Now who am I again?

When I was about 14 years old I found a handwritten journal in our bookcase at home. I saw my grandmother Blanche's signature on the inside cover. My mother and I lived in our own apartment so I have no idea why we had this little book.

So as any curious 14 year old would do, I started leafing through it. It seemed that the entries spanned a series of years, starting in 1951. The writings included family history, births & deaths and associated notations that went back a couple of generations on both the Kingery and Vinson sides. There were also a few deeply personal diary-type notes, along with less personal notes such as a household budget. 

As I was reading the family history section I found an entry that didn't jibe with my understanding of my family. When my mother came home I, of course, asked her about what I read. She flew into a rage and demanded to know where I got that information. I shrugged and wandered off to my room. Nothing was said after that. 

Of course the next time I went to my grandparent's place, for summer vacation as I recall, I asked my grandmother what that was all about. She said "I promised your mother I'd never tell you, but you deserve to know." (Ah, another family skeleton!) And she proceeded to tell me that my mother's husband at the time, the man who I thought was my father wasn't. She told me the circumstances behind my birth and even that my real father, Warren Ruark, came to see me when I was a couple of weeks old...apparently there was a strong enough family resemblance that he knew he'd made a mistake denying my mother's claim that she was pregnant with his child. Mom had already married someone else. What was done, was done.

This revelation didn't bother me as much as you'd think. I hadn't seen my "father" since my mother divorced him (for the second time...long story) when I was about 6 years old, and I remember him as being quite a prick, to her and to me. To know that I wasn't actually related to him was a relief. 

My grandmother also told me something else. When I was a child my mother use to take me to visit "Aunt Jean." At the end of one of our visits I remember asking her if Jean was really my aunt, at which point she teared up and said "No honey, she's just a very good friend." It seems that Jean was my father's mother...my other grandmother...and my two grandmothers had been in touch all along. My grandmother Blanche then gave me Jean's address. It took me a couple of months but I finally screwed up the courage to write to Jean. She never wrote back, unless my mother intercepted her response. And so I left it there.

So I was a Ruark rather than a Ross, which was just fine with me. It took me another 30 years before I decided to try to find my father. But I'll write about that in a future post.