(no subject)

[moon_custafer]

My parents took out out for lunch for my birthday, and mentioned that they'd recently got into researching my mother's grandfather with the prompting of her cousin. She'd never really known her grandfather (he'd been about twenty years older than her grandmother), and all she'd heard was that he was musically inclined (and not so good at farming). There was also a family legend that he'd originally been destined for the church. Apparently this turned out to have been true, except -- well, we're not sure what went wrong along the way, but apparently he ended up being convicted of "burglary and sacrilege," served time, and afterwards emigrated, changing the spelling of his name in the process. I think his downfall came after he'd been doing missionary work in the slums of London, and Dad speculated he'd snapped under the pressure (the research had also turned up some cases of mental illness in other branches of the family).

Somehow, they only part of this that surprises me is the church connection. I'd thought all the religion was on my Dad's side of the family.

Afterwards, I bought some yarn (Mom wants a bulky garter-stitch cowl for Christmas), a mini-cupcake pan and liners (for seasonal baking), and, from the thrift store, a red blouse and a green blouse/poncho thing which may in fact be an Xmas-tree skirt.

Comments

[donald hutton (from livejournal.com)]

At one point people in my family tried to interest me in genealogy and I disgusted them by delighting in digging up our criminal past. On my mother's side there was only this guy who was fired by the Mafia in Hamilton, Ontario for incompetence. My Dad's side had a cousin that we occasionally got inquires about from the same Mafia. He was a partner in some restaurant in Hamilton that went bankrupt in some accounting shenanigans for which he was blamed for: although my Uncle always insisted that he was just the designated Fall Guy. Seeing as it turned out that some of the investors' money that vanished was from some Mafia money laundering scheme cousin vanished: initially on his own due to the interest of both sides of the law in his whereabouts but possibly not by his choice as he was never heard from again.

And, of course, one of my paternal Great Uncles was a Toronto Telegram reporter who later worked as one of Al Capone's lieutenants. He was in charge of the Manitoba truck fleet that hauled whiskey down from Wet Canada to the Dry US. The end of prohibition ruined him and he ended up as a hardware store owner in Winnipeg.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

Having watched the first season (and read spoilers for the second) of Boardwalk Empire, running a hardware store in Winnipeg was probably getting off lightly, compared to most of the people involved (the Seagrams being a big exception).

Off-topic, did you ever get help moving that mattress?

[donald hutton (from livejournal.com)]

He was very adept at the gangster business. He insisted upon having 4 to 1 odds before entering into any discussions with other gangsters, which made for very civil discussions, and, having been a reporter, had an excellent intelligence network. The only time that things veered out of control into violence was back in his reporter days fighting over scoops. His downfall was believing that the trucking end of the business was better than the distillery business since it didn't have raidable fixed assets. You'd only loose a single truck at a time to hijackers. When prohibition was repealed the distillers became millionaires and he was stuck with a fleet of trucks with nothing to ship in them.

No, never got a delivery option for the mattress but it was just as well since it turns out that it wouldn't fit on my bedframe and the frame that it's in now isn't high enough for my under-the-bed storage. Too bad but I'm sure that someone somewhere can use a two-year-old deluxe queen bed.