Family Roots – Phillip Eide
Who was the oldest relative that you knew? What do you remember most about them?
That would have been my Mother’s mother who we called Ma. I remember that she didn’t like kids. We used to go over to her house on Monday evenings, Lucille would drive us. Ma would spend the time watching professional wrestling on TV and ignore us kids. Her house was out in Brooklyn Center on Oseo Road. She lived with my Uncle Marvin, as he was single. She was something of a racist. There was a black wrestler by the name of Sailor Art Thomas who was a “villain” and then there was Verne Gagne, who was one of the good guys. She used the “n*” word in reference when talking about Saylor Art Thomas. She lived to be in her 80’s.
The other thing about Ma was German culturally, from the Alsace region of Europe, which is either German or French depending on who won the last war. She used to tell us that we are direct descents of Joan of Arc. I didn’t really know who Joan of Arc was, but I knew she was someone very important and I was very proud of that fact. So when I was in the 1st grade for show-n-tell, I decided to exclaim that “I am a direct descent of Joan of Arc”. The teacher said “Thank you, Philip. You can take your seat now.” That night at dinner, I said I shared this at school today. The response from my siblings was universally “you idiot”!
The Story of Aunt Lucille
Lucille lost contact with the family for a while and nobody knew where she was. One day, Ma got a phone call from Lucille, “would they like to meet her downtown for a drink.” They met her downtown for a “drink” where she told them she had given birth to a little boy. [Note, Jim has done some research on this and he was born in a home for wayward mothers in South Minneapolis.] So initially at least, Jim was living with Ma. Lucille may not have been because she was working for the Jenelle’s at the time. As a young toddler, Jim did something so terrible, that Ma left him alone in the house and called Lucille to come get Jim, she was not going back to the house until he was gone. Jim lived briefly with Lucille at the Jenelle’s, both of whom were raging alcoholics. One of their neighbors was a psychiatrist, Dr. Holcrant, who told Lucille that she had to get Jim out of the house. So then Jim came to live with us.
