Jamee Pilant

Family relationships can be complicated... like... how could my father's cousin also be his aunt? (My grandmother and her brother (both Sammons) married two people from the Pilant family!

Aunt Elizabeth IS Cousin Elizabeth

As a child I never questioned why my mom and my dad and my dad’s sister called that lady with red hair Aunt Elizabeth, but whenever they talked of her they called her cousin Elizabeth.

Somehow, my little girl mind absorbed the discrepancy without question... related to me... as my father’s aunt who was also his cousin. It wasn’t until I was older that I came aware of a unique puzzle I could not solve.

Sarah Anna Sammons was my Paternal grandmother. She married my grandfather, Rutledge Phipps Pilant in 1921. He was 26, She was 21. Shortly after they were married he was offered a job in the oilfields of a very small town called Midwest. The name of the oilfield was Teapot Dome, 40 miles north of Casper, Wyoming, and would soon be the center of a national Political scandal.

Midwest would present a physical hardship on his wife. She was pregnant, winter was coming, and he found no place to rent. Most of the oil rig crew could not find a place to rent. The town was an insignificant, windswept dot on the Wyoming prairie. But they were young and adventurous, so my grandfather accepted that job, and also got a place on the same crew for his sister’s husband, Elmer McDonald.

We called my grandmother Nanny. Those not in our family called her Anna. They were living in a tent on that cold November morning of 1922 when my aunt was born, with temps below zero the night my grandmother fought to give birth with only Aunt Elsie, Grandpa’s sister to help her through the labor and birth.

They were still living on the oilfields of Midwest 3 years later when my father was born, this time in a house but a cold wintry day of February... a blizzard raging outside.

At some time in the years between the two births, Nanny’s parents passed away and left two toddlers... Bessie and Bill. Nanny and Grandpa took them into their own household and raised them alongside their son Jim and daughter Winnie.

At the same time, the McDonald clan lived two houses down, a house filled with girl cousins... all of whom had names that started with E... Elsie Mae, named after her mother, Edna, Eloise, Edith, Esther, Elaine, Elspeth, and the youngest of them all, Elizabeth. Bill Sammons was the oldest of the four kids growing up in the Pilant house and often got stuck watching over the youngest of the McDonald girls as well.

When Elizabeth was a toddler he found it amusing that she followed him everywhere he went. Later, he found it an irritation to have this girl always tagging along... a chatterbox, always full of questions.
The political fallout from the Teapot Dome scandal finally closed the oilfield and threw everyone out of work without notice. The MacDonald’s moved to Florence Colorado, the Pilant’s returned to Casper. My father was 12. Bill Sammons was 15.

When My Dad was 15 he found a job in a bakery on the notorious Sandbar, and promptly wasted his first paycheck in a slot machine.

Bill Sammons was 18, almost 19 when he commiserated with my dad over the foolish loss of his wages. It was 1940 and both Bill and my dad were eager to fight the Germans and Japanese. They decided to join up that day. Dad lied about his age but my Grandmother signed the paper work and he got in... but the Army could not have known what his age really was.

Months later they were home on leave before deployment overseas.

The McDonalds were visiting Casper, Wyoming during that leave. Uncle Bill took one look at cousin Elizabeth... (16 that summer) and fell in love with red hair, freckles, and a smile that erupted like a happy volcano at the slightest hint of amusement. It made her a beauty at sixteen and remained a remarkable trait throughout her life. She was a very confident personality who had no enemies. Everyone was a friend.

Elizabeth was five years-old when she sat next to Bill Sammons on the bank of Crazy Woman Creek a fishing pole in her hand, her voice confident, insisting she really would marry him someday.
Bill had wanted quiet. The fish wouldn’t bite with her around, chattering, kicking her feet in the water. He wanted his friends there with him that day, not family...too much family, where everyone seemed to know everything about everybody... no privacy! And at 8, almost 9, privacy had become something young Bill hungered for.

He tried to discourage her that day. He told her they could never marry because they were related. A statement, that when they met again years later at that family reunion, she knew was not true.
She seemed wistful when he first got there. He caught her gazing at him, but she would quickly look away. He swallowed for courage and then asked her... right in front of the entire family... if she remembered that day on Crazy Woman Creek and what she had said.

“I told you I would marry you someday, but you said that was impossible because we’re related!”

The smile that lit her face caused his chest to tighten. He swore it made his heart ache. It was a smile he wanted to see every day of his life. The one that went all the way to her eyes, just like molten flowing from a volcano.

“I might have been wrong about that.” It was right to admit his mistake, but immediately wished he had waited for a moment more private before mentioning it.

He hated to be wrong about anything and hated even more having to admit he was wrong, but on this day, it seemed right to swallow his pride. It brought glorious reward... that smile. He watched it erupt, traced the transformation through every curve of her face, turning freckles to a vision of beauty.

Elizabeth played dumb. “How could that be wrong? We’re cousins.”

“No.” Bill was suddenly desperate to reveal the error of his logic. “You are Jim’s cousin. He’s my nephew because I’m Anna’s brother. She’s your aunt because she’s married to your mother’s brother. Phipps is your uncle. He’s my brother-in-law. I’m a Sammons. Your mother was Pilant. Anna Sammons married Phipps Pilant. Elsie Pilant married Elmer McDonald.”

Elizabeth by this time was in giggles. How many times had she struggled to understand the relationship herself? She had finally put it to paper, drew a chart that clarified the relationship, broke it down to something she could understand. That had been at the age of 12, still dreaming of marrying him someday.

Now he was a young man on his way to fight a war. She stared at the face that held nothing but a ghost of what she remembered. Billy was there, but she liked the young man he had become. He was Bill now, not Billy.

And he could not take his eyes off her. She had not known he would be at the Pilant’s that day. She had only slowly grown aware of a shadow that seemed to follow her wherever she went... when she changed seats, when she helped herself from the dishes laid out on a number of picnic tables.

She did not realize immediately that the boy she had once pestered, followed him as a permanent shadow... was now glued to her... had become her shadow. She had gotten her revenge, had made him confess his error that day... had made him explain their distant relationship in front of everyone... their entire family.

Now she would reward him.

“Will you kiss me, Bill? I want you to kiss me.”

He did kiss her. And at the end of that kiss he asked her to marry him when he came back from the war. She had laughed. Not to refute him. Out of excitement, an eagerness to get the long separation over so they could be together.

Uncle Bill, and my father did come back from the war, both of them fit and sound.

Bill and Elizabeth were were married shortly after. They had one daughter, Melody. They lived in a suburb north of Denver, Colorado called Westminster. They were married until his death in 1968.

She never remarried.

Jamee

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Amazon sells my books at a HUGE mark-up. Buy them from me. I sell them at cost + $2.00 for Chelsea's Doom ($15.00), or cost +$1.00 for Jenny's Destiny ($20.00). If you like to read on your laptop or phone, I'll e-mail the manuscripts for no cost at all.

Both stories have adventure, love, unpredictable plots. The kind of book you get so wrapped up in you hate to see that last page creep nearer with each page turn.

Amazon sells my books at a HUGE mark-up. Buy them from me. I sell them at cost + $2.00 for Chelsea's Doom ($15.00), or cost +$1.00 for Jenny's Destiny ($20.00). If you like to read on your laptop or phone, I'll e-mail the manuscripts for no cost at all. :)