Family, Known and Unknown
Above is a picture of my Grand-mère Lucille at the age of 17, having just flown over Long Beach dropping Liberty Bond leaflets from the open cockpit of an airplane. The year was 1917.
I had no inkling she’d done this until last year, when my sister and I were sifting though boxes upon boxes of our dad’s papers and personal belongings. We unearthed some dusty gems of family history, most of which unfortunately are now missing context, and there is no one left who can fill us in. My grandmother was never one to talk much about herself or her life. The last few years she was alive and still able to engage in extended and focused conversation, I tried to get her to open up about her life and family history but our visits were short and infrequent (I lived a few hundred miles away) and I never was able to amass much information, as she remained fairly buttoned up despite my inquiries. Mostly, I’m sorry I never got to know about the kind of young woman she’d been, what she’d seen and done and dreamed.
By the time my sister and I were old enough to be aware of her, she was in her early 60’s and seemed to have mostly settled into a solid propriety. She always was in a dress and hose, her lipstick always applied (but never nail polish). She chided my mother when she felt that my sister and I weren’t demonstrating properly ladylike behavior. So it was interesting to learn years after her death that she’d been rather a bit of a “wild child” for the time. She’d been kicked out of the first college she attended (U of Colorado, Boulder) allegedly for partying too much, though no one ever knew the full story. (She later went on to graduate from U.C. Berkeley.) And now, I find that she took her first flight as a teenager, when flying itself had only been possible for a decade.
I wish she’d shared more of this side of her. We saw glimpses at times, sometimes a snippet of sly humor or even silliness. A bit of it resurfaced during her 60’s after the death of my grandfather, when within the space of a few years she took several trips to the far corners of the world (in tour groups, and I’m certain, in no small degree of comfort), after which she never traveled again. She seemed content to putter around her apartment and small patio garden, have lunch with friends, and read the newspaper. I wonder about the influences and pressures that perhaps molded her into the more constrained, conventional woman we knew. I wonder if she felt repressed, or if she was comfortable in that persona, looking back on her youthful adventures as a phase she was relieved to have survived with no lasting consequences. Did that intrepid young woman remain a part of her identity?
Are there ancestors you wish you knew more about? Have you discovered any surprising information about those in your family tree?
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Fascinating post and such a shame you could not find out more about your grandmother.
I don’t know as much as I would like about one of my grandmothers, but for a different reason. She did not speak English and I only understood basics in her language. She came to the United States from Poland at the age of 19—alone. I do know that she brought lace for a future wedding dress in her trunk even though she had no idea who she would eventually marry.
I think this is a beautiful and rather poignant post. The questions you pose in your last paragraph are so relevant…it is so easy to look at someone and think we know who they are. Define them simply but what we see and assume without stopping to consider that there is always so much more to a person than that. The many faucets of self.
Very interesting to consider the influences that mold us all into different things than we started out as. I sometimes wonder if I have truly changed in and of myself or simply am being constantly refined into my real self?
Anyway, beautiful post.
Sorry, I meant to write “define them BY what we see and assume…” not “but”. 🙂
What a lovely post.
I also had a grandmother with a wild streak that was deeply buried after her marriage. She had been a flapper and won a state wide Charleston dance contest in the late 20’s. She was probably about 15 or 16. I only found that out from one of her daughters years after her death. I suppose the take away message is to ask all the questions you can while there are still people to answer.
What a fantastic story, Une Femme. Your grandmother was bold. Sometimes I think of our elders as always having been well, older. My grandmother was a vibrant, outspoken woman who traveled to New Guinea alone in her 60’s. I miss her.
I know that all of my grandparents came from Lithuania, and I do have a family tree diagram that my mother started. But, I don’t know the towns they came from. You’ve inspired me to contact some relatives that may know more, before it’s too late! Two of the grandparents died before I was born, and like Susan (above), there wasn’t much communication with the other two due to the language problem.
Try Ancestry! They have an international search engine….
I think after WWII, things took a conservative turn, and the older generation felt it wasn’t “proper” to talk about their youth. Especially women, who were encouraged to get back home so the men returning from the war would have jobs. There were more women doctors and lawyers in the twenties than there were in the 50’s.
What a marvellous discovery! I often catch myself wishing I’d thought to ask my dad or my grandparents some question or other while they were still with us — so much history is lost.
I can’t help but think of Lisa’s Saturday post at AmidPrivilege — the way that our various on-line media/platforms afford outlets for expressing and shaping our identity. Obviously your grandma had a self that she didn’t trust to the community she developed with age and marriage — I wonder how different that might have been now. Perhaps she would have had an avatar living out a more adventurous life 😉
What a wonderful post. Just imagine the things that she saw in her lifetime.
Maybe you have some great photos of your grandmere to send to the Sartorialist for his vintage photos posts.
You have presented one of my favorite topics today! I’ve been researching genealogy off & on for several years. It’s fascinating to me, not because my ancestors were particularly notable, but just as a glimpse into history. The lives those people lived somehow shapes my life as well; their decisions resulted in me being me!
I’m always particularly interested in why my ancestors came to America (like most Americans, we all came from somewhere else.) What was life like in 1911 Holland, for example, to convince my great-grandmother to sail for 12 days on a steamship (not first class either, I’m sure) with her two young daughters and two-year-old son. Just think about the diaper issues! According to the Ellis Island records, she got off the boat with all of $25; and, according to the family story, her coffeepot in hand.
Was it courage, or desperation, or adventurousness, that made them leave home? For those of you who haven’t explored your own family history, do it now before you lose more family members who can tell you wonderful stories. Unless they are like my grandma, who when asked anything about her past, would reply, “None of your business.”
What an amazing find! Your heart must have been pounding!
Wow! You sense there was so much of herself she had to constrain, for whatever reason. What a shame she couldn’t just let it rip!
I was adopted as an infant and found my birth parents in my 20s. The Swedish side was full of glamorous, furcoat-wearing women and men who valiantly fought in WWII. The Irish side was full of coal miners, people traumatized by severe mood disorders self-medicated with alcohol, and lots of repression due to strident Catholicism. Really interesting to find out about these hidden parts of myself yet also not claim them as my own way of being.
Wow, I just get the feeling that people of that generation did so much and were so bold and fearless. Try and imagine a 17 year old doing anything remotely like that today. Usually getting one to sit through a family dinner without their ipods is an accomplishment.
Fascinating, Miss Pseu. Miss J was lucky enough to know her maternal great grandmother and certainly wishes she’s gotten for family history from her.
Metscan, it’s interesting to find you have hatmakers in your family tree….I come from a long line of shoemakers, which I feel explains a lot of my closet!
I love this post, you really capture the mystery of your grandmother and so many people from that generation with stories to tell that we will never know for sure. There are so many in my family–all I have is photos since my parents were the youngest of large families and so many of their siblings have passed away. I do look at the photos and wonder.
xo Mary Jo
What a story of the “El Paso Beauty”! Women of that era were vulnerable to a very difficult life if they were *highly* unconventional (and did not have fortunes like Doris Duke). The whole tarnished reputation issue. In more tolerant times your grandmother might not have supressed in her less conventional side.
My hunch is that many secrets went to the grave with women of that era. My family too has these obscured stories, and I so wish someone knew the whole picture.
What a wonderful discovery! As a former wild child myself, I’m aware of pressures to bury that aspect of one’s self once engaged in responsible adulthood, e.g., career, motherhood. etc. Putting away childish things.
It could be fun to see if the Cal archives could tell you any more about her. She would have been a minority in those days both by being a woman and being a Texan.
I think we can fail to mention our youthful exploits if we choose.
But, with safety in mind, we should never discourage the young from pursuing their own exploits —
Genealogy is quite popular here in Finland. My father´s cousin was very interested in it, and made a small booklet of what he had found out. I guess he started by interviewing the relatives who were alive and digged deeper. The old church books have plenty of information, but to get even older facts, must be hard.
I have some interest in the subject.
It was funny to learn, that there were lots of hat makers in my family from my fathers side!
Susan – I imagine the language differences would also prevent barriers to sharing histories. Did she have family already here, or a trade? I can’t imagine picking up and moving somewhere at 19 and alone.
Colleen – thank you. The question of identity is always so intriguing and mysterious at times. Who we are depends on time and surroundings.
caffelatte – thanks. I wish I’d had more curiosity early about my family and history, and that I’d known that all of these archives existed.
LuxeBytes – that’s interesting about your birth family. I have that same Irish heritage (coal miners, alcoholism) on my mother’s side.
coffeeaddict – I think the times were quite different; there were more opportunities, yet more limitations.
Patti – she was bold, and if you’d only known her later in life, it would have been hard to imagine that part of her. Good for your grandmother!
Rita – I hope you’ll do that. Maybe you’ll get to visit some of those towns! With regard to your second comment, that was certainly true, but my grandmother was well into her 40’s by that time, and married and a mother for several years. (She was married in 1926, and my dad was born in 1929.) I know that postwar “feminine mystique” was a big influence on my mother, who came of age during those years, and believed that the only proper role for a woman was a wife and mother.
materfamilias – I read Lisa’s post and haven’t had time to respond coherently, but it seems at times that identity is mutable, and certainly shifts according to the audience. My grandmother kept all of these scrapbooks, yet never talked about her past.
Belle – thank you. I know, can you imagine being born in 1900, and the changes that would have occurred just in the first 40 years of your life… I did send him some but he hasn’t published yet.
Mary Jo – thanks so much! I wish I’d had a tape recorder and been able to get her to open up. I wonder if thanks to the internet our children and grandchildren will have a more complete picture of their history?
Susan Tiner – I think that was part of it, and I think times changed around her.
Beryl – that’s a fascinating suggestion, and I will definitely keep in mind for further research. Thank you!
Rose AG – true, but even so I would’ve loved to have seen historical events through her eyes.
Jill Ann – daily life and people’s struggles and triumphs and tragedies have always seemed so much more interesting than capital H-istory. It’s really amazing what some of our ancestors endured in search of what they believed would be a better life.
Wendy B – yes, we were thrilled to discover these. I have more I’ll share periodically.
metscan – my dad did some genealogical research, but the books are still with my stepmother. How interesting that you had hat makers in the family!
Miss Janey – you’re very lucky to have had a great-grandparent in your life!
Terri – that could be. I wonder if some people just seem to swing between extremes?
Duchesse – that’s probably very true. She married in 1926, and then had to deal with a husband with TB not too many years after that.
Kate – I’m still going through papers from time to time and hope to find more pieces of the puzzle. I do hope you’ll interview your grandmama, think of it as an early gift to your child. I agree that the internet may improve our knowledge of our ancestors.
What a fabulous discovery! Thanks so much for sharing it with us.
Absolutely, I’ve heard stories about my grandmother…but she is no longer around to confirm them. But the stories are colorful.
As a rule of thumb, I would say that the wildest child becomes the most proper adult more often than not.
Such a beautiful post. Perhaps you’ll unearth more? She seems like she was indeed a fascinating woman!
My grandmama is 83 and I think I’m going to try and “interview” her a bit when I go home for the baby shower in September.
My grandmother (dad’s mom) was a spitfire, and we didn’t discover she’d been a stand in for a huge film star in a military style film until her sisters mentioned it at her funeral! She never once had mentioned it to her 5 children!
I think our children and grandchildren will be lucky. I plan to at some point print and publish chunks of my blog for them to really see who I was when I was younger. We document so much more now, it should be easier to keep track of.
Pseu that is such a cool story I got goosebumples!!! It helps to be in a family where record keeping and story telling are tradition. I am so lucky to have known both my grandmeres very well. I really feel connected to them to this day, though they are gone.
I have the best book for you to read, “The Red Leather Diary” about a woman who could indeed have been, your wild grandmother. There was repression, yes, and there was partying and experimentation. Certain things span the generations. I will try and dig up the book for you, or at least the title and author. 🙂 Karen
A fascinating story made more so by the mystery/silence! But sad that the answers are out of reach. I hope she kept that part of herself alive, even if she thought it inappropriate to share it with young ladies such as yourself.
That is SO cool! Just last week I finally started researching my family tree and it’s fascinating. I have nothing as vibrant as this, so far, but it blows my mind to see signatures of my ancestors on naturalization papers, for example.
Beautiful post. If you have not read The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, I think you would enjoy this read.
I have just started researching my family tree and I also left this too late to ask my grandmother and grandfather to tell me their stories. So for any of you who still have time, sit down with your older relatives and listen to those stories. You will be glad you did.
Delightful story. It’s so true that we need to get these stories when our parents and grandparents are younger. That includes their reipces. Otherwise the memories fade as the recipes fade.Your grandma ws quite the lady!