Great Grand Storyteller Challenge
The Pursuit of Some Type of Greatness
Prompt: Tell a story about any Great Grandparent in any generation of your lineage. The theme is “The Pursuit of Greatness.”
Michael D_ was born in 1807 and lived almost 100 years. With his wife, Sarah, he had one son--named Albert D_. Albert married Arline and had a daughter, Effie. Effie was my beloved, maternal grandmother’s mother.
I never met her, but I have stared into this photo my whole life.
I heard frequent whispers that she was a drinker (okay maybe louder mutterings).
They say alcoholism runs in families as if drunken genes hang onto the strands of your DNA for a generation or two and leap into some of the unfortunate offspring. I can’t help but picture a strip of yellow fly paper hanging from the ceiling catching all the bugs that run into the sticky mess and flail around there for much too long.
While that image is stuck in my head, I’m not sure that’s what “runs in families” means.
It might be more like parents passing down patterns of learned behavior.
My grandmother didn’t talk much about her mother, so I found it difficult to weave together a “Great Grand” narrative here at first.
What I do know is that my grandmother lived with an aunt most of the time she was growing up instead of with her mother, so perhaps that’s one great thing Effie did:
Allow her daughter to escape that sticky fly paper.
My grandmother never drank. She smoked but never inhaled either. I’m sure she feared that dreaded genetic link to alcoholism, and that’s why she refrained. She ran through life avoiding getting stuck, thanks to her mother separating her from a home teeming with flies. She learned to navigate around the poisonous mess.
It must not have been an easy thing for my grandma to maintain in adulthood when everyone around her drank. Her husband, her friends and, unfortunately, her children.
Grandma had five. Of the five, I only knew four of them because her eldest died at only 18 years old (See previous story: “Rowdy Renegade”). All four remaining children grew up to be alcoholics, and all died with various stages of cirrhosis eating away their livers.
I like to think Effie intentionally attempted to save her daughter from such a life, keeping her away from the infestation, for Effie’s sister, my grandmother’s aunt, did give her niece a great start in life. And the strength to refrain.
But Effie could never have dreamed just how strong the pull was of those strands twisting down from the past. How attractive the sticky substance must have been for all of her grandchildren to fly right into it even though their own mother managed to steer clear.
Effie didn’t live long enough to process that fact—that she somehow passed down the dreaded alcoholism gene to her grandchildren after all.
But she also never knew that her great-grandchild learned from this.
I picture grabbing hold to another strand that she threw down for us—one dotted with strength and resilience. 🧬 One that felt like independence and freedom. One that I wish my mom would have found swinging nearby before she got stuck on the ugly flypaper.
I enjoyed digging into the past for this Genealogy Matters story challenge. If you enjoyed reading, leaving a ♥️helps more people find it. Many of us embracing the title of “Storyteller” love to interact with others, so comments & Shares are so welcome.
➡️[I dig even deeper into the past & into DNA in my book, 🔗 My Father’s Daughter. It is “narrative nonfiction,” & people tell me it reads more like fiction, taking the reader on a journey to the past & back. Like walking through the woods & getting tangled in some weeds but finding a way to overcome them. Finding the good, strong DNA that makes us who we are. If you’d like to explore with me, check out the first ten pages of my book in a free sample at the link above.]
I warned my sons that if they disregarded everything I taught them, they absolutely could not drink. They come from a long line of alcoholics on both sides of the family. My grandfather did not drink. His twin chose a different path--he was an alcoholic just like their father. I believe some of us are cursed with a genetic tendency towards addiction.
Shell, you are raising ideas and questions that geniuses will study and ponder things you raise. I will do all I can to allow you to get the credit. However, alas, my influence only goes so far.
Seriously, the "inheritance" of behaviors and tendencies has been talked about for years. You have put them in a context that will stimulate lots of social research. Thank you.
Clearly, you are the "Great Grand Storyteller" in your family line.