family histories

Auntie Barbara (named after her great aunt Barbara Herndon, in the portrait above, as is my father—the Herndon part) is full of stories about her uncle Howard Camp, the Yankee of NYT September 22, 1917 fame. Yesterday, as we went to the Ark for catfish, we crossed a bridge. Years ago, my great uncle Howard bought himself a brand new Ford. He was driving across that bridge in the rain and stopped to give a man a ride. The man pulled a gun and Howard put his hand on the gun, knocked gun, man and all out the door and sped off. He neglected to change gears and fried his new car.
Howard didn't know his own strength. When a supervisor in a factory came after him with a wrench, he took the wrench from the man with one hand and clipped him in the jaw with the other. He caved in the man's face.
Howard married and settled down with an awful woman that nobody in the family liked. Only later did they discover that he had also married another woman in a distant town. After he was dead and buried, one day the grave was opened and his body went missing. We are not suggesting divinity here: The assumption was that one of the wives had robbed him.
But Auntie Barb will always have fond memories of Howard because of the time he slung her over his shoulder and rescued her from the top of a magnolia tree she had climbed before panicking.