Wide awake at 1:53 am. Buddy had a meowing fit, got over it and I am sure she is sound asleep downstairs. Sometimes I can go right back to sleep but not this time. Mentally, I put together what I have been finding on Ancestry.com. Family members whose names I barely remember and where they fit in the family puzzle so to speak. It is beginning to make sense but it is still a lot to process. When it concerns my fathers side of the family, I just put all the records and newspaper clippings on his name and will sort it out later. Same practice for my moms side of the family on her name. My brother once made the statement and I had not thought about it, but our fathers side of the family was pretty tight. Really, not too many friends outside of the extended family. Oh, there were some but I don't recall too many. What is odd on ancestry.com, that in the list of brothers and sisters many times my grandfather is not included. In an obit of one of the siblings, another brother is left out in the grouping. Don't know if this is error or if there was some underlying issue and that what's fun to dig around, looking for. In the early morning I looked at my grandfather's sister, Mae. I never knew her first name was Lillian. From childhood, I believe I only met her once. Our family spent the night at her farmhouse in Kentucky. I remember two things in particular, it was my first experience with a chamber pot under our beds, although there was indoor plumbing downstairs and I loved watching the tractor out in the field. That recollection of spending a night on a farm is one of a few fond memories in a childhood that contained more bad experiences than good. I believe on that same trip we stopped at one of my father's friends from his days in the funeral home business. My father had planned on studying to be a mortician, but my mom wasn't too fond of the idea. In retrospect, he did better with the dead than the living but on that trip, at that stop at his friends is when he turned off the light and left me with a dead body. I got in trouble for screaming, cause you know, it was all a joke. In hindsight, he was just reinforcing silence when he troubled with me. When Doug was here a couple of weeks ago, he had never heard that story and during the years I have heard his story with our father, many of them I didn't know. We both agree, when his attention wasn't on us, we were unable to help any other member of the family because the respite was needed for the next skirmish. I remember once, my father's cousin and family came to Houston and stayed with us on vacation. It seems that our cousins were there too from Illinois. There were four girls that I believe we only saw that once or maybe once in Illinois, but of the four, one of them passed away in 2018. In the early morning, reading about a third cousin I hardly remember, I felt sad, because of her death and because from what I understand, stupid statements my father made long ago, helped put the distance between us and that branch of the family.
One of the Target deliveries came this morning. I do use them for essentials and helps keep me in out of stores and with people. Two more things are coming today, one of them being an electric blanket. The one we have is too slick and even though we have it between two heavy blankets in the winter, it still is slip sliding away. Since it is so difficult to get under the bed and unplug everything, I just left it on and folded it back toward the end of the bed, still slips away. We picked the new one out cause it is heavier and hopefully stable.
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Buddy slept downstairs all night and hardly made a sound. Roy suggested making the downstairs a little cooler for her and maybe that's just what she needed. Getting a full night of sleep every other night, while rough, it is better than almost four bad nights with one good. This morning Biggio met me at the backdoor and Radley was there as well. Radley and Biggio come and go, with Biggio being around more often. Radley let me pet him again and this morning little Toupee reached out with her paw and put it on my hand. All in all amidst the Feral Fam fusses, it was heartwarming.
I spent way too much time on Ancestry.com yesterday but I continue to learn some of the most interesting facts. There is so much more I hoped to find, but it is satisfying to pick up bits and pieces and like writing about before, putting these facts together. I re-read a post I did in 2015 with facts I had found. Re-reading the blog post yesterday got me to thinking that something didn't add up. The trial dates of members of the hunters were in 1915 when my grandfather would have been ten years old and his brothers, well the ranged from newborn to three years old in 1915. Don't think even back in the day they would be out past dark, riding horses and doing mischief, to put it mildly. So, the story my father told me was basically true about the history of that time, but he lied when it came to including his father and uncles. If you knew my father, this isn't a big surprise to tell a "story" that had some truth, but contained more untruths. My father was a very unhappy man and would besmirch a person in a heartbeat. He didn't like his mother but seemed to somewhat like his father. Truth be known from me, I was upset and unsettled by the story he told. My grandfather was kind in many ways and he loved his grandchildren. I could not see him being a part of a group that could be so mean to so many. The device my father used to draw me in, an unbelievable story, so he could laugh later at my stupidity of believing such a story. Haha Dad, the joke is on you. You legally severed our relationship and died before I discovered the truth. A side note... he died on April 1. I'm going to write about this in more blog posts to process my feelings and thoughts. But dang, this man was the best dang liar.
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