![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21I learned this afternoon that today is the 75th anniversary of my great-grandfather's death. He died today in 1939. Obviously, I never knew him, since he died a little over 40 years before I was born (and 15 years before my father was even born, so he never knew him either). I don't know very much about him. Actually, most of what I know is that his name was August, he is responsible for my last name, and how he died.
He died in an accident two days before my grandfather turned 16. He slipped going down the stairs in their apartment building and likely died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Whether the hemorrhage was caused by a stroke that made him fall or by hitting his head is something we don't know. I do know, however, that his death had a huge impact on my grandfather, because that morning, the two of them had had a vicious argument about something (the something is lost to time) and my grandfather stormed out of the apartment without saying goodbye. I believe my grandfather was also the one to find August dead in the stairwell (we've always called him August. I don't know if it's because he didn't live to see a grandchild and therefore never had a grandfather name or if it was a distancing thing for my grandfather after what happened).
Other than that, I know very little about August. I know his family was from Hungary and his mother didn't speak English (she outlived him, I think, and my grandfather knew her well), but I don't know if August was born in the US or in Hungary. I also know he was not my grandfather's biological father and therefore doesn't actually share any of my DNA. My grandfather didn't know that August wasn't his father until my father was in college, so he would have been in his 50s. His mother, my great-grandmother, told him because she was very ill and they were concerned she was going to die (she didn't, at least not at that point. She died in 1982 and I have very vague memories of her). She had gotten pregnant when she was a teenager. She knew who the father was, but my grandfather refused to let her tell him (and also destroyed a letter she left him with the information without reading it). The man who fathered my grandfather had left town- I'm not entirely sure he knew she was pregnant. I have the impression he was much older than her and I also have suspicions about consent or the lack thereof, based on something my grandmother said to me once. She had the baby and lived with her parents until my grandfather was 7 and she married August. When my father asked how he couldn't have known, my grandfather said he couldn't remember very much about his early childhood and he'd always assumed August was there for the bits he did remember.
(Which is why I can believe that G Callen really honestly didn't remember his parents and something I should have remembered when I was questioning Nathan Wuornos remembering his father, but I digress)
It does, however, take a good man to marry a woman with a son and give that son his name and raise him as his own. I don't know much about August, but I am fairly sure of that. And since the name he gave his son is my name, I've always felt some attachment to him. I'm sure my grandfather would have liked to tell me more about August, but my grandfather had a stroke when I was 4 that left him with aphasia and there are many, many things he wanted to tell me and couldn't. Some things he tried and managed. Some things he tried and failed. And in this case, since my grandmother hadn't known him (they didn't meet until she was 19 and he was 27), she couldn't help him tell me like she could for many of the other stories I have from my grandfather. It's one of the holes in my heart that can't heal, all the things I don't know from my grandfather.
But I remember what I know about August and I hope he's had peace these last 75 years.
He died in an accident two days before my grandfather turned 16. He slipped going down the stairs in their apartment building and likely died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Whether the hemorrhage was caused by a stroke that made him fall or by hitting his head is something we don't know. I do know, however, that his death had a huge impact on my grandfather, because that morning, the two of them had had a vicious argument about something (the something is lost to time) and my grandfather stormed out of the apartment without saying goodbye. I believe my grandfather was also the one to find August dead in the stairwell (we've always called him August. I don't know if it's because he didn't live to see a grandchild and therefore never had a grandfather name or if it was a distancing thing for my grandfather after what happened).
Other than that, I know very little about August. I know his family was from Hungary and his mother didn't speak English (she outlived him, I think, and my grandfather knew her well), but I don't know if August was born in the US or in Hungary. I also know he was not my grandfather's biological father and therefore doesn't actually share any of my DNA. My grandfather didn't know that August wasn't his father until my father was in college, so he would have been in his 50s. His mother, my great-grandmother, told him because she was very ill and they were concerned she was going to die (she didn't, at least not at that point. She died in 1982 and I have very vague memories of her). She had gotten pregnant when she was a teenager. She knew who the father was, but my grandfather refused to let her tell him (and also destroyed a letter she left him with the information without reading it). The man who fathered my grandfather had left town- I'm not entirely sure he knew she was pregnant. I have the impression he was much older than her and I also have suspicions about consent or the lack thereof, based on something my grandmother said to me once. She had the baby and lived with her parents until my grandfather was 7 and she married August. When my father asked how he couldn't have known, my grandfather said he couldn't remember very much about his early childhood and he'd always assumed August was there for the bits he did remember.
(Which is why I can believe that G Callen really honestly didn't remember his parents and something I should have remembered when I was questioning Nathan Wuornos remembering his father, but I digress)
It does, however, take a good man to marry a woman with a son and give that son his name and raise him as his own. I don't know much about August, but I am fairly sure of that. And since the name he gave his son is my name, I've always felt some attachment to him. I'm sure my grandfather would have liked to tell me more about August, but my grandfather had a stroke when I was 4 that left him with aphasia and there are many, many things he wanted to tell me and couldn't. Some things he tried and managed. Some things he tried and failed. And in this case, since my grandmother hadn't known him (they didn't meet until she was 19 and he was 27), she couldn't help him tell me like she could for many of the other stories I have from my grandfather. It's one of the holes in my heart that can't heal, all the things I don't know from my grandfather.
But I remember what I know about August and I hope he's had peace these last 75 years.