Skeletons in the Closet
In this new song I am singing to my grandfather Eugene Story (1888-1932), the “Eugene” of the song’s title. Eugene’s father, Brooks Story, was apparently the most famous desperado in Mississippi in the 1890s. In 1892 Brooks and two brothers robbed a train “express office” at gunpoint, and Brooks was sentenced to ten years in the Mississippi state penitentiary. Brooks spent the next twelve years in and out of prison, perpetrating various daring escapes (for example sliding down a pole from the second story of the penitentiary hospital after feigning “chronic indigestion”).
Brooks spent time in Mexico and Honduras, worked as a “cow puncher” in Phoenix and as a “flag man” for the railroad in Florida. Brooks either would periodically turn himself in after getting tired of “roaming around” or would be recaptured, sometimes after a gunfight. His exploits were reported in newspapers across the country, from San Francisco to Helena, Montana, to New York City.
Brooks’ younger brother, my great-great-uncle, was also named Eugene. (I assume but don’t know for sure that my grandfather Eugene was named after his uncle Eugene — apologies for any confusion.) The elder Eugene shot and killed Barney Kleinfelder in 1891. His murder conviction was upheld by the Mississippi State Supreme Court, and he was hanged in public in Lexington, Mississippi in front of 1,000 people.
Until last spring neither I nor my brother knew any of this - not a thing. It had been a closely guarded secret within the family for several generations due to the “shame” it brought onto the family. I’ve since learned that my father mentioned just a hint of the story to my cousin when I was a kid; my father told my cousin that he had kept it from me and my brother because he was afraid it would upset us. And of course my cousin didn’t mention it to us either.
My and my brother’s kids now know all about the story, and they find it fascinating, not shameful. Of course none of us condones robbery and certainly not murder, but it’s truly fascinating and a notable part of our family history. And we almost missed knowing any of it. So now I’m curious to know who else knew. Did my mother know? My cousin’s younger sister did not. Who else was (or is) in on the secret?
I suppose that, if I had learned that my father was a convicted felon, I might very well have been embarrassed and ashamed. I don’t suppose I would have been sharing this fact with the excited fascination with which I am now staring the stories of Brooks and his brother Eugene. I’ve thought about how the passage of time and the distance of kinship relationships can moderate or soften the personal impact of scandalous behavior. (Distance notwithstanding, my brother ruefully points out that both he and I share a Y chromosome with a robber/desperado and a murderer.)
My grandfather Eugene died when my father was only ten years old, so I never knew him. I wish that I had — it undoubtedly would have given me some insight into who he was as I was writing this song. Eugene was four years old when his father was sent to prison, and during his entire childhood his father was on the run, a “famous outlaw”, “an escaped convict with a most thrilling career”, “the most famous convict that Mississippi now possesses”. It’s very hard to imagine what that was like. While at large, Brooks would sometimes go to visit his family in Kosciusko; he seemed sincerely to care about them. Brooks died when my grandfather Eugene was just twenty-one years old, and apparently Eugene moved to south Mississippi to get a fresh start and “to escape the shame”, as the song goes.
Given all the shame stuff, I do feel a bit of apprehension as I launch this detail-laden video into cyberspace. I hope it’s ok. I hope my family are ok with it.
A couple of notes about the video: I struggled with how to make it visually interesting and with just enough information to support the lyrics, but not so much that it became a documentary. I’m not sure I succeeded, so I welcome your feedback. The formal portrait is my only photo of my grandfather Eugene. I know of no photos of Brooks, but the newspaper illustrations are poignant and effective. This was also my first time using a “real” video editing tool (Adobe Premiere Pro), so the video may exhibit some clunkiness here and there as well as be overly “fancy” at times.
It’s been interesting that, when I share this story with my friends, very often one of them will launch immediately into their own story of an ancestor with a “checkered” history. Like they’re sharing a family secret. I guess it’s not surprising that there are skeletons in a lot of our closets.
Hit me at guy@storytownband.com.
I may ease up on posting every week during the rest of the summer, so for now I will simply say “until next time….”