Mary J. McCoy-Dressel

Week 7: Whose memories in your family do you wish you could discuss?

Happy Valentine’s Day! 💘

Welcome to Week Seven in our 52-Week Blog Challenge Blog Hop. This is an interesting topic to me.

A family memory I’d like to discuss belongs to my mother. I’d like to talk to my maternal grandmother for the real answers.

My mom had a memory of living in an orphanage until she was around five years old. However, rumors surfaced, thanks to my grandmother’s nosy neighbor and close friend, that my grandmother, who raised her, was my mom’s real mother and had taken her back from the orphanage or adopted her back, whatever they did back then.

My mom had been sworn to secrecy and couldn’t tell my grandma she knew. I was a little girl when this news came out, but I still remember when she called my mom over to discuss this with her in private. Had they assumed I was too young to understand and had my mom kept the secret from Grandma? I wish I knew.

From that moment on, my mom believed my grandmother to be her biological mother, but for some reason, she always thought her dad wasn’t her real dad. Grandma never admitted to Mom being her biological daughter or that her dad was her biological father. My mom loved the man who was a train engineer. She told stories of going on trains with him where he’d let her blow the whistle. All through my growing-up years and into adulthood, my mom didn’t like train whistles. She said they made her feel so forlorn because of happy memories with her dad.

After my grandmother passed away, my mother found proof that yes, indeed, the man who raised her as his own until his death, was in fact, her real dad.

I’d like to discuss with my grandmother the reason she put her in an orphanage and then went to get her, and why she lied to Mom about being her adoptive parents. My mom was an only child.

I have a painting of my grandmother at eighteen years old who wore a stunning, pink silk or satin dress like this with her hair up. The painting comes with its own story too.

I have my own theories.

In that day and age, to be pregnant out of wedlock was shameful, so I think she handled it the best way she could. From what I remember as a child, via photographs and stories, my grandmother had been well-to-do growing up yet I know nothing about my great-grandparents. Likely, society then wouldn’t accept a young, single girl being pregnant.

In my head, for them, somehow along the way, the tables had turned, and my grandparents married. I could be one-hundred percent wrong about the whys and hows. However, I’d love to hear the story because it sounds like a true love story that I’ll write about one of these days.

Thanks for stopping by. Before leaving, check out how other authors in the blog hop responded to the topic.  Here’s the LINK or click the image.

Enjoy your weekend.

Image Credit: Pixabay – OpenClipart-Vectors