My mom passed away in 1989. Don’t know how long after that my sister told me mom had been married before! I was shocked. This opened up so many questions. Who was she married to? When did she get divorced...why? Do I have any half siblings? My sister didn’t know. In fact, my sister suspected she might not be my dad’s...maybe she was the daughter of the first husband. It rocked my world. It was almost as shocking as finding out you’re adopted, I would think. The world you knew and grew up it was a farse. Or at least a half farse. That’s how I felt and continued to feel all these thirty-some years.
A short time after this ‘news’ was revealed my brother and I started to investigate. One day when dad wasn’t home we got into the important papers in the desk, the papers we were never allowed to see. And there we discovered some clues, although I can’t remember what clues we found. We were always told my parents got married in Pennsylvania so my brother decided he would drive there to get a copy of my parent’s marriage license. And when he saw it he called and confirmed that mom had indeed been married before because the license said she was divorced. And it even gave the divorce date. It was still shocking to me. I don’t really know how the other siblings took it but it just shocked me. So started my search for her first husband.
We asked my mom’s sister about this newly discovered information and she said she didn’t know anything about her being married before. Granted, my aunt was 17 years older, but I’m pretty sure my grandmother would had informed my aunt what my mom did at the age of 17. So my aunt denied everything. I asked my father’s sisters but they couldn’t remember anything because they were just kids at the time. Nobody was talking; it was hush hush. And that made me even more determined to get to the bottom of this.
My younger brother ran into a friend of my mother’s. He asked her some questions about mom’s first marriage. She gave some info, but she said she wasn’t sure if it was true. And with that info I tried looking up who this first husband was and I did get some clues but nothing was confirmed. I had no way to confirm anything.
I felt like until somebody would tell the truth I would never know who and why mom married before. This was in 1949 or 1950...some seventy years ago. But the way mom and dad brought us up was contradictory to the way they lived their lives before us kids. I had to know why.
When I lived at home we have a bunch of photo albums we kept in the book shelf. There were a few of mom when she was a teenager, but one in particular I was always curious about. She was standing with this teenage boy and they were on the sidewalk in what looks like Washington, D.C. Mom is holding some packages and I’m sure a street photographer took their picture. When I’d ask mom who the guy was she said a friend. Hmmmm....
So when mom died I was the keeper of family genealogy and old photos. And that photo sat in my drawer all these years. Every once in a while I’d take it out more to look at how young mom was than to figure out who her friend was. It was a simple time in those years..the 1950’s.
I have always been interested in genealogy. When you think about all your grandparents...if circumstances hadn’t been what they were none of us would be here. So years ago I signed up for Ancestry. I used it for awhile, then I wouldn’t then I’d go back to it. Then not long ago I got an email from a cousin who said she did a dna test and that she found new cousins. And she confirmed some things she had been wondering about. Well, that prompted me to get back to Ancestry and see if I could find any new information about my ancestors. I already had my family tree set up so I hint leave was on my mom’s name. I clicked it on and up popped my mom social security index with three names on it. That never happened before. I have seen her as index but the one name that popped up with it was never on there before....but lo and behold it was the name of the person I suspected may had been mom first husband. OMGosh I was so excited. I got into a drawer where I kept mom’s things and pulled out her 1948 yearbook. I scrolled through it and there were references to this boy in her own handwriting. And his sister, too. I believed I was onto something here.
After some more detective work and finding the name of the boy I believed to be mom’s first husband, I put his name into Ancestry and a family tree popped up with him in it! I emailed the lady who made the tree and asked her a few questions about this person who I suspected had been married to mom. She confirmed every question so I knew it was all correct. She emailed me saying that they had a picture of a woman and her grandfather and suspected it could have been his first wife or a girlfriend, they didn’t know. I asked her if she could email the picture, she did. I cannot tell her the feeling I got when I saw my mother in that picture. To think that some stranger family was wondering the same thing about who the woman in that picture was with their grandfather like I was wondering who’s mom ‘boy’ friend was in the picture in my drawer. And the boy in the picture she sent me looked like the boy in the picture in my drawer. So I sent her my picture and asked her if that was her grandfather and she confirmed it was. Now we know who mom was married to. Although we don’t have a marriage license or divorced record yet because all the state offices are closed due to civid-19, when they open I’m going to go to the records department and do a search.
Now, the sister of this ‘boy’ is still alive and when her family asked her about mom and her brother she said that mom and her brother got married the day before he was to leave for the Korean War. My mom had even lived with them, his family for awhile. She worked at a dry cleaners. But one day my uncle and his brother came into the dry cleaners and that’s when she met my dad. And when her first husband came back home on leave my mom told him she wanted a divorce. And he was heartbroken and it took him a long while to get over it.
This is why I was shocked at learning all this. My parents raised us to tell the truth and do things right. Yet, they did it all wrong. See, mom got married, then met my dad and got pregnant by him while still married to the first husband, then had the baby, got divorced and ten days later married my dad. That’s what shocks me so much. That’s not how we were brought up. I understand that they probably learned from their mistakes and didn’t want us to make the same ones, but they never told us their mistake..they just told us that we better, never do that (whatever it was were talking about).
My oldest sister always lived with some doubt that she belong to my dad. She thought maybe she was the daughter of the first husband since mom had her before dad and her were married. So she lived with that thought all her live. My sister passed away in 2018 and it breaks my heart that she isn’t here to learn the truth and that she isn’t my half sister, she is my full sister. She always wondered.
Here is the picture the other family had:
There were not dates on the pictures so I don’t know when they were taken but this picture seems like she was already dressing like a housewife. However, if the story is true that they got married the day before he left for Korea, then I don’t think they were married here, but I don’t know.
A short time after this ‘news’ was revealed my brother and I started to investigate. One day when dad wasn’t home we got into the important papers in the desk, the papers we were never allowed to see. And there we discovered some clues, although I can’t remember what clues we found. We were always told my parents got married in Pennsylvania so my brother decided he would drive there to get a copy of my parent’s marriage license. And when he saw it he called and confirmed that mom had indeed been married before because the license said she was divorced. And it even gave the divorce date. It was still shocking to me. I don’t really know how the other siblings took it but it just shocked me. So started my search for her first husband.
We asked my mom’s sister about this newly discovered information and she said she didn’t know anything about her being married before. Granted, my aunt was 17 years older, but I’m pretty sure my grandmother would had informed my aunt what my mom did at the age of 17. So my aunt denied everything. I asked my father’s sisters but they couldn’t remember anything because they were just kids at the time. Nobody was talking; it was hush hush. And that made me even more determined to get to the bottom of this.
My younger brother ran into a friend of my mother’s. He asked her some questions about mom’s first marriage. She gave some info, but she said she wasn’t sure if it was true. And with that info I tried looking up who this first husband was and I did get some clues but nothing was confirmed. I had no way to confirm anything.
I felt like until somebody would tell the truth I would never know who and why mom married before. This was in 1949 or 1950...some seventy years ago. But the way mom and dad brought us up was contradictory to the way they lived their lives before us kids. I had to know why.
When I lived at home we have a bunch of photo albums we kept in the book shelf. There were a few of mom when she was a teenager, but one in particular I was always curious about. She was standing with this teenage boy and they were on the sidewalk in what looks like Washington, D.C. Mom is holding some packages and I’m sure a street photographer took their picture. When I’d ask mom who the guy was she said a friend. Hmmmm....
So when mom died I was the keeper of family genealogy and old photos. And that photo sat in my drawer all these years. Every once in a while I’d take it out more to look at how young mom was than to figure out who her friend was. It was a simple time in those years..the 1950’s.
I have always been interested in genealogy. When you think about all your grandparents...if circumstances hadn’t been what they were none of us would be here. So years ago I signed up for Ancestry. I used it for awhile, then I wouldn’t then I’d go back to it. Then not long ago I got an email from a cousin who said she did a dna test and that she found new cousins. And she confirmed some things she had been wondering about. Well, that prompted me to get back to Ancestry and see if I could find any new information about my ancestors. I already had my family tree set up so I hint leave was on my mom’s name. I clicked it on and up popped my mom social security index with three names on it. That never happened before. I have seen her as index but the one name that popped up with it was never on there before....but lo and behold it was the name of the person I suspected may had been mom first husband. OMGosh I was so excited. I got into a drawer where I kept mom’s things and pulled out her 1948 yearbook. I scrolled through it and there were references to this boy in her own handwriting. And his sister, too. I believed I was onto something here.
After some more detective work and finding the name of the boy I believed to be mom’s first husband, I put his name into Ancestry and a family tree popped up with him in it! I emailed the lady who made the tree and asked her a few questions about this person who I suspected had been married to mom. She confirmed every question so I knew it was all correct. She emailed me saying that they had a picture of a woman and her grandfather and suspected it could have been his first wife or a girlfriend, they didn’t know. I asked her if she could email the picture, she did. I cannot tell her the feeling I got when I saw my mother in that picture. To think that some stranger family was wondering the same thing about who the woman in that picture was with their grandfather like I was wondering who’s mom ‘boy’ friend was in the picture in my drawer. And the boy in the picture she sent me looked like the boy in the picture in my drawer. So I sent her my picture and asked her if that was her grandfather and she confirmed it was. Now we know who mom was married to. Although we don’t have a marriage license or divorced record yet because all the state offices are closed due to civid-19, when they open I’m going to go to the records department and do a search.
Now, the sister of this ‘boy’ is still alive and when her family asked her about mom and her brother she said that mom and her brother got married the day before he was to leave for the Korean War. My mom had even lived with them, his family for awhile. She worked at a dry cleaners. But one day my uncle and his brother came into the dry cleaners and that’s when she met my dad. And when her first husband came back home on leave my mom told him she wanted a divorce. And he was heartbroken and it took him a long while to get over it.
This is why I was shocked at learning all this. My parents raised us to tell the truth and do things right. Yet, they did it all wrong. See, mom got married, then met my dad and got pregnant by him while still married to the first husband, then had the baby, got divorced and ten days later married my dad. That’s what shocks me so much. That’s not how we were brought up. I understand that they probably learned from their mistakes and didn’t want us to make the same ones, but they never told us their mistake..they just told us that we better, never do that (whatever it was were talking about).
My oldest sister always lived with some doubt that she belong to my dad. She thought maybe she was the daughter of the first husband since mom had her before dad and her were married. So she lived with that thought all her live. My sister passed away in 2018 and it breaks my heart that she isn’t here to learn the truth and that she isn’t my half sister, she is my full sister. She always wondered.
Here is the picture the other family had:
Mom must have been about 16 here I’m thinking. I have never seen my mom so happy. Granted, she was a teenager here, but still, I have never seen her smile like this.
Here is the picture I had:
If I could ask my mom one question right now it would be, ‘why did you keep this a secret from us?’ It has been more shocking to me to find out she was married after she passed than if we had grown up knowing it.
Blessings!
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