My Mother's Family

When my mom was younger, sometime in her teenage years, she found out that the man she thought of as her father, was not. The man who treated her unkindly, the father who didn't love her enough, was merely her step-father. Years of mental abuse suddenly made sense. But there were questions. Questions that went unanswered. My grandmother told my mother that her father was dead, he died when she was three years old. My mother had the name of a dead man and nothing else. She escaped that household and immediately began her own. One husband, eight children and eight grandchildren later, my mother wanted answers to the questions that none of us knew still tormented her.

With no help from my grandmother, my parents went to the library and searched the archives of city records and census papers. She found her father's name, along with the name of his mother, sister and brother. Were they still alive? Did they even live in town? She questioned my grandmother one more time and was inadvertently told that the sister lived very near. In a blind fury of emotions and tears, my mother opened the telephone book to what should have been her maiden name. She found the sister's phone number and dialed.

My mom was lucky. Uncovering a family, after 58 years, can be risky. It's like finding a name at random and owing them birthday cards and Christmas newsletters for eternity. In her rash moment of finding her aunt's name in the phone book, my mother didn't have time to think of the consequences. She didn't have time to think about the possibility of being disappointed.

And luckily for her, she wasn't. Her aunt and uncle knew the moment they saw her that my mom was "one of them." They came bearing stories and photos. And their non-bitterness helped my mother deal with the fact that this family had been hidden from her for this long. That her father didn't die until she was nine years old. That her grandmother didn't die until after I, the youngest child, was born.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Marion brought stories of my grandfather. Stories from when he was little, causing mischief. Stories from his adulthood, his many jobs, his marriage, and his subsequent death. When I first visited them, it was still new to all of us. Stories of my "new" grandfather dominated the conversation. Mentioning a relative's name brought confusion and a needed lesson in the family tree.

But something strange happened the next time I was in town and visited with them. My grandfather began to fade from the conversation. It was as though, having brought us all together, he could now step away. It was as if, almost 50 years after his death, he had played his role of ghostly matchmaker successfully. Up until recently, I had been thinking of these people as my mother's relatives, because she needed them the most. Suddenly, out of nowhere, they became mine.

Originally published in Maryland Woman Magazine, March 2000
In memory of Marion Dombrowski, June 2, 1919 - December 28, 2005