Vengeance: A Dish Best Served Cold

Dicie and Richard Ross Malone, 1951

     Sometimes it's the things that are omitted from your family stories that are the most entertaining. In doing some family research on Ancestry.com, I found the marriage license for my great-grandfather,Richard Ross Malone and his second wife, Dicie Osborne.  They were married on May 27th, 1950. I know very little about his second wife.  My grandmother, Cleo, and her sister, Marie, rarely talked about her and when they did it was only to say things like "well, you know she burned Dad's house down." * It was almost like she didn't exist . . . which is why I think this photo is so funny. It belonged to Marie (I know this because her name is written on the back) and rather than just destroy the picture or scratch out Dicie's face or even cut her out with scissors, Marie very meticulously tore Dicie's image out of the photograph. This gives a lot of insight into who my Aunt Marie was as a person.  I loved her but she was . . . interesting.

The back of the photo has a note that reads "John Bowman home after some additions." I can only assume that the additions Marie referred to were on the house because that second wife, she was most definitely subtracted.

     The photo on the left was taken the same day. The note on the back  reads "Dad (Richard R Malone) & his horse, Mollie"  She writes down the name of the horse. She tears out the second wife. Very telling.

*That's a story for another day.