I’ve been in Beckley for the past few days. Unemployment
frees up a lot of time for family. On Sunday, I went to dinner with a branch of
the family that I hardly know: the progeny of my dad’s mother’s siblings. (So,
they are my second cousins? This is confusing.) My dad’s mom (my Grandma Emma)
died before I was born. I’m not exactly sure how long before I was born and I’m
not sure why. Something liver-related maybe?
Anyway, it turns out that she had like eight siblings, so there
are quite a few second cousins(?) who, in turn, have children and grandchildren.
I think I was vaguely aware that these people existed, but never before had I
attempted to create a mental “family tree” that pieces that branch of the
family together before this dinner.
During dinner, one of the cousins mentioned that many
members of this branch of the family lived together in the Paint Street House
in a multigenerational situation for a while. The Paint Street House. I’d
always thought of this house as my (late) paternal grandpa’s. He died when I
eight or nine, and he lived in this house for most of the time I knew him. He
was very into fruit trees and had all kinds of them in his yard. He and that house are just so synonymous in my memory. It’s kind of blowing my mind that it’s
actually more accurate to think of the house as Emma’s.
This discovery has really changed my perception of my
grandpa. It seems weird to me that he moved in with his wife, her mother, and
her intellectually disabled sister (and possibly even more of her relatives?)
when they got married. But maybe this wasn’t weird at all in the 50s?
The older I get, the more I realize how little I know about
my family. It’s so funny because it’s not like my parents are deliberately
secretive or are purposely trying to obfuscate some sketchy piece of family
history. I’m assuming that their lack of info sharing is coming form one of two
much more mundane places. Either a.) the information does not seem interesting
to them, and therefore they do not share it, or b.) the information seems
obvious to them, and therefore they do not think to state it.
But back to the Paint Street House. It’s this tiny house in
a neighborhood that has sort of deteriorated over the years. Growing up, I was
always equally fascinated and terrified by the basement, with is dug out and
unfinished so that the walls are all craggy and earthen.
When I think of my family origins, I think of my dad’s
family, which is actually to say that I think of my dad’s dad’s family, which
is very much to say that I think of this very intimate and modest little house
and its basement and my grandpa’s trees and grapes and his tendency to wear
sweat pants all the time and never throw anything away, and never buy anything
either.
But no, it turns out that all of that was wrong. This
weekend, I met all of these people. They were blonde and loud. They live Texas
and Florida. And they are wealthy (or
I’m guessing that are, based on their appearance and mannerisms). Their
children are counselors and television actors and all kinds of things. And many
of them (the cousins) actually lived in the Paint Street House at some point.
I am a white, American, middle class, post-Protestant person
of unspecified European ancestry, which is to the say that I have a tendency
toward naval gazing and a latent and oft-denied obsession with my identity. And
part of my identity is “where I came from,” to use a phrase that I hate. And
where I came from, is, figuratively, the Paint Street House. But my conception
of the Paint Street House was incorrect, which means that my conception of
“where I came from” was, too.
I wonder if my (hypothetical future) children will know as
little about my parents’ lives and I know about my grandparents’ lives?
