In the 1960s, 1970s, and before, family members’ previous marriage(s) were rarely discussed.
When I was in elementary school, there was a locally-produced children’s television show called Uncle Zeb’s Cartoon Camp. It aired from 1969 to 1979 and was broadcast live from KTUL-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, every weekday afternoon.
Child guests “walking across the bridge” to be recognized.
It appears many others of my generation in the greater Tulsa area watched it too, because a quick Google search revealed an almost cult-like following, returning Reddit threads, YouTube clips, and a post on the Facebook group “The Tulsa We Remember” that posed the question, “Did anyone walk across the bridge?”
Besides Uncle Zeb, portrayed by KTUL employee Carl Bartholomew, there was also an Uncle Zeke and an Uncle Zack. Yes, really. Tulsa Zoo personnel regularly came in to show animals as well.
The show featured local children as guests on every show. At some point in the show, the kids lined up and, one by one, walked up to the microphone held by Uncle Zeb, and stated his or her name, sometimes he or she greeted family back home as well. The child then walked across the bridge–a fixture of the set–and the next child stepped to take his or her turn.
I grew up in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, seventy miles southeast of Tulsa. Despite the distance, I seem to recall that some of my classmates might have been on the show at some point. I guess my brother and I weren’t interested in pursuing that. He and I tuned in to the show, though, because it made for entertaining after-school fare for us.
At least for a while.
If you watch a bit of the clip above, you can easily imagine how, as my brother and I grew older, the show’s hokey, hillbilly aesthetic, relentless slapstick comedy, and its “local yocal” production values and set design–became more obvious to us.
Sometime before we outgrew the show, we were watching one afternoon when a blonde-haired girl walked up to the microphone, and stated that her name was “Susan Laney.” My ears perked up. That was my name!
I excitedly told my mother the remarkable coincidence. To my elementary school self, seeing someone on television who not only was a Laney but who had my same given name made quite the impression.
Other than my immediate family, I had never met anyone else with my surname. When my family and I took road trips and stayed in motels, I distinctly remember getting out the white pages of the local telephone book that could be found in the drawer of the nightstand in every motel room in those days. I would go through the L’s until I came to any Laneys who were listed. I was thrilled whenever I found some, and I often wondered if and how I might be related to them. Perhaps this was the infancy of a burgeoning interest in genealogy?
The incident with the Uncle Zeb show must have stuck with my mother as well because, many years later, she would recall the incident to me when my parents divulged that my paternal grandfather had been previously married and divorced before he had married my grandmother. My grandfather had fathered a child with his first wife, they explained. This son then married.
The “Susan Laney” I had seen on the Uncle Zeb show many years ago was the daughter of the son my grandfather had with his first wife.
I don’t remember exactly what prompted my parents to reveal this bit of family history to me, but I certainly understood that this was a subject that my grandparents would prefer I not know about. When I was much older, however, I would occasionally overhear my grandmother mention the name of my granddad’s son–a name that I had learned by that time–to my dad.
Because of Ancestry.com’s birth records, I was able to ascertain that the “other” Susan and I had been born the same year and that she has five siblings. I seem to recall having a brief exchange with her on Facebook at some point, although last I checked, we are not friends.
Thankfully, attitudes about multiple marriages have changed substantially from those of my grandparents’ generation. Were they alive today, I think they would be shocked at the relative lack of judgment that exists today regarding a person having been previously married.
Imagine how even more incredulous they would be to discover the ease with which copies of marriage certificates pop up as hints or in searches on Ancestry.com and other family tree-making programs today–all from the comfort of one’s home! And the thought that such information could then enable someone to find the previous spouse’s children, who they married, their children and their birthdates, and their children’s children and their birthdates–all by a perfunctory search on Facebook or Google?
That would have blown their 20th-century minds.
Written for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge: Week 33-“Multiples.” PROMPT: There are lots of ways you could interpret this theme: multiple marriages, multiple children, twins (or more), or even someone who shows up in multiple records. Have fun with this prompt!
I did have fun with this prompt, but having participated in this challenge several times before–and having been previously given similar or identical prompts–I am finding it a true challenge, indeed, to come up with subject matter at times! For a previous “multiples” assignment, I wrote about some twins in my family. Also, a previous challenge–“Name’s the Same”–challenged me to write about multiple ancestors who had the same name. For that assignment, I turned to my husband’s ancestors in the post “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.”
