Writing this blog has been an educational experience for me in several ways, not the least of which is that I’ve learned a lot about my family.

And by that I mean the simple act of writing about the events of the past has led to new insights at times. 

Now those insights may or may not be correct, and sometimes further investigations into newspaper archives sheds even further light in one way or another on those events.

For example— 

I had long believed that the reason we moved from my grandparents’ farm back to Richland was because my mother didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife and that she was the driving force behind the move. Further, based on some things that she told me in later years, I believed that there was some bad blood between my parents and my grandparents and my father’s siblings, at least for a short time, because of the move. What she told me was that when my parents were planning the move, my father’s younger brother Curtis, who still lived in the same house with my grandparents on the farm, told them that if they moved they would be cut off from the family and should expect to be disinherited.

Now I didn’t remember that there were any bad feelings between my parents and my grandparents after the move, and certainly they weren’t cut off (my grandfather helped them buy a house a few years later). Plus, a few months after the move my uncle Curtis was giving me piano lessons. So I wasn’t sure what to make of what my mother told me about what he had said.

In any case while writing this blog I’ve come to re-evaluate my parents reasons for moving. I no longer believe my mother was the driving force.

I think I was.

What I think happened was, after my ill-fated adventure in walking into Womelsdorf that I wrote about a few years back, both my parents realized that by living on the farm I wasn’t getting to interact with enough other kids my age. Plus, it was perhaps a bit dangerous. I think that’s when my mother decided to go to beautician’s school.

Further, I was always mystified by why we moved to Womelsdorf during the last couple months of the school year in 1957, only to move again once the school year was over to Richland. I assumed, based on what my mother had told me, that it had something to do with the bad feelings between my parents and the rest of the Troutmans so my parents felt they had to move quickly.

But when I got around to writing about my sister’s adventure with the steers, and realized that that must have happened about a month before we moved, I realized, that no, we moved because my parents were concerned for our safety (especially my sister’s) on the farm. And we moved initially to Womelsdorf so that I could complete second grade there, rather than move to Richland right away.

So now it all made a certain amount of sense.

And there was never any bad blood between my parents and the rest of the family.

Except— 

There was still that lingering question about Curtis and that somewhat threatening conversation.

And then while searching for something else in the newspaper archives, I came across this:

That’s dated June 7, 1957, when we were living in that rented house in Womelsdorf. Mrs. John Troutman was my grandmother. Notice that it mentions guests like my uncle Clarence and his wife Elsie, my cousin Glenn and his family, my great aunt Mary Hoffa (pronounced Hoff-ee), my aunt and uncle Irene and John Hassler, and my uncle Curtis.

But conspicuously missing are my parents and my sister and myself.

Why weren’t we present at that joyous occasion? Was there bad blood in the air after all?

Here’s my guess.

The party was almost certainly planned by Curtis, and he’s the one who didn’t invite us. And I’m guessing that after that party my grandparents took Curtis aside and asked why weren’t Arthur and his family present? And I think they read him the riot act, because I don’t think there was ever any bad blood between my grandparents and my parents, I think it was all in my uncle Curtis’s mind. And I think they told him to stop it—and he did, because he didn’t want to risk alienating them.

 

You see, my uncle Curtis could be a real jerk at times.

Remember the story about my pet rabbit? While I have no way of proving it, I’m 99% certain that it was Curtis who was behind that.

I have memories when I was young, maybe five years old, of Curtis putting on a mask to scare me. Over and over. And laughing about it. He knew it terrified me, and I knew it was him in the mask, but it still scared me, but he kept doing it.

As I say, he could be a real jerk.

Like all of us, he had more than one side, and I’ve written about his teaching music at Elco elementary schools, and I think he was very good at that.

But he wasn’t my only uncle who could be a bit of a jerk at times, and he certainly wasn’t the worst.