Tuesday, October 16, 2007

bent limbs on the family tree

My dad's dad's dad had the largest rhubarb farm in Wayne County. This I knew, but when he was talking about it Saturday he started a sentence off when "when we lost the farm..." There's a story to be told.

My mom's mom's dad was a bootlegger and ran homebrewed beer in the car with my young grandmother sitting on the seat on top of it. His wife died very young, and the paperwork says her bowels were punctured by a chicken bone.

2 comments:

Jana said...

Ooh, now those are some stories I would love to hear.

AmyinMotown said...

Okay, let's meet for a beer and share crazy family stories once I drop this child. My grandmother? Drove, at age 14, to get a delivery of booze from the Purple Gang for the family's bar. Which allegedly became a candy store during Prohbition. We can't get a straight answer out of her about whether or not people could get bootlegged liquor there if they, say, asked for "purple jawbreakers" with a knowing wink. And everyone in the family went by some sort of alias--I still don't know what my Aunt Irene's name actually was. Most fun thing ever is to get my dad and uncles together with my grandma, start mixing cocktails and let the stories flow. I love my crazy Polacks!!