DANGER: Poking into the past can be interesting AND troubling

Last night I completed another item on my 101 things to accomplish in 1001 days.  I finished my Dad's side of the family's scrapbook.  Initially it was just to be about my Dad, but it morphed into the entire James family, from the late 1600s to my Dad's death in 2006.

I have already shared with you the story of my Civil War relative with PTSD who left his wife.  But he is not the most interesting person in my family tree.  There was a woman in the early 1800s who gave birth out of wedlock to a son.  Scandalous enough for the time, but the father of the baby was a Native American.  Family legend has the father being a famous chief.  Pretty cool, huh?  However, I am a historian and wanted to know the facts, so I roped my son in to assist me and we determined that more than likely we are NOT descended from this chief.  If I could locate any of my Uncle Bill's sons and get one of them to submit to DNA testing we could determine the truth for certain (apparently the testing has to be done on a son of a son.....so those three are the only ones who qualify out of all 34 of my cousins).

Then there was another lady who was really cranky.  At least I assume so, based on her will.  She tells her three daughters they get nothing since she already took care of their weddings.  One son gets $5, the other gets all of her land - over 100 acres, with the house, barn, various out buildings, all the livestock, and farm implements.  But only on the condition that he provide her a place to live, takes care of her through her final days, and provides a proper funeral and burial.  If he fails, everything goes to the $5 brother.  Needless to say, the son did his duty and got his big fat inheritance.  I am sure the family did NOT get together for Christmas after that will!

More recently, my father's grandfather is supposed to have committed suicide.  I have several newspaper clippings regarding his death and the police investigation.  Seems his beloved first wife died and he remarried.  But his second wife was a bit of a disappointment.  They did not get along well.  But he didn't seem to be depressed or distraught about it.  So everyone was surprised when wife #2 came screaming out the front door that John (my family is big on naming everyone either William or John.....they litter the records and only middle initials make it at all possible to keep track of who you are talking about) had killed himself. 

The police investigated and sure enough, there lay John on the bathroom floor, blood everywhere, his throat slit, an apparent suicide.

But the family didn't buy it.  All of John's children were grown and gone so no one was home but John and wife #2, so there are no other accounts to belie her story.  The police ruled it a suicide in spite of the other questionable evidence, which would have made for a great CSI episode.  This was the late 20s or early 30s, so no forensic units, no blood spatter patterns, no rigorous questioning of the witness.  John's now widow was covered in blood, but that could be explained by here bursting into the bathroom and cradling her dead husband.  But there were one or two little bitty items that no one bothered to ask about.  Maybe it was easier to label him a suicide and move on.  Maybe the police chief was inept.  Maybe he didn't like Great-Grandpa John.  Who knows?

But the questions that my grandpa always asked started with:  Where was the weapon?  Wouldn't a suicide still be holding the straight razor, or at least wouldn't it be on the floor near his body?  You'd think so, but it wasn't.  Turns out my great-grandfather slit his throat (if you believe his widow's story and the evidence of the facts) and then threw the straight razor into the toilet (the razor was indeed found in the plumbing leading from the toilet), then flushed the toilet (the old fashioned kind with a chain from the overhead tank) and then died.  Pretty amazing feat, huh?

Wife #2/widow provided what my Grandpa James always considered to be further evidence of her guilt.  A few years after the death of her husband (also her second) she was admitted into the state mental hospital where she remained for the rest of her life.  I don't know if she was sent there by her children, if she admitted herself, or if the police had something to do with it.  My Grandpa James always insisted that her final years in the mental hospital prove that she was crazy and that she was capable of, and indeed did, murder her own husband.

I'm just glad that she isn't related to me except through marriage!

Now that I have my Dad's side of the family's scrapbook complete, I want to start working on my Mom's side of the family.  There won't be as much drama, mental illness, and kooky behavior (my Dad's family is Welsh and Irish, Mom's is German and English, so they are much more respectable) but there are some war heroes and one murder victim where I am 100% certain that the men they hanged for that crime were innocent and were simply victims of local bigotry and prejudice.

But I'll save that story for another day.