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Coolest story/member in your family tree

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by spikechiquet, Jun 12, 2012.

  1. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Good story. Your great aunt must be quite a woman.
     
  2. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Some props to my mother.

    My mother used to help clean houses to make some cash when she was a teenager in her small Pennsylvania town, and that included cleaning the house of the only black family in town.

    Years later after moving away, she met a woman across the street who wanted to be friends. She soon realized the woman was a flat-out racist. One day the woman was with a group of neighbor women, including my mom, and said something along the lines of blacks all being lazy and stupid.

    My mom said she used to clean the house of a black woman and didn't think that was true at all.

    The woman glared at my mom and left and never spoke to her again.
     
  3. Chuck Dickey

    Chuck Dickey Member

    Apparently, Lenny was quite the rake in those days, because he also dated my mother for a brief time. Clearly, nothing came of it, because I'm the world's worst basketball player.

    My father was somehow related to a former Bronx borough president. It's not the most glamorous position; hell, nobody really knows what a borough president does. This guy became infamous because of a scandal, which led to his suicide. After that, I'm more than content to have a family of unknowns.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Manes
     
  4. Flying Headbutt

    Flying Headbutt Moderator Staff Member

    My mom's cousin was an All American linebacker in the 80s. Played for Ohio State, but apparently didn't have much of a pro career because of injuries.
     
  5. MTM

    MTM Well-Known Member

    IJAG, are we married?

    Her uncle played at Kentucky.
     
  6. MTM

    MTM Well-Known Member

    My sister-in-law's cousin was the male winner on the first season of "Beauty and the Geek."
     
  7. Shoeless Joe

    Shoeless Joe Active Member

    Nothing to do with me or my family ... but one of my best friends' wife one day mentioned "my grandfather played for the Philadelphia Eagles back in the 60s." I was thinking he was a fill in backup long snapper for a game or two or something and asked just to go along, "really, what's his name."

    "Chuck Bednarik. I think he must have played a lot or something. All the time growing when we were out with him people would stop him on the street and ask for pictures."

    "Uh, yeah. He played."
     
  8. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    My uncle played at Missouri. He was All-American with Mike Ditka. He even got the deckhed on this story!

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19601123&id=2tQzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3ukFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4222,3866167

    http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/L/LaRoDa20.htm
     
  9. X-Hack

    X-Hack Well-Known Member

    Distantly related to Al Rosen or so I'm told. Also distantly related to Alexander Berkman, the anarchist who shot Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead Riots (and was the lover of the not-so-fetching Emma Goldman).

    My wife's 1st cousin once removed (her dad's 1st cousin) is the writer Calvin Trillin. My father in law is a minor character in one of his autobiographical books.
     
  10. albert77

    albert77 Well-Known Member

    My grandfather was big into genealogy, and he traced my family's line back to the Auld Sod and beyond. The last time I spoke to him before he died, he told me this wild story about how the family landed in Ireland in the first place.

    Seems our ancestor was one of three brothers who were privateers in France in the 16th century, and they made off with a ship that was carrying a considerable amount of the king's treasury. Since they couldn't go back to France, they high-tailed it to Northern Ireland and used the money to establish themselves there.

    I have no idea if that story is true or not. Granddaddy was pretty lucid right up to the end of his life, but he was also known as a storyteller of some repute. He himself did something that was pretty remarkable if you think about it. Sometime around 1921 or so, when he was in his late teens, he and his father drove from Pontotoc, Miss., to the Rio Grande Valley where my great-grandfather had a job as an engineer on some project.
     
  11. fossywriter8

    fossywriter8 Well-Known Member

    A family member (great-something uncle; I'll have to look it up) was part of Davy Crocket's hunting party heading to Texas but got sick. He returned home and the rest went to some little place called the Alamo. His brother was also one of the original 300 settlers in Austin, Texas.
     
  12. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]

    Yeah. Ask Frank Gifford.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
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