When I first saw this month’s topic, "Nicknames," I thought I might have to sit this one out. I’ve never had a nickname. My siblings never had nicknames. My parents never had nicknames. Even as I expanded my search to aunts, uncles, cousins, and beyond, I still came up empty-handed. It seemed like nicknames just weren’t a thing in my family. But, as it turns out, there’s one major exception to that rule.
My mother’s father was one of eight children—six older brothers and one younger sister. And for some reason, most of them answered to names entirely different from the ones they were given. For instance, take my grandfather, who we called Papa. He was born Jack Maddox Meyers, but somewhere along the line he decided to call himself “Jack Patrick”, believing it sounded more Irish—a curious choice given that he was of mostly German descent.
Two of his brothers passed away before I was old enough to remember them, but the others all had nicknames that stuck out like sore thumbs. Paul Roy? We called him “Uncle Buster”. Glen Edward was known as “Curly” – although by the time I knew him he was completely bald! Robert Thomas went by “Ellsworth,” a name whose origin remains an enigma to me. Henry was known as “Wes”. And then there was their little sis, Marie B. Meyers, who somehow came to be known as “Jean T.” I’m not even sure where to begin unraveling that mystery.
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