Unlocking Family Secrets by Francine Falk-Allen

I was sitting across from my aunt Dorothy in a church recreation room, after yet another memorial service for one of my mother’s many brothers in 2001. Mom was born in 1908, had died in 1993, the eldest of twelve children (even more, I later learned), and I thought I’d heard all the stories there were to tell. I’d flown to southern California from the San Francisco area to attend, and although I am not a staunch Christian as are many of my relatives, I appreciated being able to see the family and honor Uncle George’s passing in a sacred space.

Dorothy and I, some cousins and another aunt were chatting at a long folding table with a paper tablecloth, sampling egg salad sandwiches on paper plates, as you do at these events. But nothing could have prepared me for Dorothy’s offhand comment, “When we were in the orphanage…” and at that point I couldn’t take in what she said next, so dumbfounded was I.

My jaw dropped, as did my cousin’s. I said to Chris, “Did you know about this?” who gave me a silent wide-eyed answer, slowly shaking her head “no.” 

“Wait a minute; wait a minute, Aunt Dorothy. What do you mean? What orphanage?”

“Oh, Daddy took the six of us youngest kids on the train, to Arkansas or some state far away, and dropped us at an orphanage, when Mother…” and then she dropped four more bombshells in a short two sentences. Those alarming revelations comprise some of the formerly secret scandals of my novel, A Wolff in the Family. It’s based on these stories and the vignettes my mother and other aunts and uncles shared with me. 

But the bombshells? As far as I knew, no one had ever talked about them, except perhaps the orphanage survivors themselves and their children. I had rarely seen them, so I was not privy to any conversations they may have had. My mother certainly had never told me about any orphanage before she died, or why the children would have been taken there, or why her father, with whom she was close, would have done this. George, it turned out, was one of the orphanage kids, and Dorothy had brought a picture of the six children who’d been taken to the children’s home. 

She added, “They wouldn’t take Frank,” who stood at the back of the group portrait, “because he was fourteen.” 

Upon returning home from this memorial, I drove three hours to visit my sister, who was nineteen years older than me. I asked LaVonne if she’d ever heard this orphanage story and what led up to it. Had Mother ever told her? No, she hadn’t, but my sister with her excellent memory had other tales that I hadn’t heard before. There were a gay brother, some racist attitudes toward my grandmother’s second husband, and our step grandma had fascist leanings. I now felt as if I didn’t know my family at all.

I contacted several members of our large family to find out who knew anything about these secrets which seemed to be considered shameful, at least in the 1930’s through the 1950’s. As I spoke with them, I learned that some cousins had been given sanitized versions of some events, which took the blame off my grandfather. My real grandmother had made decisions that caused my grandfather to become vindictive, things that were considered unacceptable nearly one hundred years ago. But when I heard details about my grandfather, whom I had known personally, I thought, I don’t blame you, Grandma. I may have done the same, although in this more compassionate century. I had never known her; she died when I was two, but I began to feel as if I knew her as I wrote. 

The younger children were affected for years by the things my grandparents did and the choices they made. My mother was so ashamed of both her parents’ actions that she couldn’t even tell her own adult daughters. I don’t think my grandmother saw Grandpa’s vindictiveness coming down the pike when she naively put the saga in motion, but my grandfather’s decision to put his kids in an orphanage was deliberate and selfish.

People I spoke with about the story, not just family, said, “Oh, it was the Depression; a lot of people had to give their children to other family members or orphanages. It was common due to widespread financial hardship.” But my grandfather never lost his job on the railroad, and he’d been supporting twelve children. After leaving a few children with relatives, dropping off five in an orphanage several states and twelve hundred miles away from anyone they knew, and leaving the one young teenage boy to make his own way alone, he now was supporting no children at all. He lived in a boarding house in yet another state, sharing his income—and we believe a relationship—with the widow who ran the boarding house, and her own five children. She did not want to raise my aunts and uncles alongside her own. It was hard for me to see Grandpa as a loving, sympathetic father.

Some family secrets are too painful to share; I know that if there were incest or some serious abuse, it’s likely that I would not have authored this novel. But my story centers on my grandfather’s probable lack of attentiveness to my grandmother, her frustration with raising a dozen children alone while he was usually gone on the railroad, the racism of some members of the family, misogyny, and my grandfather’s spite. I was shocked by the revelations I discovered, and with my mother long gone, the opportunity to at least ask her why she didn’t tell us the truth was lost. All I can do now is to shrug… and write.

What secrets, unexplained gaps or mysteries lurk in your family history?

—

Francine Falk-Allen was born in Los Angeles and has lived nearly all of her life in northern California. As a former art major who got a BA in managerial accounting and ran her own business for thirty-three years, she has always craved creative outlets. Over the years, this has taken the form of singing and recording with various groups, painting, and writing songs, poetry, and essays, some of which have been published. Falk-Allen facilitates a polio survivors’ group in Marin County, and also a Meetup writing group, Just Write Marin County. She was the polio representative interviewed in a PBS/Nobel Prize Media film, The War Against Microbes. Falk-Allen resides in Marin County with her husband, Richard Falk. She loves mystery, and historical novels, and captivating biography and memoir, movies, music, pool exercise, the outdoors, travel, hanging out with good friends, lots of British tea, and a little champagne now and then.

A WOLFF IN THE FAMILY

Based on a true story, A Wolff in the Family is a riveting saga of prejudice, passion, and revenge, perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds. What mysterious scandals led a father to abandon the youngest of his children—and for the elder siblings to keep their shame secret for eighty years?

Frank and Naomi Wolff were happily married in 1908. She was a Kansas farmgirl; he was a railroad engineer. She was excited to embark upon her role as wife and mother with a hardworking man, and in their early years together they made a life in thriving Ogden, Utah. Despite Frank’s almost-constant absence for his job riding the rails, which left pretty Naomi to raise their children virtually alone, their romantic relationship begat fourteen offspring in eighteen years. Like other lower-middle-class women, Naomi’s life was consumed with caring for her brood, who became helpers as soon as they could fold a diaper—and who, by and by, were required to attend the school of hard knocks as much as public schools. Affection and struggle endured within the family, crowded into a humble house. Despite the respite of occasional family train trips across the plains, the marriage ultimately faced exceptional challenges, just before the Depression era began.

What scandals led Frank Wolff to abandon his younger children at an orphanage far from home? And why did his elder children keep this a secret for eighty years?

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Category: On Writing