What I didn’t know is that we also had a relative who made
Ferris wheels in Paterson, NJ. When the market for those dried up, his company
turned to metal crypts, a product that never goes out of demand.
Now surely I can find a good plot in all that! What stories
do you have in your family that might be good fodder for a novel?
HALLIE EPHRON: Metal crypts! And your protagonist inherits a
basement full of them... only they're not all empty. (Cue scary music.)
My family favorite story is about my father's mother who
died before I was born. She famously saved the family from economic disaster.
In one of several unpublished manuscripts my dad left behind, he says, "In
1921 my father was in the woolen business, and when the depression of 1921
came, he went bankrupt. He told mother something she had guessed long before.
She put her arm around him and said, "We'll be all right. For the last two
years I've been in the real estate business. I've bought and sold five houses
and I've got enough money to buy that rug store we saw in the Bronx." Now,
if only I still owned five houses in the Bronx.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Both sides of my family talked so little
about their family history that I'm beginning to wonder what skeletons were in
the family cupboards! I know that my maternal grandmother, recently widowed,
had to sell her wedding ring during the depression to put food on the table for
her four kids. I also know that she taught school in California for a while,
before she came back to Texas to live with my folks when I was born. Now I
wonder what adventures she might have had there.
My dad started his own business in the Forties, selling raw
popcorn to movie theater chains. He was The Popcorn Man, and quite the
entrepreneur. I'm seeing a musical here!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: SO funny--my dad asked Gramma Minnie to
tell him about life in Russia in the say, 19-teens. She lived in a little
village somewhere in Russia, and she told him, "Oh it was lovely, and
everyone was lovely." Gramma? Ya THINK? 
Doubtful. So I'm wondering
what she was hiding, right? My mother's mother, Gramma Rose, was a
strange fashionista. And I do mean..strange. When she died, I was maybe
10? And we went to clean out her closets. her house was beautiful, immaculate.
BUT in the closet: she had several dresses--in several sizes. Like, every size.
Like--the blue one in a 2,4,6,8,10..etc. The red one in a 2,4,6,8,10.
Untouched. It still disturbs me. And now when I buy two of
something, it gives me chills. I'm seeing scary movie, got to say.
Doubtful. So I'm wondering
what she was hiding, right? My mother's mother, Gramma Rose, was a
strange fashionista. And I do mean..strange. When she died, I was maybe
10? And we went to clean out her closets. her house was beautiful, immaculate.
BUT in the closet: she had several dresses--in several sizes. Like, every size.
Like--the blue one in a 2,4,6,8,10..etc. The red one in a 2,4,6,8,10.
Untouched. It still disturbs me. And now when I buy two of
something, it gives me chills. I'm seeing scary movie, got to say. |
| NOT Rhys's great-grandmother. |
INGRID THOFT: My grandfather came to the United States,
through Ellis Island, when he was seventeen-years-old, his only companion his
best friend. That journey would be a tale all its own, but after making
his way across the country, he drove an 
ambulance in San Francisco at the time
of the great earthquake in 1906. He was still a teenager; I guess anyone
was allowed to drive an ambulance?! Eventually, he married my grandmother
and became a homesteader in Montana. My maternal grandmother, who I’ve
mentioned before on the blog, was a radio actress on WBZ Radio Boston in the
1920s and 1930s. I think her stage name, Constance D’Arcy, would be a
great jumping off point for a historical murder mystery!
JENN McKINLAY: I am descended from pirates, thieves, and other assorted ne'er do wells. Shocker, I know! Scottish, English, Irish, and Russian - my grandparents were all escaping something and arrived in America to start anew. My aristocratic Russian grandmother married an Irish fisherman - much to the dismay of
both their families - and my Scots and English grandparents met at a dance in the basement of a church in Yonkers where they were carousing - playing piano, dancing, smoking, and drinking gin. My grandmother told me they got into big trouble for that! My people seem to think of the rule of law as more like a set of "guidelines". LOL.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We had a family story that didn't come out until my mother and her siblings were adults. My maternal grandmother was the cherished younger granddaughter of the Most Important Family in our upstate NY town, so when she left her parent's farm after graduating from the Argyle academy to waitress at a speakeasy in a neighboring town, eyebrows were raised.
But that was nothing compared to the man she brought home and told her parents she wanted to marry. First off, he was German. Secondly, he was ten years older than she. Finally, he had been married before - and his wife had died in childbirth, along with their baby. My grandmother would not be deterred, and so she became Mrs. Greuling. It wasn't until the birth of their first child that her parents softened up enough to visit the couple.
But what none of the family knew, until after both Grandpa and Grandma had passed away, was that Theodore Greuling had been married TWICE before. Unbelievably, and tragically, his second wife had also died while giving birth to a girl, who didn't survive. A family member tracked down their gravestones. The baby's name was Lois, and her mother was Lila... which were the names of my mother and her older sister. Grandma never knew her husband had named two of their daughters after his lost wife and child.
Now THAT'S a novel-worthy family tale!
ambulance in San Francisco at the time
of the great earthquake in 1906. He was still a teenager; I guess anyone
was allowed to drive an ambulance?! Eventually, he married my grandmother
and became a homesteader in Montana. My maternal grandmother, who I’ve
mentioned before on the blog, was a radio actress on WBZ Radio Boston in the
1920s and 1930s. I think her stage name, Constance D’Arcy, would be a
great jumping off point for a historical murder mystery!JENN McKINLAY: I am descended from pirates, thieves, and other assorted ne'er do wells. Shocker, I know! Scottish, English, Irish, and Russian - my grandparents were all escaping something and arrived in America to start anew. My aristocratic Russian grandmother married an Irish fisherman - much to the dismay of
both their families - and my Scots and English grandparents met at a dance in the basement of a church in Yonkers where they were carousing - playing piano, dancing, smoking, and drinking gin. My grandmother told me they got into big trouble for that! My people seem to think of the rule of law as more like a set of "guidelines". LOL.JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We had a family story that didn't come out until my mother and her siblings were adults. My maternal grandmother was the cherished younger granddaughter of the Most Important Family in our upstate NY town, so when she left her parent's farm after graduating from the Argyle academy to waitress at a speakeasy in a neighboring town, eyebrows were raised.
But that was nothing compared to the man she brought home and told her parents she wanted to marry. First off, he was German. Secondly, he was ten years older than she. Finally, he had been married before - and his wife had died in childbirth, along with their baby. My grandmother would not be deterred, and so she became Mrs. Greuling. It wasn't until the birth of their first child that her parents softened up enough to visit the couple.
But what none of the family knew, until after both Grandpa and Grandma had passed away, was that Theodore Greuling had been married TWICE before. Unbelievably, and tragically, his second wife had also died while giving birth to a girl, who didn't survive. A family member tracked down their gravestones. The baby's name was Lois, and her mother was Lila... which were the names of my mother and her older sister. Grandma never knew her husband had named two of their daughters after his lost wife and child. Now THAT'S a novel-worthy family tale!
How about you red readers, do you have plots in your family history? Will you share them?
