The old trunk mystery

One college break, my mother asked me to go through an old steamer trunk belonging to my grandmother, who passed some years before.  It was collecting dust in the garage and she wanted me to go through it and sort pictures, papers and junk to appropriate disbursement or disposal.

After some procrastination, after everyone was asleep, I decided to tackle the project.  With a fresh bottle of wine in front of me, I opened the old trunk and began grabbing the pictures and papers to sort.

The first thing I found was an old prescription marked paid from September, 1945.  Isn’t it funny what you dig up in a time capsule like this?  Followed were pictures of various family members.  From the writing on the backs of some pictures and the speculation of likenesses on others, I laughed and marveled and the odd clothing choices and how different my relatives looked when they were young.  Some pretty, some geeky and some nearly pornographic… little girls should still wear tops and no one should be photographed in bathtubs, even little kids.  And what was the appeal of taking what now would be considered selfies mugging with tombstones of dead relatives?

I even found a picture of some ladies in witches costumes.  Must have been Halloween. The writing on the back said Ruth Krebbs rest unknown, in my grandmother’s handwriting.  It was very strange for her to keep that.  Ruth Krebbs was the maiden name of my grandfather’s first wife.  My grandmother once told me that she was a witch.  For a second, I imagined it was a real coven with housewives by day and witches by night howling at the moon.  Naw, I chuckled.

There were birth certificates, marriage certificates, postcards, various letters, etc. to put them in the papers pile.  I split the papers from the letters and postcards and decided to place the important papers in order of year for easy access. I know, a little compulsive, but practical…they may have been needed.

Pouring another glass of wine, I found a curiosity in some of the papers.  My grandmother’s year of birth was January 1915 and my grandfather’s year of birth was the same, except in April.  Hmm.  She always said she was a year younger than him.  She in fact was older by a couple months.  Isn’t it a shame that she had to lie, just because of the times they lived in.   Silly.  Moving on I found another discrepancy.

My uncle’s birth certificate had the wrong mother’s name.  Ruth Sutter?  That was her name from her first marriage.  What?  Then I remembered the prescription paper I put in the discard pile a few hours before.  It said September 1945 and was for Ruth Sutter?  Wait, my uncle was born in June 1945.  In those days, the father’s name was not on birth certificates. Was my uncle not my grandfather’s child or was he a love child? Papers flew out of the trunk at record pace as I searched for a marriage license.

Got it!  A marriage certificate from the Good News Baptist Church of Chicago, Illinois.  The date was September 1945.  Considering my mother was born in May of 1946, my grandmother would have been pregnant with my mother when they got married.  Oh well, mystery solved.  A little excitement and a pretty big secret, but who cares.

Just then I saw another marriage License in my pile of tornado strewn papers.  This one was from Groton Connecticut dated September 1952.  What were they doing all the way in Connecticut?  And in 1952? Are church certificates even legal?

One by one we checked each of the sibling birth certificates from 1946 through 1954.  Each one of the other five gave the mother as Ruth Forell, my grandmother’s name.  It was like a soap opera, were my upstanding religious grandparents not married until all but one of their children was born?  I mean even today, only some would care, but back then, that was a big deal…something absolutely not done, especially by a preacher’s daughter.  No, couldn’t be.  I needed some answers… and another glass of wine.

I feverishly sifted through the piles scattered around me, making an even bigger mess and dug further into the old trunk.  No more important documents.  I felt like Nancy Drew and the Mystery of the Old Steamer Trunk.   I read a lot of those books when I was a kid.  Then I saw the pile of letters.  Maybe they had some clues.  Most of them were letters from my great Aunt, my grandmother’s sister who lived in New York.  Long-distance phone calls being too costly, they regularly corresponded to keep up with each other’s lives.

I flipped through the letters carefully to only ones dated around 1945, 1946 to 1952.  Anxiously reading through each one I was nearly down to the last drop of my wine bottle when I found two letters which filled in the gaps.

“Dear Ruth….I received your letter of September 25^th.  Don’t worry. A church wedding marries you in the eyes of Lord, which is the only important thing.  With your little baby and another on the way, it was the right thing to do.  I could kill that Ruth Krebbs for holding the divorce hostage.  We are talking to a lawyer at our church to try to help you.  Take care of yourself and your little one.  Love, June.”

“Dear Ruth…It’s all set. I checked with the lawyer.  All the papers have been signed. You and John can come to New York on the 23^rd.  I have someone from my prayer group to take care of the babies.  We will drive to Connecticut and then straight back.  Harold and I will be your witnesses.  No one will know and you can have the same anniversary as before.  Finally, it’s over.  Take care of your family until I see you soon.  Love, June”

Wow.  I knocked my wine bottle over from the shock.  How tortured my grandmother must have been.  Over 6 years of discerption to everyone. Being brought up in a strict religious family, it must not have been easy for her.   Then I thought how in love with my grandfather she must have been to take those kinds of chances and make those sacrifices.  And no one ever knew.  Should I tell my mother?  Should she tell my aunts and uncles?

From then on, I cleaned up my mess and finished my task systematically while pondering what I should do.  No one except me knew of the truth…or the existence of the marriage and birth documents or the letters.  Neither of my grandparents were still alive, so who would know?  But can I destroy important papers like that?  What if someone needed them?

Neatly putting each of the piles of photos and postcards marked and wrapped in rubber bands and another pile labeled junk in the old steamer trunk, I closed the dusty lid.  Some things are better left in the past.  I went to bed with my family secrets in tact.