In the interest of posterity

I was re-reading the "so much to say, so little space!" entry, and realized my family history isn't yet recorded here. Thus, in the interest of posterity (if not in the interest of my readers); here is a bit of family history.

Great Grandma Laura went to the 1904 World's Fair with her friend, and was miffed that her mother would not let her see the Hoochie-Coochie girls dance. Her mom said she was too young. (note: call mom and get birthdate info) She was around 10-12 years old, and I suppose in 1904 that was indeed too young to see real live belly dancers, with real bare bellies. I don't know if great grandma resisted the mores of society before the Fair, but photographic evidence says she certainly resisted it afterward. We have a photo of her wearing trousers, for gosh sakes! And yes, Laura was a suffragette. She made signs and protested and passed out petitions, and St. Louis City took very little notice of the whole thing.
Great Aunt Mary learned to play the saxophone, and she and her friends started a band. They wore skimpy clothes and sang dirty songs in smoke filled bars. They were "The M&M Girls", they were lesbians, and they made no secret of it. Mom took me to see Great Aunt Mary play once. We rode a bus to the downtown bar where they were playing, and I got to hear their "dirty" songs. Mom sang along with them. Her favorite song was the "oh I wish I was..." song (as mom called it)

It went like this:
Oh, I wish I was a little bitty girl, and I had a whole lot of money
Then I would marry a carpenter, 'cause he's as good as any.
And he could nail, and I could nail, and we could nail together
and wouldn't we have one hell of a time
a nailing one another....

The verses were endless. The crowd could shout out an occupation, and the M&M Girls would come up with a suitable phrase. Each of the 3 girls had a verse that they sang all alone. Great Aunt Mary sang the verse about marrying a saxophone player (of course) ...and he could blow, and I could blow, and we could blow together... The piano player (play together), and the crowd favorite -the drummer "...and wouldn't we have one hell of a time a bangin' one another"

Grandma was pretty tame, compared to the rest of the family. All she did was get married and have a baby "early". And then she had 7 more. Of course, nobody had pre-marital relations in 1945. So I won't even hint at that being the reason my mother was born 2 months early, but was still almost 7 lbs. at birth.
The Sicilian immigrant with whom grandma was doing nothing improper at all, asked for her hand in marriage. He was a tailor. He made suits for a specific group of Sicilian men, but we don't talk about that. "Mafia" is never, ever mentioned at family gatherings.

Mom followed the long-standing tradition of proving your fertility before saying your marriage vows, but her guy did not offer to marry her. So Grandpa threw her out of the house. She spent the last two months of her pregnancy in a home for unwed mothers. Grandpa would not speak to her, and forbade the rest of the family to talk about her in his presence. He forgave her when Grandma forced him to go see his granddaughter, (my sister) who Mom had named Josephine. How could he refuse his first grandchild, especially when she was named after him?

So, when you put it all in perspective; me giving up a child or two for adoption is nothing special. You could say I'm just keeping the family tradition of being unique. Someday I'll write about all my Aunts and Uncles. I'm proud of them. They are each their own person, in unique and fascinating ways.