Uncle Ed

     
      More Letters From Paradise
             Uncle Ed
The first time I met my uncle Ed, was at my father's funeral. After the service we sat and shared a six-pack of beer and talked. "I have known about you for years," I said. "I was given your name for my middle name."Yes, he replied, I knew." "You realize you are the only one alive who knows anything about our family in the West?" Uncle Ed then said that he would tell me what he knew, but that Grandma Beth would have known a whole lot more. " She died some time ago." "Yes, she is buried in L.A."

"I divorced your Aunt Alice in Chicago, and went to California." "This is the first time I have been back." "I'l tell you what I know, but it isn't much."

"Our family went to Montana, and settled in the Bitter Root Valley." " There they raised horses and sold them to the Union Army, during the Civil War." "They were a rough bunch, probably sold and broke mustangs too." "What about Great Aunt Jane," I asked. " I remember your Grandmother telling me how she used to shoot off the heads of rattlesnakes from horseback." "She was a crack shot and was in Bill Hitchcock's Wild West Show too."

I recalled to him about the story I had known for years about how one of our women had branded an Indian on his chest when he grabbed her hair." "I knew that story too." he said.

"My mother, your grandma was one of those tough Western women." "She went West in a covered wagon with her sister." "I'll bet you didn't know that she played a harmonica, a big four decker one." "No, I didn't, but I do know she wrote and published a song called "A Prairie Honey Moon." I said.

"How about your own father, what did he do for a living?" I asked. "Worked as a conductor on the Northern Pacific Rail Road." " He died in 1918, in the great flu epidemic." "Grandma had four or five husbands, I think." I said. "I think it was five,but your father would have known them." "I'm sorry to have so little to tell you." "When I get back to California I will send you your Grandma's Bible and a photograph album." "It's full of all the old family pictures, and I will put the name of the people I remembered on each picture." "That would be just great," I said.

That was the last time I ever saw him. A few months later I received a package in the mail. Inside was a note from the woman he lived with. She wrote that Ed had died and wanted me to have the Bible and photograph album. In the box was Grandma's Bible and the photograph album. I opened the album and stared a all the faces, men on horses, men with long beards and  women in wide dresses. But, not a single name under any picture.

     Aloha
     Grant