Before I go any farther, I forgot one of my aunts. Her name was Dan and she was also dead by the time I was born.

So the family in which insanity runs rampant is not necessarily a source of reliable information. I never knew many of my aunts and uncles (even those who were alive as I was growing up). The following is the bare outline of my grandmother's life, gleaned from tales by my father and some of my aunts. I decided that, if there was a general consensus, it was probably more likely than not to be true.

My grandmother, Blanche, lived with us off and on several times. She made me feel safe, because up until the butcher knife episode, my father was never violent around her. She was completely lacking in social graces, a tough and stoic woman. I admired her stoicism and I tried to develop it in myself. I was ungodly successful.

Blanche always liked boys more than girls. I was a special grandchild, because she liked me anyway, even though I was born without the proper equipment. Her sons were alternately coddled and neglected. How could they not have been neglected when there were so many children and such economic deprivation? The coddling is another thing altogether. I think it brought out the worst in all of her male children. None of them ever seemed to truly grow up and, at the slightest sign of trouble (which they generally created themselves) in their lives, every last one of them went running home to mommy.

The first three or four children were already grown by the time my father and the second set of spawn arrived. My grandmother already knew the consequences of breeding with my grandfather, but she did it, anyway. After the second group, he predictably left and sent no money for their care. I always wondered how such a forceful, fierce, tough woman would allow that to happen twice. They supported themselves by picking cotton. Picking cotton stories were staples of my early life. My father used them to make me feel guilty for not having to do it myself. He wasn't only being manipulative; they all tended to feel incredibly sorry for themselves. It was the basis of my dad's entire life. He was happily pitiable in most every aspect of his life.

My dad reported to me that he once saw Blanche in bed with a man other than my grandfather. I have no idea whether that's true. If it is, it's not surprising in the least. Knowing my grandmother, she might have done it just to spite my grandfather. He also told me that he once heard my grandmother and Sis concocting a plan to murder his dad. My dad seemed to be angry about that, but frankly, after the first round of kids, I would probably have hunted his sorry ass down and killed him myself. Or maybe I'd have made him wish I'd killed him.

Blanche (according to relatively independent sources) hated her youngest daughter, Ruby. My grandmother knew that her husband was sexually using the child and, of course, held it against her, not my monstrous grandfather. I learned this after my grandmother was dead, so I didn't have a chance to hold it against her.

My grandfather was the first in a family populated by male sadists. He never let my grandmother have any shoes and, on one occasion, when one of my aunts gave grandma a pair of hers, my grandfather beat her for her generosity. My grandmother and grandfather eventually divorced. My grandfather remarried and treated his second wife with much more respect than his first. I don't think they ever had any children and I know absolutely nothing about my step-grandmother.

Other than that, I know very little about Blanche. I know she consistently cut the sleeves out of every single dress she ever owned, no matter how much they cost or how weird they looked without sleeves. She really loved fig newtons. My grandmother developed two addictions (other than the one she had to my grandfather) as she grew older. Along with virtually everyone else in the country, she never missed an episode of "Dallas." She was addicted to soaps generally and, for the longest time, thought that Detective Mike Carr on the Guiding Light was a real guy. We had long conversations about him when I was a little girl. Blanche was devastated when Mike left the show and she wondered about his whereabouts for years.

She also developed a deep and abiding love of chihuahuas. After I was around 12, I never knew my grandmother to be without one. I believe they were all males. Blanche really liked guinea hens and kept some tied up in the backyard whenever that was possible under city code. They never held a candle to chihuahuas, though. Luckily, for years we had about a hundred of them running around our backyard and she could always take the pick of the numberless litters.

After I grew up, I tried to get her to tell me about her life. I was not successful, so I can only count on the stories I heard from her various children. Of course, I had personal knowledge of the chihuahuas and the soaps, the sleeveless dresses and the Newtons.

I'll go through what I know about the siblings next week.