You can learn a lot from old timers...

[Jogeephus]

This actually happened today and I just got off the phone to verify some of the facts I was given. All checks out so this is probably true but I am not going to give any details cause I was just reminded how small the world is.

Today I met an elderly man and he and I got to talking. Turns out he is from another town and has recently moved here for his health. Anyhow, I asked him if he knew my uncle who also lived in the town he moved from. (uncle is now deceased) He said yes. He had grown up with him. He began telling me stories about his love of flying and his work in the Amazon. How he hobknobbed with Jimmy Carter. He told me things I didn't know. Some of them were pretty cool. But what blew my mind was the fact that my uncle had a wife and family in South America! :shock: Yep, according to him, I got 10 cousins I've never met.

Not one to believe just anything, I made a few phone calls and yes, my uncle owned two companies in South America. And yes, he spent a lot of time there. Yes, he was on Carter's staff. And No, my aunt never visited the factories. It also explains why someone who owned two airplanes and a luxurious home could die and leave his wife nearly penniless - his american wife anyhow.

This blew my mind! So it just goes to show you, IT IS A SMALL WORLD!

(As for the family, I believe I'll keep all this to myself)

 

[Tommy Ruyle]

:shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[I luv herfrds]

Yes it is always surprising what some one else knows or remembers about a family member.

 

[TREY-L]

WOW! What a bombshell!

My Dad is retired Air Force, he spent his whole career traveling the world........my siblings and I always joked that we probably had half brothers and sisters all over the world! After reading your story, now I'm really wondering. :???:

 

[Nowland Farms]

Joo,

Something similar happend around here back in the 60s. Here are the highlights of the story.

-There was a couple named Davis who owned a pertolumn company.
-They were millionaires
-Mr Davis and his wife could not have children (her problem).
-When they were in their early 40s, a young lady in her late teen/early 20s came and lived with them for a couple of years.
-Then the young lady left.
-Mr Davis opens up a branch office of his pertolumn company in Pensacola FL
-Mr Davis worked here in town during the week, in Pensacola every weekend.
-This goes on for years.
-The Davis's live in a large house on a farm next to the interstate but Mr Davis is a tightwad. He would never left his wife put out christmas lights, etc.....
-About 15 years ago, Mr Davis dies.
-When they probated the will, Mrs Davis finds out about the other family in Pensacola.
-Apparently the young lady had left and went to Pensacola thus the reason for the new location of Me Davis's company
-Mr Davis and the young lady in Pensacola had 2 kids.


We never heard the details of the will but understand that both the Pensacola family and Mr Davis were taken care of.

I can tell you that after all this came out, Mrs Davis would have her yard decorated at Christmas time. If you ever traveled thru this area on the interstate around Christmas time, you would have seen the lights. I bet there was close to a million lights. I guess this was her way of getting back at her husband. This went own for about 10 years until Mrs Davis died.

 

[Alice]

Why not tell the rest of the family? Chances are more of the family knew it than you think...

Alice

 

[Jogeephus]

You just never know. I've always been tickled by quote from the book "Run with the Horseman" written by Ferrol Sams when his mom tells him to "marry outside the county". Being from the south, you would really appreciate this book. I always enjoy talking to older people cause they can share so much and they can also put a lot of things in perspective. I guess that's why this book comes to mind.

 

[Alice]

You just never know. I've always been tickled by quote from the book "Run with the Horseman" written by Ferrol Sams when his mom tells him to "marry outside the county". Being from the south, you would really appreciate this book. I always enjoy talking to older people cause they can share so much and they can also put a lot of things in perspective. I guess that's why this book comes to mind.

I'll look for it...thanks for the suggestion.

Alice

 

[Jogeephus]

Why not tell the rest of the family? Chances are more of the family knew it than you think...

Alice

I don't think my aunt would take this too well. Being he is deceased, how could any good come out of it? From my cousins' point of view, - the american cousins that is - I think they would rather remember their dad as someone more closely defined by his eulogy. If others know, I'm sure they have kept quiet for this reason which I will do also. Its just amazing to me but not surprising. He was afterall an attorney.

 

[Crowderfarms]

Jo, I can see all of you at the next "Hugo Chavez" family reunion.

 

[Alice]

Why not tell the rest of the family? Chances are more of the family knew it than you think...

Alice

I don't think my aunt would take this too well. Being he is deceased, how could any good come out of it? From my cousins' point of view, - the american cousins that is - I think they would rather remember their dad as someone more closely defined by his eulogy. If others know, I'm sure they have kept quiet for this reason which I will do also. Its just amazing to me but not surprising. He was afterall an attorney.

I'm not sayin' ask your aunt... :shock: I just think that if this old gentleman you were talking to knows this, chances are others do to. I know there are skeletons in my family's closet that I wish to goodness my grandmother hadn't been so tight lipped about. To the day she died, she denied being related to Jesse James, and I know full well she was. And now that she's gone, there's really no way to know all of the stories that went with that.

Alice

 

[Jogeephus]

Alice, I'm sure you are right that others know about this as well. I don't think secrets and lies can ever be successfully buried. My uncle lived about 8 hours from me so I really don't know anyone to ask other than family members and if any of them know they have been tight lipped about it - if they don't - I don't need to be the one enlightening them. I did talk to mom about this and she is the one who verified some of the things this fella told me but she was in shock about the other family. Mom is tight-lipped about stuff like this so if she does do any inquiries it will be very very tactfully done. She did afterall "control" my dad for many years while he just "thought" he ran the castle. She's an amazing woman. :nod:

 

[Lammie]

I think that back in an other day and time, it would not have been terribly uncommon to see this sort of thing happen. Every family has it's secrets. Thing is, back in the day, no one felt compelled to air their dirty laundry for everyone to see. If there was a family scandal, then no one would ever know, and if they did, they sure didn't talk about it.

I can think of several examples in families I have known, including my own. Affairs between inlaws, that kind of thing. And for everything I know, I know that there is a lot more I don't.

 

[Jogeephus]

Jo, I can see all of you at the next "Hugo Chavez" family reunion.

Now that would be something! Reckon I'd get my gas free? Of course this might make getting a passport rather difficult.

Crowder, I've been thinking about your trips to Alaska during salmon season. You wouldn't be trying to get into politics would ya? :lol2:

 

[Horticattleman]

I think you're doing the right thing Jo

 

[xbred]

why would anyone move to Georgia for thier health? what's wrong with him, frostbite?

 

[Jogeephus]

why would anyone move to Georgia for thier health? what's wrong with him, frostbite?

You must not read the National Enquirer. Boiled peanuts are good for your health. :nod: Actually, he moved here cause his son works here and he wanted to be close if something happens.

 

[xbred]

i'm sure he had good reasons..i shouldn't joke about health...and yes..we can learn alot from oldtimers..

 

[chrisy]

I know what you mean by tight lipped I wish some of the older members of my family had left some stories about the family, it might have made trying to look up members on the Ancestry easier. The skeletons fulling out of my family closet is amazing as I'm sure others have had the same.

 

[john250]

A lady I know, married a man 10 yr younger. He worked for a tech company in Atlanta. They traveled the world on his job assignments.
But, he was in Atlanta, 5 days of an average week. And when my friend hired a private detective, she found he had a wife and two kids in S. Carolina. Ooops.
People are strange.--Jim Morrison