“We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.”

William Shakespeare

Who Was My Elusive Grandfather?

My grandmother played a big role in my life. I knew her well and loved her deeply. But my grandfather was always a mystery, and Grandmother told us very little about him. She honored us with a few truths and peppered them with lies. Just enough to whet our appetites and hunger for more. She happily shared he had an amazing voice and was a Portuguese aristocrat who had been a part of a failed attempt to replace Portugal’s king on the throne. Turns out those were truths. But she also told us he was a traveling salesman who had died during an influenza epidemic in 1932, and that all the photos of him had been destroyed in a flood. Those details were pure fabrication. After her death, we learned who our grandfather truly was.

As I wrote WHAT LIES IN TRUTH, I began a search to discover who he was as a man and a priest. Was he kind or callous, arrogant or humble, respected or disliked, competent or inept, forward thinking or content with the status quo? I learned about many of his qualities through little articles printed in small-town newspapers that were the ‘social media’ of the day. One interesting fact that came to light told me his community sometimes depended on him for medical treatment.