This one’s timely

My Great-Great-Grandmother Blynth was single when she gave birth to my Great-Grandmother Reginow. When asked who was the father, she was mum.

Last Sunday at the family picnic, my Great-Great-Grandmother Blynth took me aside and asked if I could keep a secret. I said I could, even though I’d never ever been able to. For instance, when I was seven, my best friend Billy Beaver once made me pinky swear not to tell anyone he was in love with his cat, Miss Mercy, and one day hoped they would marry. By the end of the day, via me, everyone at Bollswigger Elementary knew. That night Billy ran away from home with Miss Mercy. About a year later they were found on a shipping freighter at a port in Guangzhou Harbor, China. Billy came back to school, and during lunch asked if was the one who told. I said I was. He asked why I broke the pinky swear. I said I have a problem with keeping secrets, but I have a hard time admitting it.

Anyway, my  Great-Great-Grandmother Blynth shared with me that from 1904 to 1906 she was White House secretary for President Theodore Roosevelt and Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks, and sometimes did it with both of them. She got pregnant and they fired her. Six months later she gave birth to Great-Grandmother Reginow. I asked why she decided to tell me. She said I seemed non-judgemental. I said I wasn’t and listed the low opinions I had of every family member at the picnic. She said I was spot on, then reiterated I’d promised to not tell anyone. I said I’d keep it private from the family. (They don’t read these posts, so I think I’m finally turning the corner on keeping a secret.)

When I got home that night, I got in my time-travel machine and went back to the White House in 1907. There in the Oval Office were President Roosevelt and Vice-President Fairbanks. They asked what I was doing there. I said I was a visiting relative. They asked of which of them. I said I was the great-great-godson of their former secretary Blynth. They asked how that was possible, and I showed them my time-travel machine. They asked how that was possible. I said eventually everything is.