Minnie and Tillie - The Dramatic Twins
Reading Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls inspired me to do a series of posts on my own family stories (though don’t freak out, I don’t plan to post them often ... maybe a couple a month or something). I grew up with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and parents telling me family stories the way many families tell bedtime stories. It was one of the quickest ways to get me to shut up if I was being annoying on a long drive or in a bad mood. They would sit me down and talk of relatives I had never known, people long past and in those stories I came to understand and love my roots, my history.
***************
Story #1 - Minnie and Tillie, The Dramatic Twins
My Grandmother had two aunts, twins, called Minnie and Tillie. They were born with a flair for the dramatic and loved to be the center of attention. Their mother would shake her head and worry that the girls would never marry. They were too loud, too brash, and too wild to ever find a husband. Minnie and Tillie didn’t care though. As far as the twins were concerned they did not want to settle down, not yet anyways, not when there was a whole world outside their little hamlet to explore.
By the time Tillie turned twenty she had had enough though of the small village, and one night, while the family slept, Tillie packed a small sack full of her favourite belongings, stole some money from her parents, and travelled into London.
Her family was in a right panic the next morning. Her mother, frantic, demanded that Minnie told them where Tillie had run off to.
“The stage mom,” Minnie responded. “She’s going to be an actress.”
Outraged, her mother demanded that Minnie travel to London and grab her wayward sister before she disgraced the family. So Minnie travelled into the city and found her sister, while their parents waited for them to come home ... and they waited ... and they waited, until finally a telegraph arrived.
Minnie explained that she had decided to join her sister on the stage and that neither of them would be returning. Their mother desperately tried to make them see reason, but Minnie and Tillie were too stubborn to be swayed. In a rage their parents disowned them, telling them that if they were willing to choose the stage over their own family then they would have no family. Minnie and Tillie had each other though, and with sad hearts kept acting on the London stages.
It was not too many years later that an economic recession hit Great Britain. The family was suddenly broke, and were faced with losing their house when my great-Grandfather had enough of the quarrel between his sisters and parents. He had secretly kept in contact with Minnie and Tillie and told them of the hard times the family now faced. Right away Minnie and Tillie came home and after much arguing convinced their parents to let them back in. While jobs were scarce, the theatre was booming and Minnie and Tillie had more than enough money to help their parents keep their home.
Their mother, feeling bad for the years they had been a part, apologized for disowning them, and while she still considered theatre to be an unladylike profession, they put the past behind them. After all, when it comes to family, life is too short for grudges.
**********
This was always one of my favourite family tales. I liked to think it was because of them that I was drawn to the stage. There was something in my blood which tied back to them, since they were the last actors until my cousin and I, myself, took to the stage. Minnie lived until her late-nineties and passed away when I was a young child.