On the broader subject of family secrets, I'll note another dynamic that's in play here.

When our beloved grandmother died, the whole family went to Oregon for her memorial service, and I stayed at my cousin Gary's house. (Which had its own curious vibe as his wife and his ex-wife became best friends and they would hang out all the time. But I digress...)

With my grandmother dead, my father, and my Aunt Dot (my mom had a macabre story about her that I doubt her children know) were the oldest branch of the family tree. As such there was the sense that they were free to discuss some things that my grandmother didn't want discussed.

So while we were all there, my Uncle Noel's kids started asking my dad about "that weird summer where the kids were sent to distant relatives and Gary stayed with a nice old rich couple who spoiled him, and Donnie and Sandy got sent to people who wouldn't let them in the house and barely fed them." And my dad says, "Oh yeah, that was when Noel abandoned the family for six weeks and just took off." While Aunt Dot smiled and nodded and smoked.

Which was not the first time Noel just took off, as he had gone AWOL during WWII and spent six months in the brig (where he learned to be a Radioman, which was his career in the Navy for the next 25 years).

Anyway, my Cousin Toni (who is the only member of that side of the family that I have regular contact with) wasn't around for those discussions and I filled her in on both of those instances of her dad bolting responsibility during a FB msg chat.

So, I think one reason my sister is talking to me about this stuff is that she just went through cancer treatment last year and is approaching 70 and there's a sense of handing down the family lore to me. That with the passing of generations you either open up about those secrets or all that history/context becomes lost.

Makes me even madder at your dad when he's being a manipulative asshole.

You're not wrong. 90% of my therapy sessions are about him, because I've (more or less) worked through the shit with my mom and gotten to a good place. But my Dad also fucked me up in ways I didn't realize, and that's layered with his present-day bullshit. (Once, when my brother said to his therapist, "I have to tell you about my last phone call with Dad," the therapist said, "Christ, not this fucking guy again!" which is the best of all possible responses, because he is, in fact, this fucking guy.) (And Dad is SO MUCH SHITTIER to my brother than he is to me. It's astonishing. I wouldn't blame my brother for cutting Dad out of his life entirely, but he hasn't. Like, my brother is 46 years old, happily married, with his masters and a thriving career as a therapist, and he works hard every day to maintain his sobriety -- there's nothing to criticize him about. But Dad will constantly bring up how my brother got a DUI more than 20 years ago, as if that has any bearing on his life today. I told my brother to say "Well, if we're getting into shit we did decades ago, let's talk about how you beat our mother." He hasn't done it yet, but I wish he would.)

My parents' awful behavior around the divorce really gave me such appreciation for my friends who are divorced and manage to co-parent in such a way that they're doing what's best for the kids instead of using the kids as weapons against the other parent. Y'all are the good ones, and it's lovely to see.

Oh! Tim's oldest brother is divorced and remarried, and his ex-wife (and her new husband) often come to Beckmeyer family shindigs, with zero acrimony and bullshit, and it's so nice. For a while it made me really resentful and tetchy, but now I just love seeing them all get along so well.

Christ, not this fucking guy again!

I have so many questions about my family that I'm afraid to ask about.

I'm the youngest of three, but I remember hearing vague stories of my Mom getting pregnant again after I was born; I would have been 2 years old at the time, so I have no direct memory. She miscarried after falling down the stairs. It wasn't until recently that I put two and two together and realized that this was in all likelihood a self-induced abortion. I remember the house we grew up in—it was tiny. I was 3, and I didn't have my own bedroom. I slept in the "nursery", which was a glorified walk-in closet. If my Mom had had a fourth child, there would have been literally no room to put him.

I also believe that this NOT the kind of plan that Mom would have come up with on her own. It DOES sound like the kind of thing my Dad would have pressured her into doing. My Mom needed surgery on her feet for years, and I think that's related, too.

But this is all speculation on my part, all based on faded memories of vague stories I was once told. Nobody talks about it, and I'm afraid to ask.

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They would have distressed my grandparents, so I didn't tell them.

My weird thing is that you tell down, generationally, but not necessarily up. I also don’t have kids, but my god-kids (Maria’s kids) are also traumatized by stuff with their father who has a very similar story to mine. I would rather just talk about it with them as just a thing that happened to me that was similar to what happened to them. And we can all get help, or have dark humor or whatever we do to cope. But I am still not up to upsetting my mother who I think tried to do the absolute best for me and loves me (and this took me a long time to get to) by bringing up things just because I need an answer. So a very fine line to walk. I did get some stuff about my grandpa’s mental illness from my Uncle Walt as he was dying and I am very glad we were able to talk at that time. But the question of how in the hell did my grandma and grandpa meet is just not answerable- no one alive knows and it seems a very unlikely pairing.

I cannot imagine there are any secrets on my mother’s side of the family. We tell each other everything, into tmi categories at times. The exception being my mother’s biodad who died when she was young. I don’t know that part of the family at all. On my father’s side I only know what my one great aunt told me when she was still alive. None of them talk about anything. My dad has been gone for over 40 years and they can still barely bring themselves to talk about him.

there's a sense of handing down the family lore to me. That with the passing of generations you either open up about those secrets or all that history/context becomes lost.

There are things in my family that I think should be handed down because they could definitely affect future generations. For example, a nasty strain of alcoholism on Mom's side of the family. I suspect there's a genetic component that the family needs to be aware of. So we'll keep talking about great grandpa who drank the family farm away, and grandpa who ruined every Christmas via booze.

Then there are things that I want handed down because I think they're nifty—part of what makes us us. There's the grandmother who skied to teach at her one-room school house in northern Michigan 100 years ago. There's the other grandma waking up from a dream that her son was knocking at the front door saying, "Let me in, Ma, I'm so cold" at the exact time that he was treading water in the ocean due to his plane being shot down by the enemy. There are mysteries about name changes and temporary disappearances. There are stories about how people got through the Great Depression and the less-advertised side of the 1950s.

I'm glad that Labor Day weekend gatherings have become a thing, because those are great opportunities to share with the next generation.

My mom’s dad died of alcoholism when she was 12. We didn’t find this out until we were in our teens, from an older cousin. Interestingly, my mom got furious when we brought it up to her and would not talk about it. Both of my parents were alcoholics and deep in denial. Many years later, she decided to go to rehab, and the thing she said to announce it (while drunk) was “I don’t want to die like Daddy.” She stopped then and never had another drink.

Another, more romantic secret has to do with my grandmother and step-grandfather (Grandpa John). She divorced the aforesaid alcoholic grandfather when my mom was young and did not remarry until her four children were teens. They were all told that they fell for each other and got married quickly. However, long after they died, we found an old photo album of his, and there were pictures of her sailing with him BEFORE SHE WAS DIVORCED. And one page with a huge picture of her face that just said “Katherine”. Getting divorced in the 30s in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was already shocking, so the family thinks maybe they were “together” long before anyone knew.

Then there are things that I want handed down because I think they're nifty—part of what makes us us. There's the grandmother who skied to teach at her one-room school house in northern Michigan 100 years ago. There's the other grandma waking up from a dream that her son was knocking at the front door saying, "Let me in, Ma, I'm so cold" at the exact time that he was treading water in the ocean due to his plane being shot down by the enemy. There are mysteries about name changes and temporary disappearances. There are stories about how people got through the Great Depression and the less-advertised side of the 1950s.

That is nifty and worth sharing.

My Cousin Toni taped a long interview with my grandmother before she died, and I have it. It's full of fascinating stories about growing up in the midwest in the early 20th century.