[Crimson Ghost]

Paternal:
Ferdinand Roderick
Wilhelmina Mathilda

Maternal:
Adolph Leopold
Genevive Louise

Talk about two couples who matched each other so well, and were the polar opposites of their in-laws.

'Grandfather Ferdinand', as he insisted he be called, was the head of his house, and there could be no questioning of his decisions. Lunch was to be served at noon, not 11:55, not 12:05. Dinner was to on the table at 6:30 SHARP. He was a railroad timekeeper, and heaven help you if you fell behind schedule. He was a sharpshooter in WW1. I guess precision was his thing.

'Grandmother Wilhelmina', as 'Grandfather Ferdinand' insisted she be referred to as, was a quiet, almost mousey woman, who almost has to ask his permission to speak, was his arranged marriage. She served his every whim, without question.

She died back in 1979, massive heart attack. She keeled right over while setting the table. After the funeral, he disappeared, and for a week, no one could find him. It finally dawn on my father to check the mausoleum. It seems 'Grandfather Ferdinand' broke the lock, sat with her coffin for a while, and then used his .38 to end his life.

Going through his personal effects, Dad found a picture of them taken in 1975. He's pretty sure it's the only one of them together.

Gramma Jen, however, was a burlesque dancer at the beginning of the century. If there was a joke she didn't know, I can't think of it. She had, quite possibly, millions of them. I saw a picture of her when she was 20 or 21, and might I say, Goddamn. And she had no bounderies. At 80, she had no problem walking into a lingerie store and asking the salesgirl which underwear was easiest to wash the cum out of after a gangbang. I'm not sure she was kidding...

Grandpa Addie was an accountant at the hall where she danced. He was 'well-known' among the dancers. Why, I can't figure out. If Drew Carey and Gilbert Gottfried had a lovechild, Grandpa Addie would be that child. But, according to Gramma Jen, it would seem that he was, in her own words, a 'fuck machine'. And if you think it's odd to see those words, imagine them coming from a woman who looked and sounded like Carole Channing.

When Grandpa Addie was diagnosed with diabetes, the doctors had to begin amputating, starting at his toes. Everytime an operation happened, Gramma Jen would say, "God is getting you for every whore you fucked while I was on stage." and Grandpa Addie would reply, "I was only practicing for you."

When he didn't say anything after they took what was left of his left leg (his right leg was already gone), she knew the end was near. Two weeks later, he passed in his sleep. She was there right to the end.

One time, someone asked Grandpa Addie why we called him 'Grandpa Addie'.
"Because 'Grandpa Subtractie' would be stupid".
And he used to claim that 'Grandfather Ferdinand' wrote the train schedules for Hitler.

Gramma Jen slipped into senile dementia, and cancer took her eyes.
Her last words were "I miss Addie."
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That was cathartic. Thanks for listening.