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October 27, 2006
The Path Not Taken
Seven years ago this weekend my mother's twin passed away after a long, protracted illness. The experience rattled our family, shaking loose latent emotions that most had catalogued and filed and left in the attics of their consciousness to gently fade away. During this time, I felt an incredible urge to understand the history of my maternal ancestors. Most of the elders had already died, my grandfather having passed when I was only a few days old, my grandmother when I was three.
Around that time, my mother revealed an interesting detail. My grandmother had been married before she met my grandfather. She did not tell my mother until very late in life and left three details to go on—his last name, the fact that they owned horses and that one day, in a freak accident, he fell off one and died.
I am a good researcher. If you present me with a historical question, especially if it is about a person, I will obsess on it for months, spend hours poring over censes, immigration dockets, archives, correspondence, and whatever other primary sources I can get my hands on. I will find given names and where they lived. I will visit the sites to determine if the buildings are still there. If they are not, I will find historical photographs to show you what once was.
Yesterday, after years of random searching, I found [what I think is] his death announcement. It listed his profession, which lines up with my grandmother's, how he was killed, where his office was in Manhattan, and an apartment address that I have traced to the Sutton Place/Beekman area. I know where he graduated from college and if I had the time, I would go there and find a yearbook.
Why all the hoopla around a man who really had nothing to do with my family? I have asked myself that question a lot. But when I gave this newfound information to my mother, the pieces locked into place. Those three paragraphs about my grandmother's first husband helped my mother better understand her family dynamics. Suddenly, the event passed to her in conversation felt very real. And on top of that, there was an odd realization. If he had not died, four children, five grandchildren and one almost-here great grandchild would not exist.
When you think about it that way, this puzzle piece bears an importance too great to ignore. I only wish that my grandmother were still here to fill in the narrative spaces between the details. Because the one thing I cannot do, despite some good research skills, is go back in time. I cannot speak with those passed. I cannot construct a narrative beyond what was written or captured on film. In short, if there are no people remaining to tell the story, only a scaffold can be constructed. The details are then left to the imagination or scholarly analysis and intelligent assumption. Sometimes that breaks my heart.
Posted by callalillie at October 27, 2006 2:38 AM | Found History
, La Familia
what an amazing discovery - and you're right, this man was so important to your family's life. I often think of this as I am adopted, and there were many, many factors that brought me into what I call my "family." So many different choices could have been made, even little ones, and I either would not be here or I would know a completely different reality.
Slowly I am creating a family tree for myself that includes my adoptive family, and my birth families. So much history! I wish I had your help!
Posted by: leah at October 27, 2006 11:37 AM
I feel similarly about my father and his past. Now that he is gone, I cannot ask him to fill in the blanks and explain to me about this or that photograph. I saw a picture of him on a farm - I didn't know that he grew up on a farm until then. I can't ask him about it now. I am grateful for even the photographs, of course, but I'd love to have him here to ask him about them.
My mother is still alive but bitter as hell about my father and the past, so I cannot ask her about how they met, what she loved most about him, and so forth. That too I grieve.
Posted by: gina at October 27, 2006 11:39 AM
Corie:
Your mother e-mailed me the other day about this. She said she had attached the files that you describe here. Suffice it to say, the attachment wasn't there. I thought to go to your site to see if you might e-mail it to me. Your grandmother told me many things about her first husband......stories wound up in her tales about living in Manhattan, owning a horse, etc. If I remember correctly, his name was Enentru.....
Wishing all is well.
Barry
Posted by: Barry at October 27, 2006 4:21 PM
Why is it that death reveals so much unlived life? figurative paths, we didn't even know were there, suddenly reveal. And yet in that revalation we learn how far past them we've already gone. Can we go back and see what's down that road? Will we have the courage?
For two years, after my father passed away, a document has sat on my desk. I look at sometimes and wonder if I should do something with it. Drafted in the 1960s, it's handwritten, typed and carbon-copied. It would be a compelling look into the legal system's past in of itself, if not for the information it contains. Listed with my father is a woman I've never met, and it follows with instructions on the care of a child whose surname matches my own. Suddenly, a connection to myself and my lineage is made, that for 27 years I knew nothing of, until another connection severed itself when it left the world.
Posted by: jason at October 27, 2006 7:57 PM
Corie,
I have been faithfully reading your blog for months now and whether it's musings about life in Red Hook, the best felafal or where to go for OHNY I have just quietly enjoyed your writing and photographs.
This posting about your grandmother has touched close to home. Many years ago after my father passed away I discovered an annulment paper and a photo of my father with a woman in the 1940's. I had not broached it with my mother at that time and I seem to have misplaced those papers. Should I pursue this mystery? I'm not sure but your story has made me think about the implications of that event in another way.
Marcia
Posted by: Marcia at October 29, 2006 11:20 AM
