Family Feud

I guess every family has one, or two, or maybe even more, if you go back far enough. This one concerns a Great Grandfather (D) and his two sons, E the Elder and Y the Younger. D had a trade and he worked in that trade for most of his life but at some point he bought the business he worked for. He had two sons and many daughters. Instead of leaving it to the eldest son, he left it to the younger son with the expectation that his son would support the remaining daughters and look after them.

This should be the end of the story, but of course it isn't. E was bitter about this and I think one or more of the older sisters may have supported him, sisters who had left home and made their own way in life and stood to gain nothing, and lose nothing. Not surprsingly the different branches of the family went their own ways until I was a teenager, when we got back in contact and arranged to meet.

I remember this meeting through a fog of time. There was odd undercurrents and the bitterness was still apparent, having been passed down the generations. Odd how people see things, the business was as much a burden as a blessing at times. It was nursed through recessions and required long, long hours. Often to see my Dad, we had to go to work. He is retired now, but all that hard graft has taken it's toll and he has never really had the health to fully enjoy his retirement.

Tracing my family tree has explained a few things though. I can kind of understand why E was so bitter. You see E was in the Army. In 1911 he was an Errand Boy at the tender age of 17 probably working for the same company as his fatherand living at home. In 1912 however he was called to join the reserves and was now in a different trade, probably not anything to do with the company his father worked for.

Later on he was called up and became a soldier, a driver and in 1916 he married and was no longer living at his family home. In fact he must have moved out some time between 1912 and 1916 because the lady he married lived on the same street as he now lived on. So he was no longer living at home and probably no longer contributing to his parents and sisters support.

he fought the good fight around the world and actually went career. He was obviously good at what he did because his army records clearly show him being transferred from unit to unit as they were disbanded at the end of the war. He must have enjoyed it too.

In 1919 however he left the army, with a free discharge at his own request. Later that year his Father died. He had probably received word of his Fathers ill health and returned home. He probably expected to inherit the family business as the eldest son. His Father did differently though. He left it to Y who was only 17.

Y had been too young to go to war and stayed home, probably worked with his Father and been steady and hard working. He knew the business and lived at home with no wife. I can image D extracted some promises from Y about taking care of his sisters, having them life at home and not sending them off to work as servants etc and letting them marry in their own time. E would not have been a good bet for such assurances - he had already been managing a second home and had a wife and he had been away from the family for many years and did not know the business as well. I suspect the moving out and working in a different trade would have caused rows too.... A hard choice....

No wonder E was bitter - he had given all for his country and sacrificed his career for his family and now he had been cheated by a little brother....

But the thing is, Y did not marry until he was in his 40s. The younger sisters stayed home and they all married in their own good time. He obviously looked after them. They obviously felt no bitterness about how things worked out - one branch of the family is still good friends to this day and some of the members of this branch were at my tiny wedding. The youngest sister was someone we used to visit when I was little, but I remember very little about her.

But I feel like I understand now, a lot better.... I wonder if E would have done any different if he had had to make that choice?