In an effort to avoid myths or generalities in my research, I looked for things that were real, tangible pieces of my great-grandparents that I could extrapolate off of.  I started to turn to my family with questions, determined to break the silence that had permeated each generation before me. I went naturally to my parents, expecting them to be most receptive to a conversation about “Nana” and my mysterious great-grandfather. Having this conversation was surprisingly much more difficult than I thought; after a few short sentences over the phone and a text or two over the course of a couple months, I finally decided that this topic needed to be broached in person. What I learned was pretty astonishing; My mother was born the same year that my great-grandfather died so she never met him, but as it turns out she probably never would have anyway. According to my mom, her grandfather (my great-grandfather) was absolutely never a topic of conversation in her household growing up. The truth was that my great-grandfather had essentially removed himself from his wife, his three daughters, and his family and friends in upstate New York a few years after he returned from WWII. Although the Clissons had managed to stay together in war-torn Germany following one of the most traumatic times in world history, the family unit fell apart after they returned home to America in 1947. In terms of where Red went and why he chose to leave his family, there are no answers to be found in the oral history of my family. He was never spoken about in Nana’s home, and the only stories that my mother remembers about her grandfather are those passed down by her own mom (and even then, the memories are limited to that one year spent in Germany). My mom had no knowledge of how Red died, or when, or even where, and by the end of our conversation I could tell that this void had affected her much in the same way that if affects me now. I realized that she, just like I, had tried to grapple with the hollow shell of this man and make sense of the overwhelming mystery that seemed to shroud his name. She had not succeeded, but I was going to make sure that I did. 

My mom and her family had lived only a few blocks from Nana for most of her life, and they were at her house for fish-fry dinner every Friday night. My mom remembers Nana much in the same way that I do, kind, sociable, & always smiling, but she also remembers a more severe side of her grandmother, a darker undertone in her demeanor that I, being young, never picked up on. When I asked my mom more about this and implored her to give me an example, she recalled a memory from high school; 

We were in the car driving back from camp, and I must have been complaining to her about how my boyfriend and I had just broken up. I was upset and I told her that I thought I should call him once I got back into town. Well that set something off in her because she turned right around and said to me, “Don’t you dare call him first, Gloria. I know you’re upset but don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much you’ve been thinking about him.” I found this to be so strange at the time, I kept thinking to myself, “well god, I really do miss him, and I do think about him, why is it wrong to let him know?”. Every time I would talk about my relationships after that, she had the same type of advice, “Don’t let him see you’re upset, and even if you are, pretend that you’re not”, “If he misses you and you miss him right back, he better not know you feel that same way.” Over and over again, it was this idea that the men in our lives should not have any access or understanding of how we felt. At the time, 17, 18 years old, I simply thought this was her German heritage coming through. Her parents were first-generation immigrants you know, so she was brought up in a strict household. I just started to associate her stoic attitude with the German culture. Oh which reminds me about that story about her sister….when Loretta’s husband died, Nana told me that everyday for two months after the funeral Loretta would sit outside on her porch, just sit there in case anybody were to walk by. She was making a statement; telling the neighborhood that yes her husband had just died, and yes she was alone, but that did not make her weak. She didn’t want people to think that she was sad, hiding away inside, so she just sat herself on that porch to prove to the world that she was “perfectly fine”.

I watched my mom make air quotes with her fingers as she said those last two words, and I quickly realized that that’s exactly the type of life my great-grandmother had lived; a life in which you say one thing, but mean another. A life full of contradictions, facades, and misconstrued emotions. It was hard for me to hear my Nana be described as this cynical and closed off woman, but it was important because it made me ask why. What was the cause of this type of reaction…was it her German heritage as my mom suggested? Was it her role as an American housewife during the 1940’s & 50’s? Or was this affliction towards men rooted in something more personal… her relationship with her own father, or her own husband perhaps? 

It was with these questions that I started to dig into the big bad myth that was my great-grandfather, Henry “Red” Clisson. To my delightful surprise, my first big break began with an object. After talking with my mom, I was curious to see what my dad knew about his wife’s grandparents, if anything. My dad, like myself, is completely enamored by the history of World War II. When I first got a hold of my Nana’s letters, he and I spent a great deal of time gushing about the huge historical moments that she had recorded as they were happening around her (the Nuremberg trials, the American liberation of different German cities, etc.). I asked him whether or not he had spoken to Nana about her time in Germany because I was sure that if there was anyone in the family brave enough to approach the topic it would be him.

“My experience of trying to figure out what had gone on was pretty similar to yours Cait. I remember sitting around her kitchen table, and so many times I tried to slip in a question about the war, or Nuremberg, and more often than not I was shut down real fast. It must have been sometime during the last year of her life though, me and your mom visited one Sunday, and there she was sitting at the kitchen table with an American flag. She said “Here Andy I found this the other day and I thought you might have it.” Now I can’t remember if she told me it belonged to Red, or if I could just tell by how little she spoke about it, but that was definitely a moment between us.”

The American Flag baffled me. My mom had previously told me she thought Red had died alone on an Army base somewhere out west, so I found it odd that the flag was in my Nana’s possession. Additionally, I understood that Red had been estranged from his family for many years prior to his death and that my Nana harbored difficult feelings towards him, but I could not believe that she would give this seemingly significant piece of family history away to someone essentially outside of that family (my dad, obviously, being related to her only through marriage). It seemed as if this unceremonious exchange was one final statement by my Nana, as if she was proving how little she cared about Red by handing away an important marker of his life so casually. I needed to understand why she had the flag, how it related to Red’s death, and most importantly why she chose to let it go.