldn't shake it off. I had to know who my mother's parents were and what happened to them.
It was the inspiration for my joining ancestry.com and my subsequent sporadic researches over the many decades. I discovered that my mother had another sister who was alive up until the early years of the 2000's and that she lived in the mid-west. Her name was Betty. My mother's other sister, Sally, lived in the same town we moved to in New Jersey, Maple Shade. She lived until recently and I was able to contact her. She and my mother had been estranged for most of my life. They had fallen out over several insulting and hurtful incidents. My mother, who I can vouch for as the most generous, kind hearted and helpful soul I have ever known, was always helping her sister who was always in one kind of trouble or another - divorce, emotional meltdowns, and I was too young to really understand what was wrong with her, but she couldn't cope. My mother often took care of Sally's two sons, one of whom eventually committed suicide. His name was Richy, but we called him Pip and he was named after his father Richard Scarpetti, who had been a window dresser in Philadelphia back in the days when the big stores had beautifully and imaginatively decorated window displays. He died early in his sons lives. Aunt Sally re-married, but by then the sisters weren't talking anymore. Sally's married name was Stulpenis. There was something about a loaned and not returned christening gown, but I know there must have been more.
Anyway, Sally was apparently the last one to see her father alive, and he lived into the 1970's. My mother's and her sister's father was named Goldy. He was the son of Quaker farmers in South Jersey, but apparently the ghost of rumor whisptered that he had a drinking problem. The girls mother died of pneumonia/tuberculosis following the Spanish Flu Epidemic after World War I. Her mother's name was Sarah Goldy.
She was in her mid-twenties when she died. I have a couple of photographs of her and I wonder who will care when I am gone. These ancestors in their paper ghost form live with me, many of the on the bookshelves in my bedroom. They are people to me and I wanted their stories.
Now the question is, do I buy the book the review of which inspired all this thinking? I am trying to stop buying books on impulse, but this sounds like a good one.
I will let you know what I decide - right now, it is time for lunch.
Happy Trains! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com
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