If your kin are like mine, you probably have a skeleton or two hanging in the family closet.


Some of my relatives still lower their voices when they ponder the fate of a long-lost ancestor: he is my great-grandfather and resident family skeleton, George Thomas Jones.


Very little is known about George. His name was never spoken as my father grew up in Whistler, Alabama. As the lore goes, George made his way west in the early 1900’s, leaving his wife and baby daughter (my grandmother) behind in Mobile, Alabama. It’s not clear why he went west. George may have been searching for opportunity, part of the vanguard of Scots-Irish migration at the turn of the 20th century. The only thing we know is that George died in Texas, and never returned. His name does not appear in the family Bible.


Family silence shrouded the mystery of George’s fate. Eventually my dad tried to track down any mention of his grandfather in Smithville, Texas, the town where he’d died. There, in an old register in the Episcopal Church, he found George’s name. “George Thomas Jones, found decapitated on railroad track.” A handwritten note next to entry added, “Murdered?”


Ever since the discovery that old George was beheaded and possibly murdered, my father and I have been hungry for details about him.


Last week my father discovered a letter in a box of family mementos, plus two faded photographs. Using information from the letter and a bit of deduction, he believes he finally has a picture of George Thomas Jones. In the formal studio photograph, George appears to be a handsome, well-dressed man of the era. His light eyes gaze sternly at the viewer. George has my family’s jug ears and an unruly cowlick, which defied the pomade’s attempt to slick it down. He looks a bit like my father.


We still don’t know exactly how George died, or what the circumstances were. Did he abandon his home, only to meet a dark fate? Was he a bad guy, or a working man in search of a better life for his family? We may never know. But it’s nice to finally have a face to attach to my fantasies about the family’s mystery man. As I conjure up fictional characters, these in-house stories have always helped stoke my imagination.


Do you have a family skeleton you can share? Have they ever played a part in your story-telling?