Obscure Family History…

This thread inspired me to Google my great-great grandfather, with whom I share a name. I knew he was an architect and had designed the largest hospital in the region I grew up.

That led me to a Wikipedia page for his partner and a list of all their notable projects together. Hospitals, churches, banks, hotels, college halls ... and the high school and library in the city in which I grew up.

I had no idea.

 

Not mine, but Gwen's mother's family lived across the street from the three Gumm sisters in Grand Rapids, Minn., and the three Taylor sisters were close childhood friends with them until the Gumms moved to California and Francis went somewhere over the rainbow.

 

Is it really obscure if your ancestor was a Senator? (My cousin was, and quite recently.)

An aunt of -- well, let's be honest, there was no question about her morals -- had a kitchen table abortion.

My grand-uncle was one of the first pedestrian fatalities by auto in New York City.

When my other grand-uncle (and five surviving brothers) sold the family radio tube business to RCA in October 1929, he was offered the presidency of the new NBC radio network. Uncle Natie told them thanks, but he was too busy. So David Sarnoff got the position instead.

In WW2 my uncle was on his way up to the Italian front when a Jewish sargent pulled him out of the line, telling him he wasn't going to let a fellow Jew be sent up to die. He was reassigned to Graves Registration for the rest of the war, an experience he never spoke about, to anyone, ever.

 

My great grandmother (paternal) was the aunt, I believe, of Louis Nippert who was the majority owner of the Reds from 1973 to 1981. He was very involved in Cincinnati and you'll see the Nippert name on a variety of things. If I have followed the tree correctly, he was my grandmother's first cousin. There are Nipperts buried on the family plot of my father's family in my hometown, although Louis is not there.

 

A more distant relative whose family had been harmed by the Hollywood Blacklist went to Altoona, Pa., and shat on the grave of failed actress and gossip monger Hedda Hopper.

 

While researching via newspapers.com last year, I learned my maternal grandfather once held the Eastern Pennsylvania record for most points in a high school basketball game. Of course, the sport was only about a decade old at the time. He also played minor league baseball (which we knew), but discovered his team and stats. Let’s just say, it’s not surprising he lasted only one season.

He also broke up a live sex show in the 1950s that was part of a carnival that came through his county.

 

My ex-wife had ancestors who were part of the Donner party. She vehemently denied that they ate any people and didn't find it funny if I'd joke with our son not to get his fingers too close to mom's plate when she's eating.

 

Nope.

There was also a relative by marriage who did some Davy Crockett-level stuff during a World War. He was played by a laconic western hero in a movie about his exploits and it was hinted that he was the model for Aldo Raine in Inglourious Basterds (that is hard to type!) He spent his final years living peacefully and flacking hard for educational improvements where he lived.

 

Sergeant York?

 

He's like a hillbilly Charlemagne. Everybody is related to him. And we all have a Cherokee Princess great-grandmother. Mine was Cherokee, but she lived in West Nashville, chain-smoked, and fed my mother coffee and Devil Dogs when my grandmother wasn't around. Her favorite regalia consisted of culottes and doo-rags. My mother coveted her flock of ceee-ment chickens.

edited due to a correction from my mother

Let this be a lesson to you young'uns. Don't chuckle too loudly at your elders. Gotta go prove I can make biscuits now.

 

Alvin York... not the most decorated solider in WWI. It was another Tennessean who got the CMH on the same day.

 

Workers misspelled my paternal grandfather’s name when he came over.
No other family in the world has this last name.