🧵1/2 #cosogenealogy
#cosofamily
#cosohistory
This is my paternal grandfather Floyd. He changed his name to John Quinn after a prison break with two other people where a guard was killed. One of the other men killed the guard. If this had happened today he'd be up for a murder rap. He married my grandmother although he was already married under his real name. My father was born a year later. He stayed 12 years with my grandma, longer than with anyone. But he disappeared ...
🧵2/2 ...in a stolen vehicle. He was caught in 1940, so my grandma learned the full story. He served an additional six years and was granted a new trial. The county where he was charged didn't want to bother to get him. So he was released. He died on this date in 1965. We didn't learn when he died, or much else about him before and after his marriage to my grandma until my genealogy research in 1993. So I wouldn't exist if it weren't for a prison break where a man was killed. Things to ponder.
@poemblaze What a fantastic story! That's what I like most about genealogy: you find out the truth about your family. You learn that your ancestors weren't spotless paragons (like people told you when you were a kid). They were real, flawed, whole human beings, like you.
@Myana Way flawed. Like me.
@Myana I added a bit to the story.
@Myana Thanks for following!
@poemblaze And thank you!
@poemblaze My dad always claimed to be a fine upstanding person and sputtered about the 'antics' of 'kids these days' (people in their 20s during the 1960s).
I discovered that when he was in his 20s he 'borrowed' a taxi and drove it through the front of the local Bijou theater. (The taxi driver left his cab running while he took a leak. Dad, thoroughly drunk, staggered out of a nearby bar and thought it was his car. Because we owned so many Yellow Cabs when I was an infant. 😜 )
@Myana Colorful!
@Myana When I see a taxi, I always think it's my car.
🧵 addendum.
... His father in law bought the vehicle for him, actually a Model T truck, which he was supposed to pay for in installments. A portion of the farm had to be sold to make up the loss.
The first picture is from 1913, long before he showed up here. The second picture is from about 1964. We had no pictures of him from the years he was here.