The Harper Generations: Country Roads

Pandora's box

Misty

Have you ever heard about Pandora's Box? A mythological box that holds fear, anger, sadness, misery, and all the world's evils? Yeah, that one. It's also a metaphor for people's nasty skeletons they tried to bury deep in their closet, hoping no one would ever discover them.

We were about to uncover many skeletons in the Holloway closet.

"Where did you come across Brian Holloway's name?" Georgia asked us.

"Our great-great-great grandma was Maggie Holloway before she married our great-great-great grandfather, Nash Gray," Tino said, gesturing between his cousins and himself.

Although it didn't matter since Nash and I were sitting right here, Georgia and Gertie didn't need to know that.

"Brian Holloway's family were distant family members of ours. The Holloway family originated in West Virginia. His grandfather moved north, wanting to support his family as most did years ago. But his grandfather had a sister who resented her brother for moving his family north. She didn't like living in West Virginia since she didn't feel it had much to offer. So, she put an idea into her great-nephew's head about getting rich quickly when he visited with his family," Georgia said.

I asked, "Why would Brian's great-aunt talk to him about this?"

"Brian didn't like us none down here. But he also didn't grow up down here. His great-aunt Bonnie convinced Brian he would do better if he married into wealth and conspired with him. But it didn't work when Brian tried to steal his daughter's inheritance from her. So Bonnie switched tactics with her family. Her family was even worse. If they didn't take what they wanted, they stole it." Georgia shrugged.

"What do you mean they took it or stole it?" Tino asked.

"That family were crooks, all of them. They would swindle people out of money by marrying ones with money. They would have people sign documents, claiming they were investments and siphoned their bank accounts until folk around her got wise to them and chased them off."

My previous father's family were crooks who committed fraud. Why does this not surprise me?

"People figured the Holloways disappeared until a distant family member showed up with his little friend Mary. They discovered Edward patented a machine that would mine coal faster and more efficiently. It made him a lot of money, and he could invest in a coal mine and create Billings Coal Mining Company. So they plotted for Mary to marry Edward and bilk him out of his money. But Edward saw Mary and his family's greed for what it was, except for his youngest daughter. She wanted nothing to do with it."

This story was getting more bizarre by the minute.

"Edward had his attorney draft a will that left Mary a small stipend and his youngest daughter the bulk of his wealth. That includes the patent for the machine and Billings Coal Mining Company."

"Out of curiosity, why would you want to learn about the Holloway family? No one down here has fond memories of that family," Gertie said.

"Edward Billings was my grandfather. He left my mom the majority of his estate, but she passed away when I was born," I said.

"I'm sorry to hear that, dear. We met Cora Billings when she was younger. She was a sweet girl."

"Yeah, my dad said she didn't care about money. She wanted a family. My grandpa died before she married my dad. They moved north when Dad received a job offer."