2023-01-24
A woman struggles to find proof of her grandparents’ early lives in this debut memoir.
Hanson’s family on her father’s side had a curious history—curious in that, for decades, no one had been able to figure out what it was. The origins of her father’s parents, Frank and Ida, were untraceable prior to their arrival in Akron, Ohio, in 1925. They told stories of their earlier lives—of Brooklyn roots, Swedish immigrants, wealthy English relatives—but none could ever be corroborated despite the best efforts of their children and grandkids. “How could a bunch of smart people look so hard and never find a thing?” writes the author, who joined the effort in the 1980s. “If our genealogical research were a Nancy Drew mystery, its title would be ‘The Case of the Missing Ancestors.’ ” A lucky break came in 2002 when Hanson finally got her hands on a box of her grandparents’ photographs—pictures her father was reluctant even to look at—depicting the couple’s early years. What emerged was a story of changed names, doctored photos, missing children, and secret marriages. But did the author’s investigation ultimately provide her with answers or only more questions? Hanson interweaves her engaging personal account of the search with fictionalized vignettes from various times in her grandparents’ lives, which give the memoir a novelistic dimension. Here is one from “Circa 1978”: “Finally, Frank was done. He carefully gathered up the photo fragments he was saving, now jagged strips and squares featuring Ida, minus the excised portions. He placed the uneven images of Ida in an envelope and back into the box.” While the revelations are perhaps not as earth-shattering as readers will want them to be—especially given the book’s nearly 350-page length—it’s an intriguing journey through the world of genealogical sleuthing. The author deftly demonstrates the extent to which the few facts people know about their ancestors shape their perceptions of themselves—and how the details they don’t know can keep the dead alive in their imaginations.
A well-told family mystery investigating the secret lives of the author’s grandparents.
