My biological father and adoptive mother were born in October and December of 1935, respectively. This was the heart of the Depression and both were born to brutally poor parents in the South. My mother would go on to live a life of priviledge, my father would never see his 38th birthday. Each gave me gifts and faults, and I deeply regret never meeting my father.
He was born to sharecroppers in northwest Georgia, the eldest of 11 living children. His parents, my grandparents, had grown up together when my maternal great-grandmother married my paternal great-grandfather. While not related except by marriage, they shared the same household from late childhood until their marriage and I don’t think my grandmother had much say with regard to the union.
By all accounts, he was an abusive bastard until his later years. My uncle, a mere 3 years younger than I, says that by the late 60’s all the anger seemed spent from him. He had a hard life. Overwhelming responsibilities. No way out. And with the family temper raging within him, he took it out quickly on those nearby, especially when he “took to drinkin”. According to the stories, he attacked my aunt (my father’s sister) with what appeared to be incestuous intentions. My father took a 2X4 to him and knocked him out. Soon thereafter, my father falsified his age and signed up to join the Army. By the time he was honorably discharged in around 1965, he would have a different name, a daughter he could not find, and a wife with 2 children. More to come.
My grandfather died 2 years after his son at age 62 of the same cause: sudden myocardial infarction. My grandmother didn’t mourn his passing.
She was a prototype of a poor white southern woman. She managed the household while supporting her sharecropping husband with extra work at the local textile mill. She had babies – a lot of them – spanning a 23 year period. She had a beautiful voice and sang in the church and at home. The whole family is musical and that’s where I get it from. She could cook and she could eat. Everyone who has met me says that while I do not look like her, I remind them of her in almost every other way. Apparently I even “sit” like her. This is curious because on the OTHER side of my birth family, everyone says I am the image of my mother and half-sister. Hard to say – 2nd younger sister on my father’s side and I now look a lot alike. Genetics are interesting.
My father died in Georgia while walking from one room to another in October of 1973. He and his wife had 3 kids and one on the way. He’d been diagnosed with ALS by the Army, thus his widow lived on his full disability pension until her death 11 days before I discovered this part of my family tree. I’m glad the ALS didn’t end his life, but I’m also glad that I didn’t know that he and 4 of his brothers would not see their 40th birthday because their hearts just stopped. His sisters would follow in their 40’s. 2 more brothers in their early 50’s. 3 survive – it’s hard to say how they dodged this particular bullet.
No more time this morning. More soon.