Sybil Bruncheon’s “Aren’t Families Funny?”… Elspeth, Egbert, Irina...et al.

We all have relatives that we love but still just drive us crazy, don’t we?... Take this old photo of my Grandmother Elspeth at a young age with her mother, my great grandmother Irina there on the right. Truth be told, it looks as if Irina is lecturing Elspeth (as usual!) on deportment, posture, penmanship, lady-like conduct, the proper wardrobe and accessories, clean gloves, table manners, letter-writing etiquette, thank-you notes, flower-arranging, embroidery vs. needlepoint, and properly filled out dance cards at cotillions. This was how they spent their days together, and indeed how most mothers and daughters spent their days in 1893.

 Interestingly, the two gentlemen to the left of them are Elspeth’s twin brother, Cedric, and his… um… “friend”, Horace Makeworthy, of the vast Makeworthy Mustard and Cough Syrup fortune… They are apparently remaining polite and silent as many “sensitive and single men” of that time did when in the presence of a self-possessed older woman… or a battleship, both of which my great-grandmother was mistaken for… frequently… at Bridge parties, and in harbors. This photo shows a typical day in London when Great-Grandma would commandeer members of her family to accompany her on errands, social calls, and shopping while her husband Victor would be at “the club” with his pals smoking cigars, wheeling and dealing, and regaling each other with adventures that probably never happened.

 Oh… and there are two other members of my family in the photo there too… Yep, there on the extreme left, peeking out from behind that street post, is cousin Egbert, who adored startling his relatives at the most inopportune moments by playing endless and often tragic practical jokes. He often would disguise himself as infamous murderers that had made the headlines of the newspapers and climb up trellises or hide in hedges to frighten everyone in the family… well, except for Great-Grandma Irina who was as deadly with a pair of hedge-clippers as she was with a frilly parasol. His favorite modus operandi was to skulk about at night dressed in a huge cape with a rubber knife and to jump out on unsuspecting victims and “stab them to death”. London, and indeed most polite society around the world, was still reeling from the unsolved horror of the Jack the Ripper catastrophe just five years earlier, so Egbert rocked with glee when his serial-killing pantomimes would send chamber maids, nannies, and ladies of questionable character shrieking in terror, if only for a few minutes, until they realized they’d been attacked by a giggling simpleton in a Vaudeville costume with a toy store knife.

Of course, Elspeth, after having been killed on numerous occasions, only scolded him, and Egbert was too wary of Irina’s deadly parasol. By the way, when Egbert was on his night-time forays into the world of mayhem, he called himself Knifey! He would scrawl “Knifey was here!” in chalk, or sometimes chocolate syrup near his latest murder, and he explained that his name as a serial killer should leave no room for confusion, especially if Scotland Yard were to become involved. He often reversed letters in “Knifey” or wrote one backwards or in lower case and upper case mixed to increase the sinister air about it all. You can imagine how vexed he was that Scotland Yard never attempted to solve any of Knifey’s murders… nor indeed, ever came to the house to express a passing interest. It only drove him to greater and more wanton stabbing incidents; in just one infamous week, he stabbed several of his younger sister’s dolls, a plate of cookies which he proceeded to eat, and various neighborhood cats (who scratched him rather badly, and who can blame them? Cats have very little sense of humor when it comes to rubber knives and play-stabbing!)  Great-Grandma finally ended his semi-appalling crime-spree when she pulled out a pair of sewing scissors and snipped his rubber knife in half just as he was about to stab her Charlotte Russe during tea.

You remember I mentioned there were two other relatives of mine in the photo; Egbert on the left, and on the extreme right… there’s Cousin Danny; perfectly lovely in so many ways, with quite an impressive stamp collection too, but unfortunately given to urinating out-of-doors… often in broad daylight. Oh well.

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