Great-aunt May Beth was 12th
out of 12 children out of great-grandmother “Mama” Mamie Wallace
Montgomery and probably one of the sweetest people ever to occupy
this old planet. My grandmother, Grace, was number eleven and all the
rest called her “Baby Grace” since she was probably one child
over the limit! I've often thought a conversation between Mama Mamie
and my great-grandfather probably went:
5
kids, “keep that thing away from me”, 10 kids, “dammit, I SAID
keep that thing away! 11th kid (my granny), “you do that
again and we are going to have trouble...”, 12th kid...
I have not found any records of my great-grandfather after the 12th
and the kids weren't talking.
That's
from the essay titled “Beginnings”,
thought it fit in May Beth's as well! It was rather strange that the
Montgomery family said nothing about Lucius Shirley Montgomery I
heard, even with the huge (naturally) annual get-together at
Thanksgiving. I would have loved to have a copy of the photograph
over my grand-parent's fireplace, he and I were clones! I do have one
group photograph of him, his boss and the troops:
Great-granddad
is 3rd
from left, bottom row. Yes, that's Teddy Roosevelt & the Rough
Riders. Great-granny sent him away, probably hoping he'd get the
family jewels shot off!
Another
note: I was to be named after him. Dad, quite the German, said “NO!!”
emphatically. Thanks dad!
May
Beth never married, why I can't tell for sure. She was pretty as a
picture and this
one of my granny
is as close as I'll be able to come. I was always her official driver
at the clan gatherings with a shiny big car provided (one of the Duck
clan owned a car dealership in Mississippi, don't ask!) and we had a
ball just tootling around! Do you remember Granny from Granny &
Tweetiebird? That was her, full of beans and always in motion. Her
and great-aunt Nettie were the family historians and had traced the
Montgomery – Wallace lines back to the 9th
century last I heard. Scottish records were fairly easy to trace with
family histories kept in the “kirks” (churches). I often wonder
where that huge, old family bible they had went.
There's
about a millennia of family history I wish I could see. Now it has
been over 25 years without contact with the Birmingham Montgomeries
and the old crew are all dead. ...been to too many funerals, big
family, lots of funerals. May Beth's was the saddest of all, not
because of her age, because what happened. She lived alone and one
morning, opened the door for a young black man. He forced his way in,
raped my tiny maiden aunt, and left. He was caught, sentenced to 3
years, got out and raped her again. This time he killed her. Guess he
blamed his jail time on her.
Where
do such people come from?
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