I've already written one entry about how difficult this woman has been (I Danced On Their Graves) so I won't rehash any of that. I'll simply say that she has not become any easier to deal with.
I can't help but wonder if she has done all of this intentionally. Did she somehow know that her great great granddaughter would one day drive herself nuts looking for information on the Brand family? Because I think she and the other Brand women (most notably my Grandma Elsie) are up in Heaven having a grand old time watching me bang my head against the wall. I imagine there's some whiskey and water flowing up there along with a lot of laughter. Not mean laughter. Just good natured fun. :)
The latest brick in the wall that I've been banging my head against? None of the Pistner children were baptized at Old St. Mary's, the church where Charlotte and Adam were married. Not a single child.
Old St. Mary's
So they got married there and then immediately started going to another Catholic church? Really? They couldn't have made this nice and neat for me and had all their babies baptized at a church that still exists and where I could get the records immediately?
Now I have to wait for the archive office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to reopen so I can request the records. And also hope and pray that those records can be found. At this point, I'm not going to assume anything. I think I'll do myself a favor and look at the Brand glass as half empty and simply assume that I won't be able to locate the records. That way, if the records are actually found, it will be a lovely surprise rather than a horrible disappointment if they're never located.
Since Charlotte isn't cooperating with my search, I have no choice but to try another Brand angle. So now I'm trying to find other Brand family members who were married at Old St. Mary's. Yeah, right. I'm sure that will work out for me. Because the Brand family members have been so cooperative so far, haven't they?
Maybe I'll go over to Mom and Dad's in the next couple of days and sit on Charlotte's chair (Grandma Elsie passed it down to Mom). And perhaps I'll have a bit of a one sided conversation with my great great grandmother. Come on, Charlotte. Throw me a bone. Where were you babies baptized?
