How well do you know your family? You spend the majority of your life thinking you know your own blood best, but you never truly know what secrets they keep. Let the following stories be a lesson that when it comes to your family—whether it be your parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins—things are not always as they seem:
1. Way to Leave Us Hanging
A long time ago, back when I was still in middle school my mom's best friend passed. She wouldn't tell me how she passed. Only that it was sudden. When I asked why we weren't going to the funeral she told me that there wouldn't be one because "her body was being donated to science." I didn't ask any more questions. That was the last time we ever talked about her.
Well, five months ago my mom handed me her phone to find the number for Domino's and as I'm scrolling through her contacts I come across the phone number of the dead best friend. Biggest "what the heck" moment of my life. The next day I called it from a pay-phone at Waffle House and she picked up. I instantly recognized the voice and accent. She's not dead. Second biggest "what the heck" moment of my life.
Turns out, my mom had been lying all these years about her BEST FRIEND BEING DEAD. It was beyond messed up.
2. A Shocking Revelation
I found out that my father was awarded medals for saving fellow shipmates on the U.S.S. Benevolence when it sank. I knew my dad fought in Korea, but he never spoke about it, ever. I found out how high up he was in the Navy at his funeral. They played Taps, gave a gun salute, and they asked my mother for his uniform.
She was given the uniform back the day before the funeral; it had been cleaned and pressed. We received a flag as well, and my mother was saluted. There may have been more, but the day was tragic enough, and it was a shock to see so many naval men there as well. It was like there was a whole different dad who I never knew about.
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3. Back to Square One
My crazy mom left her house to her eldest grandson, my nephew. She also left dribs and drabs of cash to her other grandkids, the amount depending on how much she liked them; a big roll of cash to my erratic alcoholic brother; and a few thousand to me, with the caveat that if I contested my share, I got nothing.
My mom pretty much had it in for everyone. I had my own attorney evaluate the will and he said it was legally hilarious and definitely vulnerable to challenge, but it would take a lot of time and money. I ultimately said screw it and I walked away with my few thousand bucks and got on with my life. The nephew who got the house renounced the will, as he was still in college. Applying for grants and scholarships, and owning a $500k piece of property would have wrecked his fiscal profile; he also hated the house and everything about it.
My erratic alcoholic brother moved into the place, spent all mom's money, ran up an astonishing amount of new debt using the house as collateral, and drank himself to the grave in two years flat. His equally erratic wife passed less than a year after that. Now I am executing her estate, which includes the house, on behalf of the grandchildren whom all got screwed in various ways a few years ago; the widow's will left everything to her husband unless he passed first, which he did, and named the grandkids as a fallback.
The bonus is, as I wrap this up, I have to work with the lawyer who wrote mom's evil, divisive will in the first place and facilitated the bit about how if I contested it, I got nothing. I suspect certain parties to this drama are going to the bad place, or they are there already.
4. About Schmidt
My husband’s name wasn't actually his name. To be honest, he didn't know about this either. It was when we went to get his birth certificate for our marriage license that it all hit the fan. So lets say my husband's name is John Schmidt. Well, his birth certificate said John Jones. Our license says John Schmidt, and my husband swears when he got the license 20+ years ago, the birth certificate said John Schmidt.
The clerk’s office states that this was impossible. The only person they have on file is Jones. So, after calling and researching and digging around, the conclusion that I came to was this. Back in the 80s, he was “adopted” by his stepdad Papa Schmidt. But since it was the 80s and nobody cared about anything, instead of doing a proper name change, they just started using the last name Schmidt.
So my husband had to do an official name change, but it still doesn't explain how he had a birth certificate at one point that says Schmidt on it and not Jones. He swears up and down that’s what it said. So either it’s a fake memory or we are living in an alternate universe. Either way, $300 later and his name is officially Schmidt, which makes me one too...
5. Guilt Trip
I have an uncle who is an alcoholic and lived with my grandparents until they passed. We always thought he was just an unmotivated loser. I have another uncle who passed long before I was born (he got hit by a car coming back from the store). But then, after both grandparents passed, my mom told me the true story of what happened.
The alcoholic uncle was asked to go to the store but convinced his little brother to go instead which led to his being hit by the car. My grandmother, with whom I have always held in very very high regard, told my alcoholic uncle afterward that his brother would still be alive if he had gone to the store as she had asked.
I cannot imagine the guilt that he would have felt and completely understand why he ended up that way as a result. In my adult life I’ve found that my uncle is a pretty good man, he was just dealt a bad hand.
6. You Know What He’s Going Through
My uncle was assaulted as a young boy. My grandparents not only didn't believe him, but they beat him and disowned him for "bringing such lies" into their house. The sad thing is that I went through the same thing as a kid; and while dealing with that, my dad told me what had happened to my uncle. I assume he told me about it so I wouldn't feel so alone.
My uncle is still the only one I know personally who has experienced the same trauma as me, and I'm not meant to know so can't talk to him about it. I've gotten the urge to just spill the beans to him so we can talk about it openly; however, I don't feel comfortable bringing up someone else's trauma. In particular, I’m not going to make my dad look bad by letting my uncle know he told me his secret.
If I knew someone I trusted had been telling other people about what had happened to me, I'd be very hurt by that, so I’m not going to put my dad or my uncle in that situation. I’m thankful to everyone who has tried to help me, and I'm not alone now. I have people I can talk to, which is nice. I’m even going to be starting a group thing at therapy where I'll be able to speak to other victims. I think that will help too.
7. The Lazy Step-Dad
My stepfather was getting more and more tired, falling asleep during the middle of the day, sneaking off for a nap... really ticked off my mother and I. We were helping him renovate a house at the time and we didn't appreciate him always dozing off. A while later, he got diagnosed with bladder and kidney cancer, which had already spread too far to be treatable.
We only really realized after his passing last spring that he was tired all the time because his cancer was already slowly ending him. I didn't always get along with him, and I regret a lot of things I said to him. I just thought he was being lazy, I never thought he'd die within three years.
8. A Not-So-Holy Event
My aunt, who was a former nun, had left the nunnery after being taken advantage of. Even though she had no discernible income or job after, she managed to accumulate something like 300k by the end of her life. This was the 80s, so it was more like 500 or 600K today. A ton of money, but, due to a shocking turn of events, we would never see a penny of it.
My aunt was going to pay for my college education and my brother's college education, but the Catholic Church swooped in with some lawyer shenanigans and claimed it was the church's money since she never formally left the church—even though she’d been gone for almost 20 years. I worked to put myself through college. Thanks Jesus!
9. A Childish Hacker
About a month ago, I stepped away from my Mac on which I had an ongoing Messages chat with a friend. I came back to my Mac five minutes later and the text, "i lik peepee" was typed in my chat window. It hadn't been sent, thankfully, so I deleted it, but took a mental note. Two days later, a similar event happened; the word "sad" suddenly appeared in Messages.
Before you think someone here was playing a joke, I live alone. Yes, my WiFi network has a password. No, nobody else has ever had a login on this Mac. I did immediately change my login password and disabled all sharing and remote login options on my Mac. I also installed Malwarebytes and did a scan. Nothing was found. The events have not repeated themselves. But if someone had the know-how to hack in, why would they do something so innocuous and childish?
10. On the Clock
This is the best will story I personally know. A father had a valuable antique grandfather clock, but also had two daughters so he didn't know which to bequeath it to. His solution was that if he passed on an even day, daughter A got the clock, an odd day and daughter B got it. The daughter who did not get the clock got an equivalent cash award based on the value of the clock.
11. You Can’t Handle The Truth
My dad told me that before he and my mom had divorced, he hadn't been happy with her for several years. My mother even had a miscarriage at one point, which destroyed the both of them, but he couldn't leave her because he was afraid that she would hurt herself. So his only thought was to have another kid with her—me—so that motherly instinct would hopefully prevent her from hurting herself. Not a fun thing to find out.
12. Punch Up
My dad's youngest brother came home inebriated one night and got into a fight with my grandpa. My uncle punched grandpa in the face and went to bed. Grandpa went to the bathroom and never came out. My dad came over in the morning and found him lifeless in the bathroom. It turned out that he had a massive heart attack in the middle of the night.
After that my uncle drank, smoked, and snorted anything and everything for as long as he could. He eventually did time and when he got out, he hung himself. Maybe he would have turned out the same either way, but my dad told me the full story about five years ago and it made me wonder if his life would have been any better if not for that one night.
13. True Colors
This is quite literally a "dark" family secret. When I was a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed little kid at the age of six, I found out that my biological dad is actually black. For whatever foolish reason, that was a problem in the eyes of my relatives, so my mom kept it a secret from them. Funnily enough, my best friend at the time was whiter than me with blond hair and blue eyes also, and she too found out that she had a black biological dad.
14. Ignorance Is Bliss
I had the best grandpa growing up. Like the typical movie grandpa. He was perfect. He spoiled us like crazy; great corny jokes and he always had crazy silly stories. He always saved the day. Just the best man I knew. After he passed, one of my aunts told me and my little sister he had cheated on my grandma with her own sister multiple times. We never knew.
I wish she never told us.
15. Keeping It All Hidden
I learned that my gruff, no-nonsense, former OSS grandpa had an adorably sappy side. Dad found a sizable stack of old photo albums chronicling his and his siblings' childhoods and their day-to-day family life, full of cute captions in my grandfather's distinctive handwriting. There were super sweet captions on all the pictures of Grandma, too.
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16. Not A Fan
When I was younger and The Office was still on television, I wasn't a fan back then. But, I specifically remember that after Michael left, they were looking for a new manager. Ray Romano, James Spader, and Jim Carrey all had their scenes. But the mystery is that I vividly remember that there was a vote by the viewers to determine which of them would be the manager, but now I can't find any proof of this. I know I wouldn't have dreamed it because I didn't watch The Office back then.
17. For my Buttercup
An ancestor of mine in the rural UK in the 1700s left his farm and everything to his nephew (no children), with his surviving wife, only getting "the second-best bed" and a provision for her to receive 3lbs. of butter per week for the rest of her life. We thought this was incredibly mean, but we wonder whether this butter was meant as an income, I mean who can eat 3lbs. of butter?!
18. Gone Too Soon
When I was very young, my oldest cousin passed at the age of 23. I really liked him because he would take to me this local lake and we'd throw rocks into the water. I remember not understanding what was going on other than watching everyone be sadder than I ever knew was possible at the time, but I wasn't told why. Years later, I found out he took his own life. But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Years after that, I found out what happened. My aunt found him hanging in the shed with a note saying he was gay, and based on how he heard the family talk about homosexuals, he thought they'd never accept him. To this day, they hold opinions I would deem hateful toward others, so honestly, I'm not sure he was completely wrong. Today he would be in his 50s.
19. Panic Explained
I learned why my mom panics the way she does and jumps to conclusions all the time. If she can’t get ahold of my brother or me on the phone, she automatically assumes we're never coming home and she goes into an intense panic. Recently, she couldn’t contact my brother for a few hours and she lost all composure and had a nervous breakdown.
I only recently found out why. Many years ago, when my mom was in high school, my granny (my mother’s mom) attempted to take her own life. My mom made a horrible discovery: She was the one that found my grandma on the floor. Luckily, she found her just in the nick of time, because if she'd gotten home even half an hour later, my grandma wouldn't have survived. We just are starting to realize after all these years, that she probably has undiagnosed PTSD.
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20. Self-Inflicted Wound
My grandmother’s first husband was extremely abusive, but this was the 1960s and he hid it well. She couldn’t file for divorce without proof of injury, so she beat herself in the face with a slipper to get away. She was only 21 or 22 years old, with three young children. I’m 23 right now and I could never imagine going through anything like that. She was such a strong lady. I miss her!
21. No Love Lost
My father passed on in the fall of 2009. The day after the funeral while singing his praises, it turns out he completely disowned my siblings and myself in his will. Imagine being three children, paraded around by your uncles, telling stories about the "good times," to then be told that he didn’t love you and you would receive no financial support. We were devastated.
Our mother was there, as she always has been. She is our rock. At that point, that’s when my sister and I decided to completely cut off our father’s manipulative side of the family.
22. A Guardian Angel
My uncle, in life, seemed just like a nonsensical goofball. He got on my nerves a decent amount, but he was wise, and when he shared that wisdom, I listened. He was a trucker, which eventually cost him his life. My dad, after having lost his dearest brother, then confessed to us that my uncle was secretly there for us all the time.
Not physically, but he was the number one person my dad would go to for consultation regarding me and my sister. He would also provide vast financial support and managed to keep my dad away from his drug problem for years. He was basically the cement that held our family together for so long. All I knew about him was that he was my goofy fun uncle. I miss him a lot.
23. Move It And Lose It
We moved out of our old house to my parents’ for a month then to our new apartment. During this time, all of our possessions, with the exception of clothes and toiletries for the month, were placed in a POD in storage. We packed it ourselves in our driveway, locked it with our own lock, and had it delivered to our apartment a month later.
Everything inside was exactly as we left it, which we knew because we took pictures for proof. We are missing several items in the kitchen such as a pizza cutter, meat thermometer, whisk, two of our daughter’s cups, wooden spoons, and the bottom half to a cup and pitcher combo. We unpacked everything ourselves, bringing a box in and putting everything in it away before getting another box in.
But, we still have no idea where that box is. We had at least seven people help us verify our house was 100% empty when we left, so it wasn’t left there. I’d like the pitcher back, but just want to know where the rest went!
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24. Tears of Joy
A woman came in after her mother's funeral with some correspondence from the insurance company I work for. She was worried there was a bill she needed to pay and was coming to tell us that her mom had passed. She just looked SO tired, and we got to talking while I looked up the policy to close it out. She shared that in the last few years her mom had slipped into dementia and she singlehandedly took care of her. She missed her terribly, and was just run ragged.
That's when I realized that what she had was not a health policy, it was a life insurance policy naming the daughter as the beneficiary for about $50K. I told her and she just started crying. It made me cry and I got up and hugged her and sort of just held her while she cried. She pulled away and said..."I have no idea what she left that for, everything's been paid for." I said, "This might be her telling you to go on that vacation and relax." It was so touching, and she had no idea that the policy existed.
25. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
My great-grandma passed when my grandma was four, and her father remarried a woman who had kids of her own. Well, my step-great-grandma used to beat my grandma and her siblings horrifically as soon as their father left the house. She also locked them in the basement all day, horrible stuff like that. Obviously, this had a negative effect on them.
My grandma grew up to do this to her own kids, for instance. More to the point, one of my great-uncles became an alcoholic. He also robbed graves. Apparently, he had kind of a thing for gold teeth, but he also took jewelry and stuff that he could sell to buy booze. My mom says she could remember him showing up at the backdoor when she was a kid, covered in dirt, and her mom would always take him in for a while, feed him, clothe him, etc.
Then he'd go right back out to drinking and doing the same stuff. Anyway, my mom always told me that this uncle passed in an accident. Several years ago, though, one of my uncles informed me that what really happened was that he was found passed out on someone's front lawn. They had called the authorities and when they arrived and tried to detain him, he woke up and started resisting, fighting the officers. So they used fatal force.
26. Seeds Of A Secret
When I was a little kid I always knew my uncle had something going on. As a small child the details were frequently lost to me so after a while I just kind of accepted it. He is also a notorious jokester so I never knew when he was being serious. I’ve just figured out that one of his favourite jokes was horribly serious.
One time I was sitting with my uncle and he was talking about a recent doctor visit. He told me, entirely straight-faced, that he had eaten some watermelon seeds by mistake, and they had taken root and sprouted in his stomach, so he had to get them removed. To my eight-year-old self, this made complete sense, and I took his advice to be very diligent when consuming my watermelon slices, avoiding all of the seeds.
I went on through life just accepting this whole story and never questioned it. However, when I was around 13, I had a moment of realization. It just clicked into place that my uncle had cancer! Somehow this had slipped past my gullible child’s mind for years, and there was never a moment where my parents decided to tell me about it, instead of at some point in my teens it was just common knowledge.
My uncle is now entirely healthy, nothing ever came back, and he continues to tease me and my siblings whenever he gets the chance.
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27. Me, Myself, And I
I am the dark family secret. My stepdad took physical advantage of me for nine years. My mom only pressed charges when it was convenient for her. I was 15 at the time, and she was planning on leaving him. She told my entire family and spent years shouting it from the hilltops for sympathy...but that's not even the worst part. My youngest sibling was probably four or five when he was first explicitly told.
My stepdad’s three sons, who are my half-brothers, have always been told that it was a lie, despite his mother recently asking if it was true and apologizing profusely when I said it was. I was 27 when that took place. I still have a relationship with my step-grandparents and don’t fault them for the way that their son turned out.
They’re just trying their best to make sure that my brothers end up alright. His family will always deny it, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. My biological dad also didn’t know that I was alive until my mom told him when I was 17 years old. His family doesn’t know about me. I don’t mind. I don’t care to get to know them. My mom’s family is very supportive of me, so I don’t feel compelled to meet his family.
I also haven’t spoken to my mother in over two years, due in large part to this whole messed up situation. I appreciate all of the kind words and support that I’ve gotten from people that I’ve told this story to. It’s been an awful experience and knowing that people out there care has made a big difference.
28. The Certificate
I lost my father when I was 10 years old, and I was told he had a heart attack. Fast forward eight years; I was applying for a passport and needed parental documents. My mother was out of town so I went through the documents cabinet to get my dad's death certificate. As I read it, I burst into tears. HIV took his life. It broke my heart, but my mother has always been kind to me so I decided to not tell her that I knew.
This was ten years ago and she still doesn’t know that I know.
29. Some Secrets Shouldn’t Be Kept Secret
One day, my grandpa thought he was having a heart attack. But, being super old school, he decided to sleep it off and not tell anyone, hoping it would go away. He woke up the next morning, still having symptoms, and realized, “Yep, heart attack.” Instead of telling anyone, he decided to drive himself to the hospital. That’s dedication to a secret!
30. A Moment In Time
We have this weird family heirloom that we don’t know the origins of. It’s a ring my grandma found while cleaning some sheets. She worked for a company that cleans hotel bedding and stuff. They let her keep it, so she used it as a wedding ring because she never had one. Then, it got passed down to my mom and now my sister has it. The weird part about it is there’s an inscription on the inside that says Francisco and 2-30-70 which seems like a date, but that date doesn’t exist.
31. How Do You Like Them Manure
I once amended a will for a doctor in which he disinherited his son by removing everything he had intended to bequeath and replaced it with a "manure spreader." I didn't ask any questions because changing a will is an easy thing to do. But one day, that doctor will leave this earth, and his son will have essentially be told to "eat it."
32. Until The Bitter End
When I was young, I was told my grandpa was killed by an ex-convict, and that the man hit him in the head or something. When I got older, I was told that he didn't go that easily. Apparently, some guys broke into his house and tied him up. They told him he must give them the documents for the house as a present or something akin to that.
When he didn't do that, they started tormenting him. But they didn’t know my grandpa. He was a strong man, and he never gave in. Although he passed, they never got those house documents.
33. Beverage Ban
When I was young, I never understood why my dad wouldn't allow drinks like Kool-Aid in the house, especially if it were grape flavour. Later in life, I found out that he was part of the cleanup crew for Jonestown.
34. Spilling The Beans
My grandmother has all the dirty little secrets of our family, but she's too proper to spill anything...until this one night when she told me about my grandfather's family, i.e. the family that she married into. Essentially, they were very poor back in the day. They were living on the streets and trying to earn money during Australia's gold rush.
Anyway, the family had too many kids and not enough money, so they did something completely unforgivable—they sold one of their kids to a Chinese businessman. He would have been my grandfather's great uncle, I suppose. No one knew about it until she blurted this out, and she hasn't said anything about it again since that night. I think all of us were pretty darn shocked to hear her tell us about this.
35. Dad’s Secret Life
Before he went into the army, my dad was, um, kind of wild. He was bi and secretly dated men, and he blew thousands of dollars 0n Hustlers-esque nights out. But the biggest revelation was that he had an affair with a married woman who was separated from her husband. When he came back on leave, she had their illegitimate son. He decided not to pursue anything with it since he was young and enlisted, and she had reconciled with her husband.
So, I've got a much older half-brother out there.
36. A Fulfilling Life
At my 92-year-old paternal grandfather's burial, people noticed four women sitting together on a nearby bench. They were chatting happily, not talking to family members, but definitely there for the funeral. It turns out they were his four current mistresses and girlfriends. And they all knew about each other and got on well together.
37. Who Is She?
When I was in middle school, I hid my report cards on top of this really tall bookshelf in my room. One day, I climbed up to hide another one. There, leaned up against a wall and on top of all the report cards, was a picture of some girl in her late teens/early 20s. I fell because it took me by surprise. I have absolutely no idea who this person is.
I pick it up and ask my parents who she is, and they both say they have no idea. I still have no idea who the lady in the picture was or how it got there. My parents didn’t play a trick on me because my report cards were still there and they never asked me about them when I continued to hide them.
38. Farming is Not Just a Man’s Business
We had a client who was a widowed farmer that owned several heavy equipment machines (Caterpillar trucks, etc). He had two sons who were already working with him at the farm and a daughter who was working in the city. He willed the heavy equipment to the daughter. We asked him why he willed the equipment to his daughter, who lived in the city since the equipment was essential to the farm. He replied that the farm was to be split by his kids equally but he wanted to dispel his daughter's alienation from the farm over being a girl and let her know that he always wanted her to join their venture.
39. Our Little Secret
This involves my father-in-law, who is a very active member and local leader of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). He's somewhat of a genius, and he built a distillery in his garage to make his own hand sanitizer. Within a few months in, he started acting a little strange. One day while explaining the distilling process to me, he gave me one of the bloated pieces of corn in the batch, and ate one himself.
That's when I realized he wasn't just making sanitizer, he was also making and drinking some pretty stout moonshine. This is the same guy who continues to look down on his kids for simply drinking coffee. His wife and adult kids have no clue and continue to blame it on other things like exhaustion, internal imbalance, etc. Nope.
40. Fathered By A Friend
I have a great aunt whose children look nothing like her husband. Now I know the wild reason why. It turns out he had mumps as a kid and it left him sterile. So he asked a buddy to "contribute" because he and his wife wanted kids. They kept this secret, insisting that the kids looked like someone on a great uncle's side of the family (whom we never met).
This went on for years until his funeral when she decided to tell her kids that their biological donor was a man who lost his life in the army. Yeah, it was weird.
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41. Wild Goose Chase
This should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway. Terry, Iris, and Joan are pseudonyms. Please don't go around trying to dox every woman named Joan. Moving on. As a teen, I'd heard that my cousin Terry's engagement had failed just a short time before their scheduled wedding date, and that was all that anyone cared to say about the situation.
In recent years, I was given more detail. Apparently, Terry and Joan became engaged after he got her pregnant. All was well at first, but two weeks before the wedding, Terry's mom Iris became violently ill and actually nearly passed. I can't remember what the disease was. This was many years ago. Terry asked if Joan would postpone the wedding just until Iris got better so that she could attend.
Joan instead called off the wedding entirely over the phone. Now, here comes the dark bit—when Terry went home to see her, their home was cleaned out. Only Terry's meager belongings remained. Even their bed was gone. Terry called Joan. No answer. He called her folks. No answer. He went to her folks' place only to find it completely empty.
Not a trace of them was left behind. No note, no nothing. All of their social media accounts were erased and their phone numbers were deactivated. Even Joan's siblings had no clue where they'd gone. It was as if they'd vanished. Turns out, they had gathered their possessions and moved from coast to coast. In fact, they would have moved overseas if Terry hadn't caught them in time.
Joan tried to leave the country with their baby just because Terry wanted his mom to attend their wedding. This whole saga lasted three years. After a long court battle, Terry won primary custody of his child. He is currently a single dad who soaks up every moment they have together. I haven't been told what became of Joan and I'm certainly not going to ask him.
42. Missed Moments
My father talked about how he was there with my mom for her last dying breath. It wasn't true. My brother-in-law (who was abusive and crazy) was searching for his wife (my sister) because she had been away from the house too long. He called my father in a freak-out-panic trying to figure out where she was, assuming that she was somewhere cheating.
While my father was trying to calm him down, my mother passed on. When my father came back to my mother, she was gone. When my brother-in-law passed on a few years later, I was surprised that my father didn't seem that upset. Before my father passed on a few years after that, he told me why. I was in my mid-30s.
43. A Tough Survivor
Always knew my great-great-uncle Tom was a highly decorated WW2 vet, but no one actually knew what it was he did, as when he returned he refused to speak about it. After he passed, we found his journals which documented the awful things he was subject to. He was a Gordon Highlander, and was often sent on missions where he often ended up the lone survivor.
On his last mission, he was tasked with taking a German-held hill. He and his squad fought for a solid week to reach the top, wiping out all opposition. They held it for a further week, before being reassigned and letting the English Grenadier Guards take over. He was awarded two Victoria crosses for the Gordon Highlander work.
44. Right Out Of Existence
As I walked up the steps in my house carrying a tray of freshly painted Warhammer models, I tripped on the top step. My models and paints went everywhere, but I soon recovered everything except for one model. This model, I never saw again, even after searching every possible room and corridor it could have fallen in, and even lifting the edge of the carpets to look.
One second it was there, the next it might as well have fallen out of existence. This still haunts me to this day.
45. The Proof is in the Tantrum
My great-grandmother left her daughter "just one dollar and not a single penny more so help me god." This was before I was born, but my grandmother (not the daughter with the dollar) said that when they all read the will her sister had a full-blown temper tantrum, and no one has heard from her since. I guess she had it coming.
46. Jekyll, Meet Hyde
I recently found out that my grand-uncle was a mob boss back in his days. I remember him from my early childhood. He was always kind, soft and smiling, willing to play with me or do anything whenever we asked for it. At the same time, he was doing some pretty nasty stuff in his "other" life. It’s still hard for me to reconcile the two sides of him.
47. A Chip Off The Block?
When I was younger, I realized that other kids did not have to go visit their dads in a big room with men in orange jumpsuits. It turns out that wasn't daddy's house, it was the federal penitentiary. After I called my mom out on it, she revealed that he was in there because he was caught driving intoxicated while also having a bunch of coke in the car.
48. They Don’t Miss Him When He’s Gone
A family friend of mine passed on last year. We met because our daughters did karate together. I was friends with both him and his wife. I’m still friends with his wife to this day. He was already in his 70s when we met, and his wife is about twenty years younger than him. He had a fascinating life story and I wanted to record it for his daughter.
She was going through some difficult times as a young teen. She acted very badly towards him and I felt, based on my own difficult teenage years and experiences with my dad, that she might one day want to know him better; especially since he was already quite old and not in great health. I felt bad that she would likely get to know her dad as an adult.
So, I spent several hours with him making recordings of his stories from his life. It was really interesting. After he passed on, I sent the recordings on USB drives to his wife. She got back to me and said they just threw them away. It came out that he had taken advantage of his daughter. I felt absolutely gut-punched and angry at this old guy who I always thought was so fun and likable.
49. The Mistress
I received a phone call from my late husband’s girlfriend the day of his funeral. She was phoning his cell phone which I had turned off while he was in the hospital. She told me that my husband had been paying her rent for the last year. The bank had recently foreclosed on our house. I had no idea he was unfaithful to me, but she knew all about me.
50. Living A Double Life
He was an executive VP of sales for a real estate company, so he was on the road about two weeks each month. He had a wife and child here in Florida. When he passed, we found out he had another family in Texas. They were not married, but he still fathered two kids. He lived with them the two weeks each month everyone thought he was away on business.
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51. All Of The Details
I have a memory that it’s impossible for me to have. My family owned a blue Chevy Nova that we eventually sold in a private sale. We met the man in the parking lot of a local eatery and sold him the car. I told my father that I remember the sale well as one of my earliest memories, including the details of the restaurant name, the place in the lot where we parked to sell and let the man inspect the car, and the fact that he was wearing a dark red shirt.
This is the scary part: My dad sold the car more than a year before I was born. Whenever I bring it up, he gets freaked out and tells me to drop it.
52. Prairie Home Feminism
Several generations back, a woman (along with her brothers) in our family inherited a huge sum of money from her father (oil money in Oklahoma). At the time, women were allowed to inherit property and assets if they were single, however, all of the assets would have to be transferred to her husband if she married.
She wasn't too happy about the situation and, in protest, never took a husband. She had a few "friends" over the course of her life and lived a very comfortable life until dying of old age. At which time, her estate was divided amongst all of the female descendants in the family.
53. Boxing Clever
I recently found out that my great-grandpa wasn't actually my great-grandpa. My great-grandma had conceived my grandma (her daughter) with a famous boxer who was extremely abusive. She divorced him after having kids with him, and then met my great-grandpa while she was supervising the manufacturing of munitions during WWII.
My mom and I are the only ones besides my grandparents who know the true story. I talked to my mom more about the story and it turns out that when my great-grandma’s first husband (the boxer) passed on, she wore a red dress to his funeral.
54. Oh, Brother
We didn't know that my dad isn't my brother’s dad until I was 10 and he was 15. The only reason they told him was that my mom was trying to manipulate him into choosing her side in the divorce.
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55. He Sounds Like A Questionable Guy
My father met my mother in the Philippines when he was stationed there in the Navy. He married her there and they conceived me. He then went away to finish his tour of duty. My mother moved to America when she was a month away from giving birth to me. She moved in with relatives in Texas. My father's tour ended while he was in Hawaii.
That's when things got super messy. He met a woman there and called my mom in America, asking for a divorce. He wanted to take back his recent marriage to her, despite having a kid on the way, all because he had a hot one-night stand. My mother was already scared, being in a new country and not knowing much English. Add to this that she was pregnant, about to give birth, and her husband was dumping her.
My Texan uncle got on a plane to Hawaii, prepared to kick my father's butt. He somehow talked my father into being a man and taking responsibility for his wife and child. The fact that the fling dumped his sorry behind surely helped. He was back by the time I was born. I learned all of this when I was eleven years old, around the time my parents got divorced.
It was only the first of countless "dark family secrets" I would come to learn during my teenage years.
56. An Affair To Remember
My family’s secret is that my grandmother ran off and had an affair. She then got pregnant, came back to my grandfather, and they raised the baby girl together. My father and his siblings didn’t find out until they were older. I’m not sure if my aunt knew the truth about her own origins before she passed on. It’s also rumored that there’s another half-sibling somewhere out there, so my grandad seemed to be having an affair as well. Apparently, it was just affairs all-around back in the day!
57. A Twisted Family Tree
This story is my mother-in-law's. Her father came to my country from Italy in the 30s. He left behind his wife, hoping to bring her over once he's saved up enough money. That never happened, and instead, he married a local woman and had three children with her, one being my mother-in-law. Her father eventually passed in the 70s.
Time passes, and it's the 90s. One day, someone calls speaking Italian. They claim to be her cousins, and found out about her through some other of my countrymen visiting there. She's surprised but happy, since she never had the chance to meet anyone from her father's side. They make plans to visit her as soon as they possibly can.
Her cousins come over, and everyone is getting to know everyone, until she finds out that the "cousins" aren't really her cousins. It turned out that her grandfather had married the wife her father had left behind, and had children with her. So, these people were actually her half-siblings, but also technically her uncles and aunts.
She never knew, and her father hadn't either—I imagine it would’ve been awkward for everyone involved if the secret had come out while her father had been still alive. It was shocking, but she wasn't angry since she never met the man and was happy to gain some new family across the ocean. They still talk on the telephone regularly.
58. Put Away For Safekeeping
I lost my late grandmother's watch one day when I was trying to get out of the rain. It started to rain suddenly and I was only a couple of streets away from home. I wanted to make a run for it, but I stopped to take off the watch and put it in my handbag because it was very old and I didn't know how waterproof the face was and I was scared of damaging it.
When I got home, I checked my bag for it, but I couldn't find it. I immediately retraced my steps back to the exact spot that I stopped in case I dropped it, and I couldn't find it. The weird thing was, I remember very clearly putting it in a particular pocket in my bag. It just disappeared without a trace and I never quite figured it out.
I hate that I lost something so precious and it especially bothered me that it happened that way, rather than some kind of forgetfulness or misplacing.
59. Baa Baa Black Sheep
One client left a specific gift of $10K to one son, and left him out of the much-more-valuable estate as a way to punish bad behavior. However, by the time he passed, our client had a serious reversal of fortune. His estate was worth about $10K, so he effectively disinherited the "good" children and left the black sheep everything.
The bad kid appeared to be very poor, compared to the others, and the look of grateful surprise on the poor kid's face was almost as priceless as the shock on the others who thought they were getting rich.
60. This Rocks
My mother was a groupie for Credence Clearwater. There are five kids in my family, and none of us know who my older sister’s biological father is. We all like to speculate about it...except for my mother and older sister, that is.
61. “Secret Family”
My grandma remarried when my mom was a toddler. Turns out that my mom’s biological dad was cheating on grandma with her best friend, resulting in a child, and a divorce. He recently passed after having no contact with us since he left grandma. It turns out we're his "secret family" and that his current family has no idea that we exist.
We also learned that it's very likely my mom has a couple of dozen half-siblings in Vietnam. Also, he left all his money in his will to his favorite sensual worker. Yeah, my grandpa is not the best guy.
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62. Fighting Back
My family secret is more cool than horrifying, so in that sense, I’m proud of this one. My grandfather was an amazing guy. He was a paratrooper during WWII. He always refused to talk about his experiences. I learned later that he was dishonorably discharged after an injury. Turns out, the Sergeant in his squad was an absolute jerk.
He had to go behind enemy lines to set a post up, and the plane was flying too low for a safe jump. He protested it to the Sergeant, who proceeded to shove him out of the plane after calling him a coward. Both my grandfather and his spotter partner were seriously injured in the landing. His partner, who he never really knew, was paralyzed and lost a leg as a result of the incident.
My grandfather broke both of his legs, an arm, a hand, and some ribs. They both were rescued shortly after and taken to an army hospital. That’s not what got him discharged, though. Turns out, the Sergeant showed up to visit them in the infirmary, and my grandfather punched him square in the face with his only good hand, twice.
If his only army buddy we ever knew is to be believed, since he was apparently also visiting at the time and witnessed the punch, my grandfather absolutely floored the guy. After that, and on top of his injuries, the army sent him home for good. We found this all out after he had passed on and we had to go through his stuff.
There were a bunch of newspaper and article clippings about the folks involved that he had kept. The Sergeant was also discharged after a similar incident cost the lives of two other members of his squad a year later. Those guys weren’t so lucky. The man apparently drank himself to an early grave many years later. We found all these written but unsent letters to his Sergeant talking about what happened.
We also found photos of my grandfather's squad, which included the two that lost their lives posing with him. It was heartbreaking to see. I never knew any of this. He was such a fun, kind, and goofy guy. You’d never think that anything like this would happen to him. Now I know why my parents always said never to bring up the army around him.
I miss you, grandpa. I’d have punched the jerk, too!
63. A Mother’s Greed
My friend's mom took the life of her husband. She had taken a $200k life insurance policy out on him six months before his tragic end, and he passed on from not taking his medication that he'd taken no problem all of his life. My buddy was away for the weekend so he wasn't home when it happened. After his mom passed on, we found out even more: She'd taken a life insurance policy out on my buddy at some point too, and she'd also forged his signature to sign over $100k my buddy's dad had left to him.
She robbed my buddy blind and he had no clue. She took his inheritance from his grandma too that he'd had no clue about and gave a big chunk of it to her friends/his godparents who used it to buy a beach house... She also faked illnesses to get prescription meds and had little books filled with info on what she'd sold and how much she'd made from selling them.
64. You Can’t Hide The Truth Forever
My stepmother's family had a story that her grandfather had accidentally offed his sister's husband by pushing him off a staircase when he found the husband beating her. The story goes that the family snuck him off to Italy for a few years until things cooled down, then he came back to America and carried on life as usual.
Recently, someone in the family discovered a 1922 newspaper article regarding the incident that revealed the truth, and it wasn’t pretty. My stepmother’s grandfather actually knifed the dude IN THE HEART when they got into an argument after he got out of a reformatory. Really tells you how “well” those institutions worked out!
65. What’s Above Was Below
Once I was on an overnight flight in Brazil and I looked out the window and saw the moon and stars BELOW the plane. I thought I was seeing things so I asked the person next to me and they saw it too. We weren’t over any oceans, literally the middle of the continent. I watched it for about an hour so if it had been reflecting on a lake or something it wasn’t that.
I started to get freaked out and then all of a sudden I looked out the window and it was normal again and the stars were above me. I didn’t see any moon. I PROMISE I wasn’t asleep. To this day I can’t explain it and it weirds me out! Nobody believes me either.
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66. First to Go, First to Settle the Dispute
I worked with trusts and estates for many years. One of my favorite clients was a widower whose wife had passed 20 years earlier. After his wife's passing, he wanted to travel the country in a motor home but was too grieved to do so. Years later his old army buddy's wife passed and they re-established their friendship during their retirement years. He finally bought the motor home he'd dreamed of and left with his buddy to travel the continent, which they did for many years.
After he passed, he left a new motor home to his buddy, but with one stipulation. The buddy had to mount a set of 6-foot longhorns on the hood of the rig before it could be his. It sounded like a Texan vs non-Texan dispute they'd had for many years. Absolutely brilliant, and seemed like an amazing friendship. I would have loved to hear their traveling adventures over the years.
67. All In The Family
My grandparents swapped spouses. My grandmother on my mother’s side had an affair with my grandfather on my father’s side. Everyone got divorced, and then my grandfather on my mother’s side fell in love and married my grandmother on my father’s side. Family reunions were fun.
68. Weeding Out The Lies
My dad used to grow weed at the plant nursery he used to run when I was a kid. That explains why there was an opaque tarp covering the back half of Greenhouse 5! And why my parents told my brother and me never to go back there. And why some real scruffy looking young guys were always coming around blasting music all the time even though the only people I ever saw buying the regular plants were older men covered in dirt and driving trucks.
Apparently, my brother found it and sold it to some of his friends at school in exchange for candy (he was in Grade 5 at the time, only like 10). My parents naturally freaked out and scrapped the whole crop. The back half of Greenhouse 5 went back to growing regular plants and dad sold the expensive UV lights he was using to grow them.
69. The Grand Scheme Of Things
My great-grandpa was a fascist and got a death sentence. Later on, the sentence was reduced to life behind bars, and then reduced even further. It’s debatable how fair that was. My other great-grandpa was shot by some man in front of his son, i.e. my grandpa. My grandpa would have lost his life too, but luckily he started running and managed to get away in time, only getting shot in the arm.
But it gets much, much worse—turns out, his mom knew who was behind the attack but refused to tell him and his brother so that they wouldn't try to get revenge. She didn't admit this to them until just before her own passing. My great-grandma read tarot cards for a regional political figure during an important political decision; though I think her role might be overly exaggerated by our family. I'd rather not give the details.
My grandma’s brother was adored by a famous female poet, but he was gay and was slain by his lover. This was really a big secret because his mom was very religious. My family only found out much later. My grandma loved him a lot too, and never fully got over his passing. Sadly and somewhat ironically, my grandpa was a good actor and was allegedly offered projects in Hollywood, but he turned them down because he thought people there were too gay.
His brother, though, had minor roles in some minor movies. He always carried arms around and acted like a celebrity. Some of this sounds almost made up, but I think those were just interesting times to be alive in…
70. The Second Eldest Aunt
After my grandad passed, my great aunt told me that he was responsible for the accidental loss of their baby sister. She said that when he was young, he picked the baby up, but because he was so small, he dropped her and she hit her head. When we went to clear out the house, we found a ton of family documentation, including birth and death certificates for the family.
It turns out the little girl passed on of whooping cough. I was like, what? It turns out that my aunt let my grandad go to his grave believing he was responsible for the loss of his baby sister. I can just never get my head around why.
71. A Christmas Miracle
When I was five years old in 1988, Santa Clause left a Nintendo on our front porch. It was wrapped in newspaper, and my parents had no idea who had gifted it to us. My dad, particularly, tried to figure it out. He was always suspicious that it had been a family friend. It was by far the best gift of the year, and we played it all the time throughout our childhood.
My dad later passed in 2004. Last Christmas, my mom explained that she was the one who had bought it and had surreptitiously placed it on the porch. My dad really liked to be in control of things and had forbidden the purchase. She knew better, and wanted to give us an awesome Christmas. She didn't tell a soul for 30 years. Thanks Mom!
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72. Never Heard From Again
My grandmother told me a story when I was 12, about 18 years ago. She had a younger sister, Doreen, who was 20 at the time and from a very small community. The community wasn’t really even large enough to be considered a town in Oklahoma. Doreen decided that she wanted to be a movie star and so she left for Hollywood. This was in the 1960s, I’m not sure the year.
She was never heard from again. Not one single person in the family ever heard from her again. My grandmother has always wondered what happened to her little sister, and since I heard the story, I’ve always wondered too.
73. That Thing You Get
I was a courier in Seattle and filed the will of the guy who owned the Space Needle. Yes, it's private property. There was all this interesting stuff about how the Space Needle would be administered, but what I really was interested in was that he owned a HUGE collection of Volkswagens, most of them the Volkswagen Thing.
For those who don't know, the Thing is a sort of boxy-looking Volkswagen bug. There were, I remember, 43 of these vehicles, all in their different conditions. Each of the children and grandchildren were getting a Volkswagen (and a few other older kitschy Volkswagens, like Beetles and some vans) that represented how much their grandfather had liked them.
74. Twisted Family Tree
Here goes: My two remaining grandparents, my father's father and my mother's mother, married each other when they were 75. This made my mother and father step-brother and step-sister. Since the son of my father's sister (my aunt) is my cousin, and the son of my mother's brother (my uncle) is also my cousin, I became both cousins. I am, therefore, my own cousin. I'll never be alone...
75. Robbed Of The Truth
My great-grandma is still alive. One day, while visiting, she told me our family's big secret. It turns out that her father (my great-great grandpa) robbed a grocery store in the 1960s and spent a year or so behind bars. This all happened when my great grandma was already a married adult, so after that she pretty much cut him out of her life.
My great-grandma has never discussed him, other than to say he was mean and no one has ever brought him up around her. I understand now that she's probably more than a little embarrassed about it. But also, she probably has some hard feelings about it. You see, while her dad was in the clink, he would have left his wife (my great grandma's mom) alone and struggling.
76. Sister Day
My grandma had thirteen siblings. Of them, seven women are still alive. Once a year, they have a “Sister Day” where they all get together and go somewhere together to have fun. They’ve been doing this since they were in their teens. All but one of the sisters participates in this annual event. The odd one out is the one who has been lied to her whole life about "Sister Day" because she thinks it doesn’t exist.
This is supposed to have started when that sister borrowed something and didn’t give it back...or something else trivial like that. We are all reminded whenever we get together that we’re not to talk about this because it will hurt that sister. I still can’t wrap my head around how backstabbing and petty some family members of mine are. This is just stupid.
77. Message In A Bottle
I once got a Facebook message from a guy asking if I was related to my dad, since we don't have a common last name. I thought he was a fan of his work because I was in college at the time and the guy was about the same age as me. And that's how I found out that my dad had slept around and that I had a half-brother the same age as me...
78. Home Away From Home
Back in 2003, my mom got a letter in the mail about some kind of life insurance policy from a chaplain with a last name we'd never heard of before. My mom did some digging and what she discovered was earth-shattering. This guy was actually her father, except he had a totally different last name than her family's. That wasn’t even the most surprising thing, though.
Supposedly, this man was a catholic priest and had been a chaplain for decades. As in, the kind that's supposed to be celibate. So yeah, it turned out my grandparents met during WWII, and afterward ended up having four kids together. He decided not to stick around and ended up having a whole other life on the east coast.
My grandmother passed a few years before so we were never able to get the full story, but it's kinda wild that there's just a whole other family that no one in our family knew about.
79. How’d He Get In?
Back in college, I dropped my wallet on the road of the departures terminal when dropping my sister off at the airport. I didn't realize until I got home and started tearing the house apart looking for it. Right when I was about to give up, I got a call on my cell phone from a shuttle driver who saw it on the concrete and picked it up.
He found my college ID, and, as luck would have it, his sister worked for the school's admissions department and was able to get my cell phone number from the student directory. Not only that, by pure coincidence, he would be in my neighborhood the next morning and could drop it off. Amazing! But here's where it gets freaky. The next morning I was woken up by a sharp knock on my door.
I groggily answered it and sure enough, there was a man in a shuttle driver's uniform holding out my wallet. He wordlessly handed it to me, I stammered out a thank you, and before I could offer him a reward or anything, he spun around and left. However, once the warm fuzzies of meeting such a good samaritan faded, I realized something.
At the time, I lived with seven other people. The front door was always kept locked. Not one of my roommates saw or heard anything, and certainly no one let in a strange man at eight in the morning. The door the driver knocked on was my bedroom door.
80. It’s All About Timing
My great-great-grandfather left all his money to the eldest child of his eldest grandson and arranged for it to be delivered 50 years after the last of his relatives alive at the time of his passing themselves passed on. Lucky me, I'm that descendant, but my grandmother was born right before he had passed, and she's probably going to live another 20 years, so if I make it to 90, I'll be filthy rich. Or my kids will have a nice retirement, I guess. Anyway, I always thought that was about as vindictive as you can get.
81. Double Standards
Both of my mother's parents had affairs behind each other’s backs. However, my grandmother eventually had Parkinson's, and in one of her confused states she told my grandfather that she had an affair. Suffice to say, my grandfather was not happy—and he got a cruel revenge. That man put her right into a home. And that wasn’t all.
He then started talking to my mother, trying to figure out when it could have happened. He speculated that it happened around the same time he was having his affair, which was around 1966. My mother was shocked, since she was born in 1967. So my mother may or may not be related to the man she believed to be her father.
82. The Whole Truth
My dad lied in court and falsely sent his mom to prison for victimizing children. It gave him PTSD and honestly explains a lot about him.
83. The Truth Comes Out
Turns out, the reason my mom's parents divorced wasn't that they "fell out of love," but because my father had an affair with another married woman from their church. The families had known each other for years and my mom was good friends with the other woman's kids. They ended up getting married less than a year after their respective divorces. They each had three kids.
It was especially sad because my new step grandmother’s children suffered pretty badly. Neither she nor her ex-husband were functional adults. Their kids grew up fast and the oldest daughter basically became the family’s mom and maid at the ripe old age of twelve, since her dad refused to step up. I don’t mean that she literally had a kid when she was twelve, but the housekeeping duties of the family basically all fell on her and the other females in the house since her dad just refused to learn how to cook or clean.
My biological grandmother, bless her, didn't tell a soul about this. When I told her I knew, she sort of smiled and nodded like it was a relief that someone else knew besides her. I can't imagine keeping a secret like that for so long and not being able to tell your kids that it really wasn't your fault that you divorced and up-ended their lives.
So yeah, I learned that little gem while helping with my step grandmother's hospice care this past fall. She was always a chatty person, but end-of-life substances really amped it up. It was pretty shocking because my grandfather is a pretty laid back, kind, straight-laced, churchgoing type of person. You would never suspect him of cheating.
The worst part is that, in my shock and confusion, I told my mother about it and it was pretty obvious that she had no clue prior to my telling her. I really wish I could take that back. Also, this may sound surprising based on the story, but I actually had a pretty good relationship with my step-grandmother over the years. That probably would have been different if I'd known what I know now. It kind of sucks when stuff like this comes up.
I still love her and my grandfather, but darn. They caused so much suffering for their kids, just for the sake of being together. That’s hard to overlook.
84. Double Standards
Both of my mother's parents had affairs behind each other’s backs. However, my grandmother eventually had Parkinson's, and in one of her confused states she told my grandfather that she had an affair. Suffice to say, my grandfather was not happy—and he got a cruel revenge. That man put her right into a home. And that wasn’t all.
He then started talking to my mother, trying to figure out when it could have happened. He speculated that it happened around the same time he was having his affair, which was around 1966. My mother was shocked, since she was born in 1967. So my mother may or may not be related to the man she believed to be her father.
85. A Secret Superhero
My uncle was a POW in WWII. No one really knew anything about it, and he rarely told anyone about it. During his funeral, some random people showed up—about a dozen or so. After a few people spoke up about his humor and what kind of great guy he was, one of the new people got up there and told us a story so heart-wrenching, it's unforgettable.
Apparently, my uncle had saved her life in one of the concentration camps. My uncle was a cook. Apparently, he was a good one. He'd have German officers ask for him to cook for them. He'd use that influence to set free some of the Jewish captives. Another got up and said when that cooking influence started to die down, my uncle took up being a barber. He'd learned to cut hair quite well after a point. So, he'd use that influence to set free more Jewish captives.
All dozen or so spoke about their experience, of how they were saved by this man. We had no idea. Not even his wife. No one knew, except for the survivors. It turned into a true celebration of life. What shocked me the most is how many people existed because of his actions. Hundreds of people now were in the world, that would not have existed if not for him.
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86. On The Other End
I had turned my cell phone off and left it on my bed while I got ready for work at Carl's Jr. When I left for work, I forgot to take it with me. After being at work for a few hours, the phone on the wall rang. Now, I had worked there for a couple years and, being just a lowly cook, I was never allowed to answer the phone. However, this night it was very slow and the manager on duty was in her back office.
The phone rang a few times and I called out to her, "Hey can I answer it?" "Sure," she replied. Quickly, I ran over and grabbed the phone, "Thank you for calling Carl's Jr. How can I help you?" There was silence on the other end. "Hello? Helloooo?" There was still no answer, so I hung up. The night continued and a few hours later I finished my shift.
I went home and showered and went to my bedroom where I found my cell phone just where I had left it, and still off. I turned it on to see if I had any missed calls, and sure enough, there was a voicemail. I played the message and it started ringing. "That's weird," I thought. When I heard a voice speak, my blood ran cold: "Thank you for calling Carl's Jr. How can I help you?"
It was me from a few hours earlier at work. The message played out exactly as I experienced it and then ended when I had hung up. To this day, I have no idea how such a thing could be possible. That was also the only time, during my two and a half years at Carl's Jr., that I ever answered the phone at work.
87. Never Change
My grandfather's will had several conditions for our inheritance. Some were heartwarming, but most were strange to fully absurd. For example, my parents both had to remain left-handed. The only thing I received (or really cared about) was a 1932 Philco radio (it was the first radio I restored when I was a kid). To get it, I was required to promise that I'd keep “the old beast,” as he called it, running for as long as I owned it.
My daughter received a music box on the grounds she remains the eldest great-granddaughter (?). She also received a couple of puzzles that she had helped my grandpa with when we had visited a few times before his passing, again on the grounds that she actually “finished the darn things because he had never gotten around to it.” Actual wording from the will!
Leave it to my grandfather to give us a reason to laugh after leaving us!
88. The Lion Of God
For context, my dad is the second youngest of 15 children. My oldest aunt has a son who is around the same age as my dad, we'll call him Vince. Vince and my dad knew each other growing up, and always got along. Vince was even one of my dad's groomsmen. A few years after that, Vince became very openly religious, and would try to get family members to go to church with him.
Except then my family started to notice that Vince would change which church he would go to after about a month. Fast forward to when I was a kid. There was a family get-together, and Vince and his girlfriend show up. It takes a dark turn. They start making people uncomfortable with their religious talk. Not the normal day-to-day stuff, but actually telling people they are going to heck for drinking.
They were also telling people that Vince is becoming a preacher and they need to attend his services, or else damnation, etc. According to my mom, I was really sick at this time and she took me to another room to give me some peace and quiet and hopefully I would stop fussing. She overheard Vince and the girlfriend in the next room talking about who they can single out and who would go along with them.
My mom freaked when she heard my dad's name, and Vince saying that he would be easy to convince, and his job should be able to fund things. My mom immediately went and got my dad and told him what she heard. Dad confronts Vince, and a huge argument ensues. Vince ends up leaving and saying everyone is damned, they are Satan, etc.
The rest of the family then talked about what happened, and it all came clear. He was not a good guy. His sister had kicked him out because he was mooching off her, refused to get a job, and she found him taking money from her purse. My aunt had to do the same for the same reasons. The same story over and over. Basically, they realized Vince was just a con artist trying to live off others.
Fast forward to the late 1980s, and not many people have heard from Vince recently. There is a huge family get-together again, and two aunts and a few cousins refused to attend because Vince was not welcome at the party. They were saying that Vince was the "Lion of God" and we were wrong to reject him. Another fight ensues, and the two aunts and handful of cousins don't end up attending.
Fast forward to the mid-90s when my grandma passed. One of the two aunts comes to the funeral (the other had passed a few years earlier), with Vince in tow. Vince was warned that he could come pay his respects, but to behave himself. My aunt was timid and repressed near him, and was open and nice when he wasn't around. It was really weird.
My parents didn't want to talk about it. Later that night, I did some internet searches and found out the chilling truth. Apparently, Vince was now the leader of a religious cult. He sucked in my two aunts, about seven of my cousins, and about 30-40 various people through the years. All the same M.O.: They must give up their money and belongings to join and "serve God."
He especially preyed on immigrants who came over by themselves. Basically, he bought some farmland, his disciples work the land, he sells what they grow/make, and he keeps the money. He is still active to this day, and many people who have left him have their own websites against him. It’s honestly head-spinning thinking about this guy.
89. Hiding In The Closet
I learned my grandfather was secretly gay and was only with my 75-year-old grandmother to have kids. They were married for 15 years. I only met him one time and he was the nicest guy. I wish I was able to grow up with him in my life.
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90. Message In A Bottle
I once got a Facebook message from a guy asking if I was related to my dad, since we don't have a common last name. I thought he was a fan of his work because I was in college at the time and the guy was about the same age as me. And that's how I found out that my dad had slept around and that I had a half-brother the same age as me...
91. The Lion Of God
For context, my dad is the second youngest of 15 children. My oldest aunt has a son who is around the same age as my dad, we'll call him Vince. Vince and my dad knew each other growing up, and always got along. Vince was even one of my dad's groomsmen. A few years after that, Vince became very openly religious, and would try to get family members to go to church with him.
Except then my family started to notice that Vince would change which church he would go to after about a month. Fast forward to when I was a kid. There was a family get-together, and Vince and his girlfriend show up. It takes a dark turn. They start making people uncomfortable with their religious talk. Not the normal day-to-day stuff, but actually telling people they are going to heck for drinking.
They were also telling people that Vince is becoming a preacher and they need to attend his services, or else damnation, etc. According to my mom, I was really sick at this time and she took me to another room to give me some peace and quiet and hopefully I would stop fussing. She overheard Vince and the girlfriend in the next room talking about who they can single out and who would go along with them.
My mom freaked when she heard my dad's name, and Vince saying that he would be easy to convince, and his job should be able to fund things. My mom immediately went and got my dad and told him what she heard. Dad confronts Vince, and a huge argument ensues. Vince ends up leaving and saying everyone is damned, they are Satan, etc.
The rest of the family then talked about what happened, and it all came clear. He was not a good guy. His sister had kicked him out because he was mooching off her, refused to get a job, and she found him taking money from her purse. My aunt had to do the same for the same reasons. The same story over and over. Basically, they realized Vince was just a scammer trying to live off others.
Fast forward to the late 1980s, and not many people have heard from Vince recently. There is a huge family get-together again, and two aunts and a few cousins refused to attend because Vince was not welcome at the party. They were saying that Vince was the "Lion of God" and we were wrong to reject him. Another fight ensues, and the two aunts and handful of cousins don't end up attending.
Fast forward to the mid-90s when my grandma passed. One of the two aunts comes to the funeral (the other had passed a few years earlier), with Vince in tow. Vince was warned that he could come pay his respects, but to behave himself. My aunt was timid and repressed near him, and was open and nice when he wasn't around. It was really weird.
My parents didn't want to talk about it. Later that night, I did some internet searches and found out the chilling truth. Apparently, Vince was now the leader of a religious cult. He sucked in my two aunts, about seven of my cousins, and about 30-40 various people through the years. All the same M.O.: They must give up their money and belongings to join and "serve God."
He especially preyed on immigrants who came over by themselves. Basically, he bought some farmland, his disciples work the land, he sells what they grow/make, and he keeps the money. He is still active to this day, and many people who have left him have their own websites against him. It’s honestly head-spinning thinking about this guy.
92. A Scandalous Past
One week before my younger sister's wedding, my dad decided to call myself, both my sisters, and my mother—his ex-wife—to meet at his house for something "very important he needed to tell us." We all thought he had cancer or something. We were very worried. Once we were all there, he sobbingly confessed to having a five year old son living in the town next to ours.
The bad news? This meant that the kid was conceived and born while my parents were still married. He claimed he didn't know for sure that the kid was his, and he had only recently gotten a DNA test. He showed us a picture of our half-brother. He looks EXACTLY like my dad. Even though they were already divorced, my mother was devastated.
93. Found But Not Solved
When I was two years old, my mother disappeared. She had just moved to Virginia with me and my younger brother. My older brother was living with grandparents in Pennsylvania, where my dad was in lockup. She left me and my brother with her sister one night. Her brother-in-law and a friend of his gave her a ride up to a bar, because she was going to be looking for bartending jobs that evening. They'd never see her again after that night.
My mom was 24 at the time, and had just moved to Virginia two months before. She never came home. She just disappeared in between stops at bars. My brother and I were eventually placed into foster care. The next year some hunters/hikers in the woods across town found some human remains. They were just bones by that point.
My mother was able to be identified from dental records. The cause of passing was blunt force trauma and GSW. A couple years later my younger brother and I were adopted by two amazing parents. It was a closed adoption, but they never kept the truth from me. However, I didn’t get to talk to or see anyone from my birth family again until after my younger brother turned 18.
I got to learn a lot more about my family after that. But, my mother’s murder from 1985 has never been solved. It was “reopened” again about eight years ago, but I still haven’t heard about any new developments.
94. Spoiler Alert Will
Two sons of a really wealthy couple go to the family lawyer to have their recently deceased parents' will read. The lawyer is super nervous because he has known them both since they were kids. One son gets the entire inheritance, and the other gets nothing. The explanation was that it should be passed through to blood relatives only. So that was the day he found out he was adopted.
95. A Brand New Start
My grandpa who passed in 2017 was a very quiet man and didn't talk a lot. A few years before he passed, my mom (his daughter) told me why. Apparently, when he was around 10 years old back in the late 1930s or early 1940s, a girl around his age lived across the street. One time, they went out with his pistol to shoot at random things in the woods.
On their way home, there was a fence they had to get over to get home. My grandfather leaned his piece against the fence to help his friend. As she was going over, it fell over and went off, ending her life. After the authorities got involved, he was found to not be at fault, but the girl’s family stood out in the street at various times over the next two weeks, yelling "MURDERER" at my grandpa's house.
He eventually couldn't take it and ran away from home. Then in his teens, he met this guy named Rocky and befriended him. Rocky was supposedly in his early to mid-20s, and something happened where Rocky ended up passing and my grandfather took his name. I had always wondered why my grandfather had a different last name than his brothers. And it gets even weirder.
My dad was adopted and until recently, we didn't know anything about his biological family. Well, thanks to all of the DNA tests that have become common, we ended up getting connected with his biological family. Talking to that part of the family, we have come to find out that my dad's biological father has almost the same story as my mom's dad. He also had accidentally taken someone's life as a child, ran away from home, and changed his identity.
96. Mom’s The Word
My dad never called his stepmom anything but her real name, which was Margaret. He has seven brothers and sisters and they all called her mom. I always wondered why, and when I got older, I found out my grandpa was cheating on my real grandma (my dad’s mom) with Margaret while she was battling colon cancer. My dad was five when his mom was suffering in the hospital. When he was a little kid, he had to call my grandpa and tell him to come home because his wife was dying.
After my grandma passed, Margaret and her three kids moved into the house. My dad hated them from the get go. So when he turned 16, he decided to move in with his best friend and his friend’s mom. He's never really let go of the resentment he feels towards Margaret and to this day, he refuses to call her anything that resembled "mother" because that’s not what she was to him.
97. Missing Guy Found
The dark family secret I discovered is that my favorite cousin wasn't really missing as I had always been told. He was 13 years older than me and all I knew growing up was that he would come and go a lot. He lived with us when I was a baby, and after some time, he moved out. He would visit every six months or so out of the blue, but we never called or visited him ourselves.
His visits were one of my most favorite things in the world. I loved him like a brother. By the time I was a teenager, I began to understand that he had issues with his parents. They had kicked him out when he was 13 and my parents took him in. But that kind of childhood messes with you. In between visits to my parents’ place, he avoided the rest of the family, moved around a lot, and didn't hold jobs for long.
That’s part of the reason why my parents didn't always know where he was. But in my later teens, he stopped coming over at all. I asked repeatedly if anyone had heard from him, and I was always told no. I asked about contacting him and was told that no one had a number or address for him. I assumed he would come around when he felt like it.
But his absence stretched on for years. I really worried that he had somehow passed, and I really missed him. In my late twenties, I finally found out the shocking truth—everyone knew where he was the whole time. He was serving a sentence behind bars for shooting someone. From what I hear, though, it was actually somewhat justified. He was defending his new wife, who I never got to meet.
I also found out some super awful things about how the extended family sided with his messed-up parents and refused to help him or his wife when he got taken in. They also shamed my dad for not helping either. I tried to send a message to him recently, but I don't know if he ever got it. I wish he knew that I didn't turn my back on him for decades as everyone else did. I just didn't know.
98. A Brand New Start
My grandpa who passed in 2017 was a very quiet man and didn't talk a lot. A few years before he passed, my mom (his daughter) told me why. Apparently, when he was around 10 years old back in the late 1930s or early 1940s, a girl around his age lived across the street. One time, they went out with his pistol to shoot at random things in the woods.
On their way home, there was a fence they had to get over to get home. My grandfather leaned his piece against the fence to help his friend. As she was going over, it fell over and went off, ending her life in the process. After the authorities got involved, he was found to not be at fault, but the girl’s family stood out in the street at various times over the next two weeks, yelling "MURDERER" at my grandpa's house.
He eventually couldn't take it and ran away from home. Then in his teens, he met this guy named Rocky and befriended him. Rocky was supposedly in his early to mid-20s, and something happened where Rocky ended up passing and my grandfather took his name. I had always wondered why my grandfather had a different last name than his brothers. And it gets even weirder.
My dad was adopted and until recently, we didn't know anything about his biological family. Well, thanks to all of the DNA tests that have become common, we ended up getting connected with his biological family. Talking to that part of the family, we have come to find out that my dad's biological father has almost the same story as my mom's dad. He also had accidentally taken someone's life as a child, ran away from home, and changed his identity.
99. The Car Collection of Oz
My grandfather was a Vietnam veteran who suffered from PTSD. It got worse in his later years and he would often isolate himself from the rest of the family, often hiding out in his bedroom when visitors were over. My grandmother would often tell us stories about how he had inherited a significant amount of money from his father way back when. She said that in their younger years he spent the money on luxurious dates and trips. After returning from Vietnam, he spent the rest on the house where he and my grandmother raised their children.
A couple of months before he passed, we found out that he had written a will. Even my grandmother didn't know about it. We all assumed that he wouldn't have much to leave since most of the money he had saved was being used to take care of him because he had been placed in a care facility as his PTSD worsened.
His will told of a warehouse in Township, Michigan that held a large collection of vintage cars. He said that the warehouse was passed down from his father, and he had all the documents to prove that he was the owner of some type of warehouse. His will estimated that the cars be worth an excess of two million dollars in total. The money from his collection would be split between his four children.
We had no idea this collection ever existed. It just made no sense. My father and his three brothers had all grown up in Plano, Texas. None of us had ever been to Michigan before. Even our mother couldn't recall a time of our father ever having even gone to visit Michigan. After a long debate, my father and I, the only ones who could manage to find some time off from work, agreed to fly out to Michigan to see this collection first hand.
After a few thousand dollars spent on plane tickets, hotels, etc. we finally arrived at the warehouse my grandfather owned. It was a rundown warehouse, but it was tucked away within a compound of other warehouses that seemed to be otherwise well taken care of. Finally, code in hand, my father punched the numbers into the keypad and the giant door began to rise.
What was inside is beyond words. There was absolutely nothing. There were a few homeless people that managed to sneak in through a hole in the corrugated metal around back, but there certainly was no car collection. We were able to contact a few owners of the neighboring warehouses and to their knowledge, no one and nothing had ever been inside of those warehouses in the years they had been there.
To this day we don't know what happened. We all just assume that the PTSD caused him to create some kind of fantasy in his mind. That maybe he purchased the warehouse believing it was a safe house for him if he ever needed to get out of Plano.
100. Burning Issue
I wasn't allowed to go to my grandfather's funeral, and they told me he had a heart attack. I was so confused because everyone around me would clam up when I asked about him. Years later, I learned the truth. It turns out that he had a heart attack while trying to put out a field fire, collapsed, and got horrifically burned.
I still have no idea how long it took for people to find him, but I'm assuming it was hours. The body was too grisly for my parents to let any of the kids see.
101. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter
My dad used to send me birthday cards every year when I was a young girl. My mother left my dad while she was pregnant with me, and for good reason too. Even though I never got to meet him when I was young, I was glad to still receive a card from him with a few bucks acknowledging that I was alive and that he would one day come to see me.
But then, around the age of 14 or 15, I learned a horrible secret about those letters. My mother had actually written every single one of them, and my grandfather would mail it to our address to make it seem legit. I never ever actually received any letter from him. In reality, my dad was a pretty terrible guy. Without airing all my family’s dirty laundry, suffice it to say that he was the worst kind of human.
I eventually did meet him...two times in fact: Once at my aunt’s funeral when I was 17, where he wrote me a long letter about how he wished he was better, and again when I was 19 when he tried to establish a relationship. He gave me terrible vibes and I never answered his attempts to reach out after that. Besides, I’m much happier this way.
My mom raised two kids by herself. Unfortunately, my family has its issues. They've got drinking issues and my mother herself has deep mental health issues. Growing up with her wasn’t always easy and it still isn’t now. Some days, she is lucid and a wonderful mother, then other days, she’s violent and unstable. But I know deep down inside her where she is well and unafflicted by her illness, she is an incredible mother and a kind person.
I just have to try and remember the good times. My family and I are estranged these days, but it makes me want to work harder to be a stable and loving mother if I become one someday. At the end of everything, I do still love my mom and am thankful she shielded me from him.
102. Lost And Found
The dark family secret I discovered is that my favorite cousin wasn't really missing as I had always been told. He was 13 years older than me and all I knew growing up was that he would come and go a lot. He lived with us when I was a baby, and after some time, he moved out. He would visit every six months or so out of the blue, but we never called or visited him ourselves.
His visits were one of my most favorite things in the world. I loved him like a brother. By the time I was a teenager, I began to understand that he had issues with his parents. They had kicked him out when he was 13 and my parents took him in. But that kind of childhood messes with you. In between visits to my parents’ place, he avoided the rest of the family, moved around a lot, and didn't hold jobs for long.
That’s part of the reason why my parents didn't always know where he was. But in my later teens, he stopped coming over at all. I asked repeatedly if anyone had heard from him, and I was always told no. I asked about contacting him and was told that no one had a number or address for him. I assumed he would come around when he felt like it.
But his absence stretched on for years. I really worried that he had somehow passed, and I really missed him. In my late twenties, I finally found out the shocking truth—everyone knew where he was the whole time. He was serving a sentence behind bars for shooting someone. From what I hear, though, it was actually somewhat justified. He was defending his new wife, who I never got to meet.
I also found out some super awful things about how the extended family sided with his messed-up parents and refused to help him or his wife when he got taken in. They also shamed my dad for not helping either. I tried to send a message to him recently, but I don't know if he ever got it. I wish he knew that I didn't turn my back on him for decades as everyone else did. I just didn't know.
103. The Ex Files
I found this out about two weeks ago. In my teenage years, my grandmother started dating a rough guy. For about four years, we didn't see her anymore unless we were picking her up from the hospital after he beat on her. Obviously, we were worried about her having this guy in her life. After a recent visit from my mom, I found out the whole truth, and it completely shocked me.
Apparently, my grandmother's boyfriend was a large-scale dealer who routinely, and without consequences, beat people in public. The authorities wouldn't pursue him, and people who knew who he was wouldn't press charges. My mother and her sisters went to county law enforcement. When they learned the man's name and looked up who he was, they literally gasped.
They were amazed that this individual was in their county, and said that they could not discuss him further without consequence. My dad worked for a major hotel and resort, and had the head of security (a retired secret service agent) make some calls. Two days later, an FBI agent showed up in the doorway of his office, flashed credentials, and asked why my dad was looking into this man.
After a brief explanation of the story, the agent told my dad "let it go," and left. The man was in my family's life from 1993-1997, when he passed from a heart attack. My grandmother also passed a few months later. We've speculated on everything from “mob boss” to "high value witness protection program participant." I'm 40 years old and I still have no answers on this VERY dark chunk of my family's history.
104. The Mystery Relative
Growing up, we had a relative we would visit every Christmas. She was an old lady, very short and very strange. But, she didn't look or speak like everyone else in the family. I asked who she was once and was told the following story…My great grandfather was enlisted in the armed forces and went abroad to fight in WWI. When he returned home to his family, he had an infant girl with him.
He instructed his family to never, ever ask questions about who she was or why he brought her, but to treat her as family. Eventually my great grandfather passed and the mystery remained, even to her.
105. A “Shameful” Family Secret
My great-grandmother hated me. I was an "illegitimate" child, and my parents split when I was three. When my dad got his girlfriend pregnant, my great-grandmother said that she would cut him out of her life if "He didn't marry this one." My father married my stepmother, who was a single mother, and my great-grandmother was fantastic to my step-brother and my sister, but not me.
She flat-out refused to have anything to do with me. I spent Christmas with the family, but I came home crying to my mum, asking why Grandma wouldn't talk to me. For the entire four days I was there, she ignored me, while cuddling my brother and sister as much as she could, because they lived in another country by then.
I didn't find out any of this until after she passed. I wasn't included in her will—the only grandchild not included out of about 7 grandchildren, and many more great-grandchildren. My dad took some of his inheritance and passed it on to me, along with a few heirlooms, keeping up the pretense that she didn't hate me up into my 30s.
I was so hated by her that I'm only just starting to meet family members, who had no idea I existed. My dad, siblings, and nana were forbidden to speak about me to other family members, so the few who met me when I was a baby had forgotten I existed. I’m 36 now… It’s a long time to be keeping me a secret from the rest of the family.
My sister only told me all of this a few years ago, though she'd known my great-grandmother hated me from when we were kids because she would speak very hatefully about me behind my back. My nana's partner confirmed it a couple months ago, with my mum finally telling me about it the last Christmas I ever saw her.
106. No Boys In The House
When I was a teenager, I found some small boys' shorts in the dryer while doing laundry. I lived in the house with my parents and sister, and she and I were about 14 and 16 years old at the time. We never figured out where those shorts could have come from.
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