Today, I think about my grandmother. She is likely on my mind for a myriad of reasons – I wish I could share my work and life with her, her birthday is coming up here really soon, and I just received another ancestry.com notification about my 2nd great-grandfather on her side. His name is Linn Jerome Brooks (born June 9,1880 – died May 13, 1937), and he married Clara Woodsworth (born February 1887 – died February 15, 1961) sometime in the early 1900’s in Michigan. He is the father of Walter Brooks, who by virtue of science and DNA is now unequivocally my great-grandfather.
Walter was troubled in his marriage to my great-grandmother, Thelma Naomi Hiatt. Walter was in the Navy, and while he was away my great-grandmother Thelma stepped out on him. It’s shocking now, but not unheard of during the war years. She met and fell in love with another man, called Henry Fickes, whom she married (who I blessedly have no DNA attachment to; he was a terrible human). Walter was always unsure whether my grandmother Vickey was his. DNA proves she was.
My grandmother went to her death not knowing who her father truly was, and even slightly believed that her elder sister Joyce might have been her mother (and that Henry might have been her actual father – you can see why I think he is a terrible human). My grandmother and I had a long discussion about this, commiserating on our lack of respective fathers and unsure parentage.
Thus ends a huge gaping hole in the family history, without having to rewrite the family Bible, which had listed every birth, marriage and death on my maternal side for at least 100 years (at the time I last saw it in 1992, where it was likely scooped up by one of my cousins or even my great-aunt when Henry died).
To my grandmother: I hope you are seeing this in your respite, and you can rest easy knowing that your parents are your parents.
To my great-grandfather, Walter Brooks: you were a less than stellar human, because instead of loving my dear grandmother you made her feel less than, both because of her uncertain parentage and because of her polio. I hope your soul had time to reflect on this grievous mistake, and I hope you can redeem yourself in your next life.
In the meantime, I am delving more into the history of both the Brooks (English/French) and Woodsworths (English – Yorkshire)!
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