Family Project

My family came from Ireland, either my great-great grandparents came with their children or they came after they were born, no one knows for sure. After they were finally in New York and settled there were thirteen children. One of my great grandparent’s came from this family, which one is currently unknown. One of the children met their spouse and moved to Jackson Heights in New York. Mammi and Paul (Pow) Carriage had a child named Cecelia (Sheila) Dunne Carriage. Sheila lived in New York for most of her life. She was very fortunate Pow was a banker therefore they were financially secure during the depression. One story my Granny (Sheila) remembers is one night during a air raid her dog, Blackout-named after the constant blackouts-got scared and hid in Pow’s closet and gave birth all over his good business shoes. She also remembers that she would always go to church with her aunties and uncles (nuns and priests) and never know any of the prayers because she wasn’t raised to be religious.
Sheila met a man named George (Grumps) Dunn in a church choir. For some reason my Granny felt it was necessary to tell me that the first time they got intimate is when my Unlce-Geoffrey Scott Dunn was conceived. Before my Granny was showing they got married. Quickly after Grumps joined the military then my mom was conceived, Laurie Susan Dunn. He quickly became the Lieutenant Colonel of the Marines, my mom would always tell me stories about how she would always be scared about how she never knew if her father would come back from war or not. My mom was also unhappy with all the moving around due to her fathers job. My mom always told me stories about her misadventures with her brother, Geoff. One of them was running around Central Park and jumping over various objects, this is how my mom messed up her knee. Another old favorite (not from the material but from how crazy it was) is when Geoff climbed a flag pole and slid down and got his leg caught on the bottom part. Since it was literally inside his leg it ripped and mutilated most of the muscle so the doctors had to take muscle from his arm and implant it into his leg. Nasty stuff huh?
Later my Granny and Grumps got a divorce. He married a horrid woman named Joan who had two prior children, Greg and Cherri-who is completely crazy-later Grumps and Joan had a daughter named Jenny. My Granny remarried a few times, first to Dr. Darby-a misogynist, then to a guy named Ed Baltimore, so Sheila became Sheila Baltimore and stayed that way ever since.
All I know about Grump’s childhood is that he loved his mother dearly, but she married a horrible man. He had three sisters, Susan-who my mom is named after, and two others. I know that they are from Omaha, Nebraska and my Auntie Jenny tried to find them, once she did she got rejected.


I already knew all this about my Mom’s side. It’s not like it was any such mystery-except for the literal mystery of not knowing most of the facts of my roots. It just made me realize how much I did not want to find out about my Dad’s side. Granted I am half of him and his family is my family, but none of them have ever welcomed me. There are some individuals who are not playing with a full deck but not only do they not acknowledge the fact there is something wrong with them but they make the person who said anything about there being a problem the crazy one, and of course I am that person. One memory I have is when my Dad took me to a party at a family friends house and I was the only one with brown eyes. Most of them made fun of me because of it, not even my cousin who was supposed to be my best friend stood up for me. I really do not like her. She never had my back and told me to my face she does not like me, but now that I am older and “cooler” I’m alright. What kind of person says that? I do not trust anyone on that side of my family, and if I don’t trust them why would I want to write about them?
I am very confused on where I come from and where my roots begin. I know that I’m Irish, but when I did research on my middle name, Dunn, I discovered Panamanian ancestry, I have no idea where that came from. I’m also Norwegian (surprise!), but due to the fact that is the ethnicity on my Dad’s side I don’t relate myself to it what so ever. I’m actually scared of blue eyes because of that side of my family. If eye’s are a certain shade of blue I automatically don’t trust them, I wont let it effect it who I do or do not talk to, it just is that much harder for me to trust just because of a superficial feature such as eye color.
Another thing that confuses me is that I look nothing like anyone but my cousin, Elizabeth-that’s the only reason I know I’m not adopted. We look identical except she’s tall with green eyes and I’m on the smaller side with auburn eyes. It’s interesting what people see when they look at me. The closer I am to a person the less they see of my parents in me, but the less they know the more they see. Go figure.