My grandfather's name was Leo Brennan. He was a Master Sgt. in the Army Air Corps. in WWII. He spent a couple of years in China, and flew what was called the CBI Triangle, which was China, Burma, and India. He then went on to be one of Chennault's Flying Tigers for the duration of the group's operations.  He was awarded an air medal by Vinegar Joe, and an air medal as well as two Distinguished Flying Crosses by General Claire Chennault for his service while in China.

He went on to be a commercial pilot after the war, owned a horse farm, a night club, and a bowling alley. He had seven children with his wife Edith, and lived to the age of 81.






That's the best story I've got. What's yours?

I once owned the most famous stand of corn in the whole world.

One of my mother's cousins (or second cousins, I'm not sure which) was shot by "G-Men" about a month after John Dillinger was shot, and in a more or less similar manner.

Daddy ran whiskey in a big block Dodge.    

My Aunt Bobbsy, Roberta Schilbach Ross, is one of the most decorated woman in US military history. She was a nurse, married a guy in the 8 Airforce in England and wanted to go over to GB and be near him. She joined the army and ended up in Burma, flying wounded out of China, over the hump.She was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and several Air Medals. Eleanor Roosevelt, presented her with the DFC. One of a very few female ,non pilots DFC holders.A real killer girl.

My brother draws Spiderman for Marvel, got the job by winning a contest years ago.

My family history leads to a guy in the year 360 named The Warlord of Saxony.  I'm willing to bet he's got some stories....

My grandfather was a member of the ku klux klan in the 40's. Made liquor his entire adult life and served 3 different stints in prison for making liquor. Died at 52 of lung cancer.  He was a very wealthy man for the day and the area he lived.  It took every dime he had to pay his medical bills when he died. He ran a lot of liquor for Junior Johnson and sold alot of liquor to junior Johnson.  There is a card my grandmother has where junior Johnson sent flowers to his funeral and story goes there was a couple grand in an envelope with it

My sister.

She was born in a re-purposed WWII Japanese internment camp in 11/45.

In 1949, while on board an Army-operated transport ship leaving SF harbor on the way to Guam, the ship was hit by a dummy torpedo fired by a diesel sub running solutions.  The ship was damaged and had to return to port for minor repairs.

On that same trip she survived a typhoon.

In about 1956, while attending school on base at the Nancy (France) Ordnance Depot, she and her classmates were taken to a rifle range and trained to shoot M-1 carbines.  This was at the height of the Hungarian Crisis.  Someone on base got the idea that they might need to defend themselves if Ivan shot the Gap and overran us.  Mom had to be kept from overrunning the base commander's office she was so mad.  And that 5' tall German woman could get mad.

The only career she ever wanted was to be a nurse. She enrolled in nursing school in Temple, TX, graduated at 19.  She was a nurse for 45 years until retirement.

At 19 she was in charge of an entire floor at the old St. Joseph Hospital in Bryan, TX.

She has lived in Nancy, FR, Paris, FR, the Netherlands, and worst of all, Houston.  

In summation, she was born in not much more than a shack, torpedoed by the US Navy, taught to shoot by the US army, and served mankind as a nurse for nearly half a century.

She turns 70 in November.

My mom.

Born the 9th of 16 children in a German village in Kansas.  Didn't speak English when she went to school the first day.  Lived through the first big Dust Bowl storm in Kansas.  Was the first in her family to graduate from college. Taught in a one-room school house for two years in West Scipio, KS.  Made MG ammo at the Lake City Arsenal for two years early in WWII.  She then went to work for Pratt & Whitney as an engine inspector.  At nearly 5' and 85 pounds, she could walk on thin aluminum without damaging it.  Gave birth to her first child in a former Japanese internment camp in Utah.  Was torpedoed by the US Navy in 1949 while leaving SF harbor.  Drove an open sided Jeep on Guam for two years while Japanese soldiers still lived in the nearby hills.  Lived in Nancy, FR, under standing evacuation orders for three years in case Ivan shot the Gap following the Hungarian Revolution.

Went back to school in her 40s and got a teaching degree.  Had four kids in all.  Buried dad when he was 53 and she was 49.  Died of cancer at age 53.

My dad.

Born one month before the US declared war on Germany.....in 1917.  He was the first of his mom's family born in the USA.  Grew up on a farm in Kansas.  Joined the Army was was one of the last of the horse-mounted cavalrymen before being sent to the Pacific.  He arrived in Australia the day the Battle of Midway began.  Served during Korea and VN.  Retired at age 49 with his skin falling off him from a career spent at NBC Army arsenals.  Died at age 53 of cancer.  Was one of the nicest men I ever knew.  Never heard him say a curse word, a mean comment, or a racial slur.

Of my four grandparents, three were born in the 1880s and one in the 1890s.  Dad's mom came to the US on the maiden voyage of the HMS Lusitania.

Bought it in an auction at the mason's lodge

The only interesting relative I have is this....


The Star-Spangled Banner Flag or the Great Garrison Flag is the garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor during the naval portion of the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. Seeing the flag during the battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which, retitled with the flag's name of the closing lines of the first stanza and set to the tune "Anacreon in Heav'n," would later become the national anthem of the United States.





Gen Stricker is my great (5x) grandmother's brother.

My great great grandfather was a various times a U.S. Senator and Governor of a large Northern state during the last part of the Civil War.  He came from a wealthy banking and manufacturing (furniture, home goods) background.  My family has been working its way down the social and economic ladder ever since.

Also, when my mother passed away recently, we found our family history documented in the back of the family Bible.  To paraphrase a Jeff Foxworthy joke, my family tree doesn't fork enough (and in some places barely forks at all).    It may explain some of the quirkiness and special attributes that seem to run in the family.

Wow, that's a lot of "tight-sphincter time".

My great uncle was Stanley Umstead.....chief test pilot for the USAAC.....most famous as the first to fly the B-19 and B-26.....his portrait is on my office wall, and his wings are in my cabinet......

Had a great, great, etc grandfather hung in Wise Co. Virginia in 1865.....was a high ranking Confederate officer who was apparently a spy .....

My uncle was the most curious......we all thought he was nothing but a cryptographer for the USAF.......he drank himself to death....when we cleared out his home/belongings, the visas/stamps/etc in his red passport (from the mid 60's till about '81) pretty much told us what he did.

My grandmother traced the military lineage in the family back to around 1640 (in the US).......

Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side?

My dad's dad fixed Johnny Cash's wrecked to hell VW. Dad grew up with the band Alabama. Mom's dad worked on AF1 and gave us Richard Nixon's table from said airplane.

My 2 quarterbacks in college both ended up going pro. One is Joe Webb, drafted by the Vikings and traded to the Panthers, the other is bro country's Sam Hunt.

I met Brett Favre a week after UAB beat So. Miss and told him to tell Webb Go Blazers.

My Grandfather immigrated to the US in 1903 from Sicily, his brother (my great uncle) stayed.  My great uncle became a pilot in the Italian Air force, rose to the rank of Air General. In Ethiopia he was wounded in an attack that cost him an eye and leg. He became Mussolini's military attaché to the Luftwaffe. He was also a Senator for the Kingdom of Italy.  After the war he was sanctioned and lost everything.

You had to pay my Grandfather a tribute if you wanted to work in the neighborhood.

I have a cousin who is a famous actor.

My great uncle Maurice "Footsie" Britt.

Played football for the Detroit Lions, served in WWII (MOH recipient), Lt. Governor of Arkansas under Rockefeller.

Wife grandfather was Otto Woods.   AKA the one armed bandit/ Robin Hood of Wilke county.  He known for giving away everything he stole to poor familys.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3PjAYoD-Cs
My uncle was charged with the largest cocaine bust in NC history.  

On of my great, great, great, great grandfathers Richard S. Ewell

I had a grandfather (RIP) who was a navigator on a B-24.
Was shot down over occupied France, he was one of only two crew members to survive.

He was captured of course, and spent 16 months in a Nazi POW camp.
The French Underground ultimately helped him escape, and then smuggled him back to England.

Interesting, to say the least

Had an uncle in the air core who was a air craft mechanic in the Philippines When Mac left, and survived the march and the japanese POW ordeal. He staid after his rescue, and eventually walked Naga after the bomb hit. He said he got buried under bomb ejecta more times then he could count. He wasn't known for his smiling good cheer. He said tigers would eat soldiers fairly often and he said their was cobras bigger then constrictors. The enemy would sneak into camp and cut tent walls and kill the people inside. He caught one that had already killed one of his bunk mates and shot him with a pistol.   I still have the knife he used.

Had a cousin fly an insane number of bombing missions over europe.

My moms family was in Ky before dan'l boone.

My grandfather drove  Shermans under Patton in WWII. Through France, Germany, Chec and into Austria. Saw some pretty nasty things. Served in Korea and drove a truck up way into enemy territory because no one stopped him at the line made a U turn and came back. Then they stopped him and said "why are you coming from enemy territory?"....

Related to Willie Nickell on my mom's side.
The guy Tom Horn killed.

Great stuff, guys!

My GGGreat Grandfather was one of the thirteen volunteers from Gonzales that fought and died in the Alamo.

Dad drove a couple of times to make bootleg pickups in Minnesota in the 30s.

In 1939 at age 18, he enlisted in the USN.  He was on duty in the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard signal tower on 12/7/41.  He was assigned to the flag allotment as a signalman, and served with Nimitz, Fletcher and Halsey on various carriers throughout the war.  In addition to Pearl Harbor, he was at Midway, Coral Sea, and 11 other engagements in the PTO.  Somewhere in there he made chief.

After the war, he was master at arms at Port Hueneme for a while, served on a cargo ship during the Korean war, on a radar picket ship doing DEW line duty in the mid 50s, pushed boots at NTC San DIego, and on a stores ship in support of nuclear weapons testing.  He retired in 1959 as a CPO.

When he retired from the Navy, he worked briefly for a mortuary selling burial plans door-to-door.  He soon hired on as a master for the San Diego Coronado Ferry Company, piloting the car ferries between SD and Coronado.  When the ferry company folded in 1969 with the opening of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, he joined the California State Police and served for them for 10 years, until a stroke forced him to retire.  Then he went to work at the gas station at the Naval Medical Center Balboa for another decade.

He passed away in 1995, and is interred at Ft. Rosecrans National Monument.

Miss you Dad!

I have a cousin that ran away at the age of ~22, hooked up with some random in a motel, came back home a couple of weeks later, month later finds out she's pregnant, no idea who the daddy is.

A couple of years later she starts dating a meth head she met in a library, pumps out another kid by him, he sticks around for a few more months and then moves on.

Interesting enough?

My great, great ( x a lot ) grandfather was William Penn's righthand man and served as the first treasurer of PA.  I have a cousin from that same line who is a country singer of note.

I live in obscurity.  

My Maternal Grandpa was shot while running his still during prohibition. He was hit in the hand and later turned himself in so he could get some medical attention. I don't remember the exact year but there was a census and he was in jail with his occupation listed as "bootlegger." He died in 1997 at 92 years old with all his original teeth and was a farmer after he gave up bootlegging. He also had 15k buried somewhere in his yard. He dug it up and went to the local funeral home and paid in full for his entire service before he ever suffered anything medically related. I don't know what happened to the excess.

My Paternal Grandpa owned a gun store when I was very very young. He wasn't very friendly so I didn't know him very well. I only recently found out he is buried in Arlington and was a WWII vet.

I love talking to people from their generations.

Grandpa had his business shut down by the feds during prohibition. He then dug by hand, a 2nd basement below the main basement with a hidden access so the feds wouldn't find the new and improved operation

My dad's dad joined the Army in 1917 and went off to France.  After the war was over he left the Army and went back to farming.  After about 6 months or so farming wasn't paying the bills, so he re-enlisted.  Only lasted for a year or two before him and two of his buddies got court martialed for robbing an officer at gunpoint at the base pool.

Mom's dad was in WWII in Africa and Europe, don't really know anything else about him, most of his records were lost and he died when I was 1, so wasn't ever able to talk to him about it.  

I've got two uncles on my mom's side that were both Special Forces in Vietnam.  Don't know much about my Uncle Don, but Uncle Stan was at the SF Underwater Swim School from 64-66, worked at Folsom State Penitentiary, fished for Crab up in Alaska, and probably a lot of other cool stuff I don't know about.

Interesting, my paternal Grandfather Charlie Cattaneo was one of Merrills Marauders and served in the CBI theater as well. Those guys went through a lot and killed a lot of japs. After the war he bought into a garbage company. Owned several of them, a landfill, and some cattle.
On my mothers side I'm the 9th generation born in CA. Our great X grandfather was a "spanish" soldier from Mexico. They were the first non indians to settle in CA in 1769. He was killed by indians.

My Great Uncle was "the Voice of Apollo"

 Never met him.

My great grandfather, who went by the name Mutt, was a bootlegger and good friend with the outlaw pretty boy Floyd.

Pretty boy Floyd would come to his harm to hideout when he was on the run from the law or to pick up some shine.  




Wife's great grandfather was George Chip a world champion boxer.

-John Wilkes Booth great, great, great uncle

-Annie Oakley great, great aunt

My grandfather grew up with divorced parents, his time was split between Dallas and Brenham, Texas.  He got into a Navy ROTC program in WW2 and graduated just as the war ended and was sent to the Pacific.  While there, he was put in charge of a small flotilla of boats to go into Bikini Atoll after the first underwater nuke test to take radiation readings in the water.  Unfortunately, he made a comment about not seeing much physical damage, which a reporter on his boat overheard and reported, so his Navy career was cut short.  





After the war, he worked on building fallout shelters, amongst other government contracts.  At one point, he had the only legal still in a county in east Tennessee, he had a contract with one of the alcohol companies to analyze how much alcohol they were losing in the process to evaporation.  He allowed people to view his system, and at one point, when the local revenuers were visiting due to the uniqueness of having a legal still, they mentioned to him that ever since he'd set up his still and let people see it, the quality of local shine had been going up.  He told them he could restrict access, if that was a problem, but they told him "no", they WANTED the local shiners to improve their product because it reduced the risks of people being blinded - they'd been trying to convince the locals to switch to copper tubing for a while, but nobody would listen to them, but they WERE listening to my grandfather.  Of course, in that same time frame, he developed a deep aversion to gambling after almost losing his house in a poker game - the other guy knew he had my grandfather beat and knew it would ruin his family, so he told my grandfather that he would fold on the condition that my grandfather never gambled again.  He also bought an old black pickup truck off of a moonshiner who was doing pretty well and had bought a station wagon (and done some upgrades to it to carry shine).  A few months later, the shiner asked my granddad if he could swap the station wagon for his old pickup truck - there were lots of old black pickup trucks on the road, but that station wagon was a bit too conspicuous.  My uncle has mentioned loading a marble slab in the back of that station wagon and it not even dipping the back end at all.





He later went on to work at Kennedy Space Flight Center as an engineer and taught classes at a community college in the area for NASA employees who were working on their engineering degrees, and then switched to commercial construction in the area.  He gave up his engineering license and was just doing architectural work a few years back, but got it back after those four hurricanes hit central Florida in 2004, as he could make a couple hundred dollars per set reviewing rebuilding plans and could do several sets of plans a day.  I helped set up a plotter for him in 2009 or so and he said that as long as he got a year's work out of it, it would have paid for itself.  I don't THINK he's still doing it, but I could be wrong, he just turned 91.





Side note:  When he went to live with his mother in Brenham in high school, there was tension between the "Germans" and "English" in town, he was once confronted by some of the German descended football players because he'd gone horseback riding with one of the "German" girls.  Many years later, my aunt was married to a Braniff pilot and they lived in the Dallas area, she was working in a CPA firm.  One day, one of the partners stopped at her table at lunch to chat with her, and they got to talking about where they'd grown up.  He said he was from a small town in east Texas she'd probably never heard of.  Yeah, he was one of the football players and remembered my grandfather...



ETA:  he and his half-brother didn't get along.  It didn't help that the half-brother was a USMC Corsair pilot in the Pacific (and later Korea), and their dad had been a Seabee at Normandy, but my grandfather's time at Bikini Atoll made the newspapers but their exploits didn't.

A distant great great on my grandmothers side was Francis Scott Key, he was chilling in Baltimore a while back , saw some action and wrote a poem about it. It was pretty popular for a hundred years or so but now it's racist and insensitive like everything else and will probably be banned soon.

My cousin is a low life gun grabbing human POS, and his name is Dan Malloy Gov of CT.

While almost completely blind my great great great grandfather had a bear raiding the sheep flock while my grandfather and my great uncles were gone to town. He ran outside and fired at where he thought the bear was so it would get scared, instead he missed  shot a grizzly bear in the throat severing it's spine.  Thought he had missed and it had run away because it stopped making noise and he had heard it drop down to the ground and make a0 "whuff" noise. Next day my grand father and his brothers came back from town and great great grandfather told them about it. They all walked around the hut to see what the tracks looked like. dropped right where it was, mouthful of wool and all.  Used a .40-82, sadly one of my great uncles was a drunk and sold it for booze back in the 1990's/

Family history says I am related to Isreal Bissell.  He made a ride warning of the British coming, like that other guy - Paul Revere.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Bissell



I have traced the family tree back on that side of the family.  I figured out who most of Isreal's grand kids are but cannot make the connection as to which of his children are in my family line.





I'm also related to the Bissell's of Bissell Vacuum fame.

recently found out that we have 2 distant cousins who died in the alamo.

Had an uncle who was sent to China to be part of a team that operated the radios.  They would receive the encrypted messages, decode it, translate it to Chinese and then pass it onto their Nationalist Chinese counterpart.  Every week they were briefed on how to destroy their encryption/decryption machine with the thermite bomb that sat atop of it.  Before they destroyed it, they were supposed to defend it with their lives.  They had BARs, M-1 Carbines and the 1911s.

A relative's uncle was sent to China where he dressed as a peasant and walked every he wanted.  He carried some gold and a camera to photograph the Japanese.  He'd then hike back to Allied airbases where he'd pass the intelligence onto the OSS.  One time the train he was riding got stopped by the Japanese and they searched everyone.  He figured he was a goner and would be shot as a spy.  Luckily for him, some thief stole his camera!  I guess some thief got shot as a spy instead.  

My great-grandfather was bodyguard to Archduke Francis Ferdinand

On my Mom's side of the family...


I had a great uncle who was a starting player on Murders Row for the 1927 NY Yankees.




On the same side of the family - my great grandfather suddenly disappeared from Virginia back in the 1870's and later turned up in the hills of Eastern Ky . Family rumor has it that he killed a man. He spent the last several years of his life locked up in the family smokehouse like a wild animal, suffering from Alzheimer's.




On my Dad's side...




My grandfather traveled from Kentucky to Chicago and NYC during the 1920's till about 1935 making records. He was an old-time fiddle player.  


 

my great uncle was an assassin in the SS

My great-great grandfather was a milkman.

Grandpappy fucked up!

 

My great great grand father was James Longmire...lead a wagon train from Council Bluffs, Iowa to the Pacific Northwest in 1852.

Encountered many difficulties along the way, he left a journal documenting his encounters. He was instrumental in bringing Washinton into statehood.

He was probably the first white man to climb Mt. Rainier in 1883... Along the way to the summit he found a series of hot springs were he later built a

hotel/health resort. As a youngster I visited the house he built, it had a stunning view of Mt Rainier.