The Susie Situation - Episode 1 - Things That Burn

My family left us many things - a predisposition to cancer, diminutive stature, a distinct lack of generational wealth. They neglected to leave photos. We don't know what Grandpa looked like, or two of our three aunts. Those three aunts died way too soon and really needed to meet more men. That's what we've decided from where we sit -- three nieces and grand nieces, learning about Dad's three sisters, while we unravel a 100 year old mystery that we're calling "The Susie Situation." Our story starts with a fire.

This is available as a video (below) or as a written work (below that.) 

I wake up most mornings thinking that I'm getting old. Why is this at the forefront of my thoughts at dawn? Who knows.

Last year I had surgery to remove various body parts before they had a chance to acquire cancer. My father's family gave me the gift of being genetically hospitable to certain types of cancer, and I don't need those parts anymore, so it seemed like the thing to do, but ...

Something happens when they re-arrange all those parts inside of you. It must create free space for trapped air? After years of gas-free living (except for the summer of '69 - and we don't know what was going on there) I found myself waking up at 3am with copious amounts of excess flatulence.

My morning routine the first few weeks after surgery involved waking up, thinking about getting old, noticing which body part hurt most, remembering that I'm not going to be around forever, and then telling myself to stop whining, because I've outlived many women in my family. This series of thoughts might take anywhere from 3 minutes to 3 hours, after which, resolving to go about my day with dignity and grace, I would roll over, sit up, and fart.

Do I recommend this surgery? Well, it might have prolonged the lives of some of those women I've outlived. Even a little bit of standard medical care might have helped. I mean, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure aspirin is not the best and only painkiller for breast cancer. Uncle Clarence, I'm talking to you.

My father's three sisters all died before I was born. I don't even know what two of them looked like. Sometimes I hear rumors of photos. "My sister might have some, but she isn't speaking to me and won't share" or "My uncle had all the photos, and then his house burned down."

Things that burn. There's actually an old family story about a house and a barn burning down on the same day, back when my father was two years old. He wrote about this in a manuscript he left me. 

He says, “We were living on this homestead near Spencer, Nebraska. And Dad was away from home."

I guess the rest of the family was out getting the cows. Except for his sister Susie. For some reason she wasn't there. On their way home, a thunderstorm came up on the prairie.

"There was one really bright flash and then a hard clap of thunder. Then we saw smoke coming from our new barn. It was on fire, and we couldn't save it. Before we got to the barnyard, there was another really bright flash and another deafening roar, and smoke came pouring out of our house -- our new house!"

Now, when I was a kid, I noticed that if I asked the wrong question during a family story, I would often get an illusive answer.

"Dad, what are the odds of lightning striking two structures on the same land on the same day, catching them both on fire?"

"Well ... I couldn't say."

"Dad, where was Grandpa during this time?"

"Well ... sometimes he was away."

"Dad, where was Susie?"

"Well ... you know, I was only two years old."

As I got older I discovered that this lightning story was the official story, but there was an underlying suspicion. Subtext. Family lore. A suggestion that this fire was set on purpose. Why? Nobody explained. They hemmed and hawed and said, "Well ...."

So I set out to find other sources of information. For years I searched through newspaper listings and other resources in Boyd county, near Spencer. I got negative results. That's what the professional genealogists tell you when you hire them to look for things, and they don't find them. "I searched. I got negative results. That will be four hundred and fifty dollars, please. I prefer a check."

Then one day I broadened my search to Holt county, a few miles south of Spencer, and that's when I discovered a tiny little news article in the Atkinson Graphic, dated July 12, 1912: "Orlin Carver of Phoenix had the misfortune to lose his house and household goods last Friday night by fire. Mr. Carver lives on a Kinkaid homestead and the loss will be an especially heavy one for him."

It didn't mention a barn. And Grandpa's first name was spelled wrong - Orlin instead of Orland - but I've often seen it misspelled in this fashion. My dad was born in 1910, so he would have been 2 in 1912. I had no idea where Phoenix or Kinkaid were, but a quick look at a map showed that Atkinson is 41 miles south of Spencer. The dates are right. The place seems right. There were not many Carvers in the area. This looked like my family. Now what?

I reached out to my cousins, Kate and Melody. "HELP!" They were patient, letting me bury them in research, listening to my dramatic overshares and sighs of confusion. They passed information back and forth between me and their aging parents, adding information of their own, and suggesting new avenues for research. Over the last year we've pieced together large parts of this story while our own stories unfolded in parallel..

If we were writing the script for a movie, we would have to admit that the script is not complete. We're hoping that if we release some updates, a bit at a time, we'll figure it out as we go. Perhaps more of our cousins will provide feedback and help us add depth and clarity. Perhaps the final family narrative will be crowdsourced.

And perhaps I can change my morning routine. Wake up and think, yes, darn it, I'm getting old, but at least I've shared what I know. And also, finally, thank heavens, that farting has subsided.