Skeletons In Your Closet

**TBS** · 08-08-2019, 08:37 PM

My paternal grandmother burned down their house for the insurance during the Depression - did a year in a women’s prison in NC

**Peruvian** · 08-08-2019, 08:56 PM

KQ...you sayin’ you a Lawson?

**Doremite** · 08-08-2019, 09:08 PM

I may be descendent of Robert E. Lee.
I think we’d have almost nothing in common.
KQ, horrendous thread kick off. omg.

**fatnslow** · 08-08-2019, 09:32 PM

Originally Posted by El Chupacabra

I apparently have a great-uncle on the Korean side of the family, who had some odd arrangement that allowed him to travel between the North and South... and had a wife in both countries. So somewhere out there in North Korea I have relatives.

Weirdness.

That was just called being rich before the Korean war pre 1950. Pretty common for upper class Koreans to have multiple families back in the day.

**wolfelot** · 08-08-2019, 09:37 PM

Wow. Some fascinating stories.

**iceman** · 08-08-2019, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by old goat

I don't think he appreciated the irony. I've heard it said that the ability to believe two contradictory ideas is a sign of intelligence. I don't know if that's true.

Yes and no.

**old goat** · 08-08-2019, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by Doremite

I may be descendent of Robert E. Lee.
I think we’d have almost nothing in common.
KQ, horrendous thread kick off. omg.

My wife has ancestors on both sides of the Revolutionary War--a colonist and a Hessian mercenary who decided he liked America better than Germany after the war.

**rideit** · 08-08-2019, 10:30 PM

Originally Posted by iceman

Yes and no.

I see what you did there

**splat** · 08-08-2019, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by frorider

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

Originally Posted by m2711c

how did that work out for you?

He hung his head and cried.

**abraham** · 08-08-2019, 10:50 PM

I have a great great grandfather who may have been a Texan. Never found out enough of the story and I suspect it's gone now but the family thought he was from Mexico and had been there his whole life, at some point someone found papers that suggested he lived in Texas.

And I had a great aunt who hated everything that came with being a first generation Mexican American. She moved to Montana, got married, and said she was native because I guess that was a step up to her. Cut off all contact with her family, had kids and grandkids, they all thought they were Native Americans until right around when she died and they found out about her siblings in California. One of her kids actually lived about thirty miles away from me and my parents.

**splat** · 08-08-2019, 10:52 PM

My one grandfather was chased out of Ireland for being an IRA gunrunner. He emigrated to the US and settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He became a cop and fought bare knuckle in NYC and made a good bit of money. Family has like the best fucking burial plot in the Bridgeport graveyard, probably because my grandmother died a young death.
edit: Unfortunately, Bridgeport was a graveyard of its own last time I was there to drop my dad's ashes in the family plot.

My other grandfather was a steam locomotive engineer on the Oklahoma/Texas border. When he heard they'd be hauling a load of Mexican gold, he partnered up with (no shit) Belle Starr and her outlaw gang and they robbed the train and got away with it. Gramps retired shortly thereafter, moved to upstate NY and the fam made it through the Great Depression quite comfortably. Every year he'd take my uncles on a trip back to Texas to get enough gold to last them another year. 30 years ago, my uncle told me there was still gold buried on the old family homestead in Nacodoches, TX, so some treasure hunting buddies and I flew a single engine plane down and snooped around with metal detectors and shit.. We found a silicon carbide crucible that had been used to melt gold with a little bit of gold still around the rim. But we didn't find the stash.

**old goat** · 08-08-2019, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by splat

My one grandfather was chased out of Ireland for being an IRA gunrunner. He emigrated to the US and settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He became a cop and fought bare knuckle in NYC and made a good bit of money. Family has like the best fucking burial plot in the Bridgeport graveyard, probably because my grandmother died a young death..

My other grandfather was a steam locomotive engineer on the Oklahoma/Texas border. When he heard they'd be hauling a load of Mexican gold, he partnered up with (no shit) Belle Starr and her outlaw gang and they robbed the train and got away with it. Gramps retired shortly thereafter, moved to upstate NY and the fam made it through the Great Depression quite comfortably. Every year he'd take my uncles on a trip back to Texas to get enough gold to last them another year. 30 years ago, my uncle told me there was still gold buried on the old family homestead in Nacodoches, TX, so some treasure hunting buddies and I flew a single-engine plane down and snooped around with metal detectors and shit.. We found a silicon carbide crucible that had been used to melt gold with a little bit of gold still around the rim. But we didn't find the stash.

That story is going to be hard to top.

**mtngirl79** · 08-08-2019, 11:43 PM

The patriarch of the McCoy family in the McCoy and Hatfield feud is my great ×4 (I think, it's hard to count) uncle.

**splat** · 08-09-2019, 12:03 AM

Originally Posted by old goat

That story is going to be hard to top.

That plane ride down there with a rookie pilot was a fucking harrowing tale as well.

KQ · 08-09-2019, 12:37 AM

Originally Posted by splat

That plane ride down there with a rookie pilot was a fucking harrowing tale as well.

I

U Splat

**splat** · 08-09-2019, 12:42 AM

And I love you, KQ!

**billyk** · 08-09-2019, 01:51 AM

One of my distant relatives rode with Quantrill, Jesse James, and Cole Younger during the Civil War, and died at the battle of Lone Jack in Missouri (the same battle Rooster Cogburn of True Grit supposedly lost his eye at).

I have another relative who was a Marshal in Kansas City and was involved in the hunt for the James/Younger gang, and was mentioned in a book about the Pinkertons that my dad had. Not sure if that made him a good guy or a bad guy, because the Pinkertons did some pretty bad shit back then.

**MTT** · 08-09-2019, 02:10 AM

Originally Posted by old goat

I don't think he appreciated the irony. I've heard it said that the ability to believe two contradictory ideas is a sign of intelligence. I don't know if that's true.

This has bothered me for years. If you shot a man in Reno they wouldn't put you in Folsom prison.

He got pitched in CA for something petty - Got away with the murder. - And he's just sayin - Well I did do that dude in Reno

**2bjenny** · 08-09-2019, 09:01 AM

My grandmother used to tell us John Wesley Hardin was out 5th great grandfather. I never believed that story, My 3rd great grandfather (?) rode with the Moccasin Rangers in the Civil War. I guess him, his dad, brothers, uncles and cousins all rode with the Moccasin Rangers.

**wooley12** · 08-09-2019, 09:18 AM

I had a relative name of Cole in the Civil War

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**riser4** · 08-09-2019, 10:24 AM

So far I don't see anything that will keep anyone from obtaining elected office, notwithstanding the fact that the bar has been set pretty fucking low by the current pResident. All of the stories are interesting history about ancestors, not something juicy that YOU have done that nobody best find out about. That's my bar and what I think of when I hear the phrase'skeletons in the closet', other than some good GD music. PERSONAL skeletons. No offense intended KQ, these are all fascinating family histories.

**old goat** · 08-09-2019, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by riser3

So far I don't see anything that will keep anyone from obtaining elected office, notwithstanding the fact that the bar has been set pretty fucking low by the current pResident. All of the stories are interesting history about ancestors, not something juicy that YOU have done that nobody best find out about. That's my bar and what I think of when I hear the phrase'skeletons in the closet', other than some good GD music. PERSONAL skeletons. No offense intended KQ, these are all fascinating family histories.

Don't get your hopes up. We're all saints here.

**schindlerpiste** · 08-09-2019, 10:47 AM

Everyone said
I'd come to no good, I knew I would Pearly, believe them
Half of my life
I spent doin' time for some other fucker's crime
The other half found me stumbling 'round drunk on Burgundy wine

**4matic** · 08-09-2019, 11:34 AM

Not exactly skeletons:

My gg grandfather finished med school in Philly and married a socialite against advice of family. He ran away after four days, changed his name, and worked as dr on sailing ships where he was shipwrecked in a storm. After moving to Indiana he mustered the 44th Indiana and led Troops at Shiloh and was wounded and captured at Stones River. He was exchanged for a confederate spy. After release from prison he went to visit his parents in Philly where he was arrested for abandonment money owed to the estranged wife. It was a front page scandal; I have the articles. He was ordered released by General Rosencranz to return to the war and went back to his farm and current wife in Indiana but didn’t return to his Troops. After ordered to return or be arrested he showed up drunk and addressed his troops. He was then court martialed and sent home. After this, he faked his death and sent a notice to Philadelphia courts but the former wife found out. She wanted all his stuff and house as was the law then. Total front page scandal. Back and forth with headlines. The Colonel wrote a long treatise that included the following:

"I have had measles, chicken pox, blisters on my heals, and pepper in my eyes; I have had mumps, and earaches, and colic, and I assure you I have lived through them all; I have survived prison, ocean storms, and shipwreck; I have lived next door to a fellow learning the brass horn, and I think I could go through them again; but I cry mercy fair lady don’t come out here to take possession of my home."

The indiana courts declared him divorced with no liability. Ulysses Grant formally pardoned his court martial.

The colonel had several pseudonyms, which were common at the time, and he wrote poetry and political work.

**dan_pdx** · 08-09-2019, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by splat

My one grandfather was chased out of Ireland for being an IRA gunrunner. He emigrated to the US and settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He became a cop and fought bare knuckle in NYC and made a good bit of money. Family has like the best fucking burial plot in the Bridgeport graveyard, probably because my grandmother died a young death.
edit: Unfortunately, Bridgeport was a graveyard of its own last time I was there to drop my dad's ashes in the family plot.

My other grandfather was a steam locomotive engineer on the Oklahoma/Texas border. When he heard they'd be hauling a load of Mexican gold, he partnered up with (no shit) Belle Starr and her outlaw gang and they robbed the train and got away with it. Gramps retired shortly thereafter, moved to upstate NY and the fam made it through the Great Depression quite comfortably. Every year he'd take my uncles on a trip back to Texas to get enough gold to last them another year. 30 years ago, my uncle told me there was still gold buried on the old family homestead in Nacodoches, TX, so some treasure hunting buddies and I flew a single engine plane down and snooped around with metal detectors and shit.. We found a silicon carbide crucible that had been used to melt gold with a little bit of gold still around the rim. But we didn't find the stash.

Wow, now that's a story! Our grandfathers were so damn interesting, I feel like such a disappointment to my hypothetical future grandkids.