Revealing the Lie

(If you haven't already, read the previous post first, or this one won't make sense.)

Okay, the lie is number two (although I realized in re-reading this that I inadvertently lied twice). My father did have a first wife, but she was no one anyone would know. Their story was tragic. She was older than my father, from the "wrong" town (these things were important in Virginia in those days), and from the "wrong sort of family" (translate as "not Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Jewish." Those classifications are odd enough as it is, but even odder if you consider the fact my grandparents were both agnostics. Then again, maybe that was the problem. Her family was deeply religious). My grandparents thought my father was too young to get married (I agree. He was only 22) and sent him off to live in Paris for a year, hoping he'd forget her. He didn't and came home to marry her anyway (which gives you an idea as to what sort of a man he is), even though she'd been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. They were married for five years before she finally succombed to the disease, the same year his father died, probably the worst year of my father's life. It was years before I saw a picture of this first wife. My grandmother had even taken scissors to all the wedding photos and cut her out of them, an act that seemed extremely uncharacteristic for the grandmother I knew. I'm realizing as I write this, it would make a great novel, wouldn't it?

That same grandmother (who despite this weird lapse when it came to my father's first wife was a wonderful, wonderful person, not at all the sit-in-the-rocker-and-knit old granny. She was one of those true intellectuals I mentioned in my anti-intellectual post, even though, like so many young women of her day, she'd never gone to college -- extremely curious and up on everything: history, politics, sports. She drove convertibles and played tennis until she was in her eighties) was extremely proud of her father, the one who was fed up while serving his term in Congress. She always wondered how he would have reacted to Watergate. And I wonder how they both would be reacting today. That was the second lie. Did you catch it? It was my great grandfather (her father), not my great great grandfather, as I erroneously referred to him, who was the U.S. Congressman.

And, yes, Dar Williams really is my cousin (second cousin), but before you get all excited, don't. I barely know her. She grew up in New York state, and I grew up in North Carolina, and we've maybe seen each other a half dozen times in our lives. By the time I moved north, she was already at college, so though I've gotten to know her parents who live a half-hour's drive from me and are always welcoming (two of the sweetest and most engaging people you'll ever know -- the kind you're proud to claim as cousins), I don't know her at all. But I'll shamelessly plug her anyway, because her music is so good. If you're not familiar with her check her out. One of these days, I'll post on how I connect to her music, a post that's been writing itself in my head for ages.

My parents were indeed invited to tea at Buckingham Palace. My mother's father was a British Diplomat who was knighted (for some mysterious reason. When I ask my mother, the Queen of Modesty, her response is always, "Oh, everyone was knighted in those days right after the war," and I've never bothered to find out the truth), and my parents were spending the summer with my grandparents. Growing up, I was fascinated by this invitation from the Queen that was glued into one of our scrapbooks, envisioning my parents sitting down and discussing world events and the fact that they would both soon have children who would marry one day (that would have been Prince Edward and me). My father took a bulldozer to my castle in the sky one day when he explained it had been a HUGE garden party, and they hadn't gotten anywhere near the Queen (if she had even been there at all).

That same scrapbook held ancient newspaper clippings that portrayed the mountain hiking group led to their deaths on the Matterhorn by Douglas Hadow. They actually were the first group of men to make it to the top of the mountain, but he slipped on the way down (it was the sneakers. Truth be told, that bit about the sneakers may be nothing more than family folklore, but it was 1865, so God knows what kind of hiking shoes those men were wearing), and he dragged everyone down with him. Douglas's body was the only one never found. Meanwhile, a few years ago, my cousin Pen Hadow (whom I haven't seen since I was fifteen and he was seventeen, and whom we called Rupert back then), carrying on what must be a Hadow tradition of hiking around in the snow, went solo from Canada to the North Pole. Maybe the family genes have mutated to the extent that they've learned it's best to attempt such things without endangering the lives of others.

And finally, my great grandfather Waddy Wood was a rather prominent architect in and around Washington, DC. The lovely little church in which Bob and I were married (as were my parents), nestled in the mountains of Virginia is a fine example of his work. Family folklore, again, has it that this church was designed as a chapel for Lady Astor, but I'm not sure if that's true. And he did design a house for Woodrow Wilson.

That's all the bragging for today, except did I ever mention my great, great uncle won the second Wimbledon Championship, and I'm also related to Meriwether Lewis?