Michael and I are once again at coffee in his modest house on the Baltimore DMZ, drinking coffee and laughing about our recent observations upon this savage planet of the apes we have found ourselves marooned upon. Some dates and ages may need fixed in the autumn 2026 draft.

Of William Hood, into a family digression and back again.

“He may have done it [marry into the Siebels] because he wanted to be supported by this family he perceived as being wealthy. They were clearly on their nadir—they had a lot of kids. Where the money went—there was nothing left. They may have had the facade of wealth to marry the other kids off, and there was nothing left. Then there is the silver, the Siebel Silver, which went to Grandma Jubb then it went to Lillian, our great grandmother, and because Aunt Bet and Uncle Bill had the house, it transferred to the house on McKewin Avenue, and then Paul got it. He took it with him and when he died it was lost with his partner and we the family did not get it back. I happen to have one spoon. I have one spoon, with the ‘s’ monogram on the spoon. It was definitely one from the set—your mom told me.

“My grandmother died a week before my twenty-fifth birthday. Paul died maybe a month afterwards, and we gave his family a plot. So Paul is buried in one of the plots where my grandparents were going to be buried. But they were cremated, because we could not afford to bury them. It was such a bad time. The cognitive dissonance was amazing.

…

“Grandma Jubb married William Hood on May 4, 1903 and she applied for divorce on November 18, 1903, it was in the Baltimore Sun, because they published everything back then. The divorce became final on July 4, 1905.

Reading: “Elizabeth Hood, applied in the circuit court by G. Guy Wilson, Attorney, for an absolute divorce from William Hood, employed at Websters Shipping Agency, on the ground of unfaithfulness. They were married May 7 last.

Quotes from Police Reports and Court Proceedings

“He did not support my daughter and in fact I had to support him.”

-Mini, Great Great Grandma Siebel, Grandma Jubb’s mother.

“He left me two weeks after we got married and he’s living with a Colored woman.”

-Grandma Jubb, maiden name Elizabeth Jane Siebel

Mini went down to confront the girlfriend who told her that the only reason why William married her daughter was to make her, his girlfriend, jealous.

Then she finally married James Jubb on January 26, 1906. So at that point Lillian was six years old. I told you mother that and she said, ‘I wish my mother was alive for you to tell her that—she would KILL you!’”

“My grandmother remembers him as having a farm on the Eastern Shore. But that had to be later on in life. Something about that doesn’t jibe with meeting Lizzy in Baltimore. Although the pictures I find of him are in a rural setting. There as a lot of Quaids on the Eastern Shore, but not Siebels. They immigrated directly to Baltimore. The Jubbs had connections to rural Anne Arundel County and the Eastern Shore, and were farmers, the more rural farmy parts of Southern Maryland. There is a Jubb graveyard surrounded by a development in Anne Arundel County near the Magothy River and Jubb Cove. So there is a Cove there named after them. That was the river that Joe and Helen’s [our deceased aunt and uncle] house was on. When you looked across the river and saw that bridge, that was the Magothy River Bride. So everything is interconnected. The only thing I remember her telling me was that she liked going down to the farm, because it had a spring and they liked drinking water from the spring.

“They stay married until he died. My great grandmother Lillian would have been 14 when he died in 1940. He was 79, 1861 to 1940. Lizzy lived from 1868 to 1957. Lillian, Great Grandma, got married when she was 17. They always lived in Baltimore, in the city, they bopped around to different addresses until they bought the one on McKewin Avenue. When Grandma Jubb/Siebel, at some point when she was a widow, she was on McKewin Avenue, just a few houses up from Lillian and Joseph. When they were married Joseph was 27 and Lillian was 17.

“They were happy, had lots of kids; your grandmother Mary was first, burn right in the middle of the influenza, 1918. I like this picture, he’s a strapping man.”

[In the picture Lillian is sitting on the top stair of a white painted plank porch with her bent elbow on Joseph’s shoulder. Joseph, an athletic man, is standing at the base of the stairs.]

“From the looks of the tops of the houses that is McKewin Avenue—don’t want to go there now! This is one of the movie theaters where he was a projectionist, it was called the Blue Mouse on Lexington and Charles.

“The oldest Mary, your grandmother, October 7, 1918, Elizabeth February 26, 1920, Joseph II was March 20, 1923, Alice, my grandmother, November 9, 1926, Aunt May was July 3, 1931, and Aunt Anne, with an ‘e’ was March 28th 1936.

“Joseph died on November 27, 1948 of Stomach cancer, he as only 58 years old, did not outlive his mother-in-law. Aunt Elizabeth died of stomach cancer as well, young, 1980 or 81. Poor Uncle Bill, your wife, two of your sons…

[James calls Lillian Grandma Quaid and Michael Great Grandma.]

“My mother remembers Grandma Jubb, Lizy, pretty well. I have some Halloween decorations that Grandma Jubb gave to my mother when she was a little kid, a plasticine cat holding a pumpkin and you put candy in the pumpkin. For Christmas I had this Santa Clause boot and an elf—a really hideous, scary looking elf—that I still have. She remembers grandma Jubb would sip her coffee out of the saucer, spill a bit in the saucer to cool it off and sip it.