“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Mark Twain’s well-known quip has had particular resonance for me while working on my ancestry project — especially when I had to do several rewrites of a family story I first heard as a child and have retold ever since. Seems there were a few things I knew for sure that weren’t so.
Short version: When he was young, my Dad moved in with his grandparents to help his grandmother, Mummum, whose sight was failing. She was blind for over twenty years when she was struck in the eye and her vision was restored.
After reading about what happened to Mummum, a friend asked me if I had a copy of the original newspaper coverage of the event. I never have had one. I tracked down the article in The Daily Oklahoman archives and read it myself for the first time. And then went back to work. There were just a few dates that needed to be adjusted. But, boy, did that change things.
There’s a more detailed, dramatic, and now corrected account of Mummum and Dad here. If you’ve already read that bit you might want to revisit it. If you’re into the story but not yet up to Part 3, consider this a pre-confession. If you’re new to The Ancestry Story, it starts here.
And by the way, that Mark Twain quote? Although he’s attributed with variations of it, he likely wasn’t the one who said it first. Some historians credit it to 19th-century humorist, Josh Billings, the reason we use “joshing” as a euphemism for kidding. But not everyone is on board with that either.
Finally, the title of this post is a favorite line from Floyd the Barber on The Andy Griffith Show. So far, I haven’t found a video of this segment to verify the quote, but I’ll keep looking for it. I’d hate to think I’ve been wrong about this as well.