as long as we're on the topic

[kaigou]

This is for taithe's amusement, but the rest of you are welcome to join in. Just imagine that the older half of the conversation is speaking in a coastal Mississippi accent. If you're not sure what that is, think something close to Holly Hunter's (Georgia) accent, but slower, and farther back in the throat. It's really a rather gentle accent, and for all that we fuss about non-Southerners thinking Southern accent means stupid, the Delta/coastal accent has definite connotations of elegance, if a friendly kind.

Anyway, in talking of the Civil War and Reconstruction, I was reminded of one of the few family stories that... well, it remains a mystery. My grandmother was, as befit many Southern women of her era, big into genealogy. Come to think of it, it's still a big thing, but we've got that whole thing about family, anyway. I grew up with stories of various people in the family, like the time she told me I had a however-many-greats-aunt who was -- drumroll, please -- Abraham Lincoln's stepmother.

Me, at tender age of ten: wasn't the reason Abraham Lincoln left home really young because he hated his step-mother?
Gramma: *handwave* Dear, we don't speak ill of the dead.

[ETA: many many thanks to wordweaverlynn (see comments) for enlightening me on this childhood misunderstanding, that childhood-me had it Completely Wrong. Wah!]

Anyway, the only other Civil-War related story of unexpected relatives was about a Southern General. When the South decided to secede from the Union, all ranking military officers who were residents of a seceding state were contacted by the newly-formed Confederacy. Each general was asked to convert his commission from the North/Federal govt to the South/Confederacy. Many didn't, many did. And then there was one general -- the one in my family -- who regretfully replied that he had -- really! -- only just discovered, like, within minutes of getting the invitational letter -- that he had inherited some form of madness.

Terrible, terrible thing, them late-in-life unexpected insanities. Kill you right off, if you weren't careful. Naturally, he had to listen to his doctors' advice, and promptly packed up his entire family and off they all go to a sanatorium in the South of France in hopes he might live out that what's left of his life, in peace. And, y'know, hope for a cure.

Me: What happened then, Gramma?
Gramma: Remarkably, he was only ill for foueeah yeeaahrs, and the sanatorium cured him completely, just in time for him to return home, on the tails of the South surrendering.
Me: ...
Gramma: *completely deadpan* The nick of time, really.
Me: That seems awfully convenient timing, Gramma.
Gramma: Gracious, I'm sure it was just a coincidence.
Me: Unh-hunh. So what was his name? Who was he?
Gramma: *handwave* Dear, it's not polite to speak ill of the dead.

(Like she didn't do it all the time. She just figured if she didn't name names, it wasn't really speaking ill of the dead because you hadn't said who exactly they were. At least, that's what I think she was thinking. She never did explain why not, only that... well, she had plenty to say about plenty in the family. Now I've got plenty of stories and no names to go with them. Except for the stories about my grandmother's step-grandfather's younger brother, who -- according to my mother -- really did run that wild. Not like running wild was all that much, considering my grandmother's aunt ran a boarding house, threw parties where the bathtub really was filled with gin, and had three pet house-pigs.)

I guess this just means temporary insanity runs in my family, or maybe -- to not speak ill of the dead -- just really good survival instincts.