In my Grandmother's family there's the story of a lost brother. Brian was one of eight children. Uncle Claude was Grandmother's oldest brother and he was a Washington, D. C. Policeman. Then there was Aunt Lena who went through nurse's training at St. Elizabeth's Hospital which was the mental hospital for Washington, D.C. and where she met her husband my Uncle Ed. Uncle Burl was a local builder in Fairfax, Virginia in the 1940's-50's and built my parent's home on Popes Head Road along with five other houses on the road and renovated the old schoolhouse they had all attended into a home which my Aunt Margarette's family still owns. Uncle Kline I believe drove a cab in Washington, D.C. Uncle Harry was a Washington, D. C. bus driver. My grandmother, Virginia, worked at the torpedo plant in Alexandria, Virginia during WWII and then followed her boss Mr. Parks to the Veteran's Administration after the war which was an all new Federal Agency. Aunt Margaret worked in a nursing home for years. My Great Grandmother Rose Anna Spenser Shelton was the third wife of Charles Shelton who had lost two previous wives to untimely deaths. Great Grandmother Rose raised the children produced by those marriages and my Great Uncle Oscar was one of those children. He loved her very much and always stayed close to his younger half brothers and sisters.
I'm not sure how Brian fits in age wise, whether he was between Claude and Lena or after Lena. I understand from my Grandmother that he was a big strapping boy and way mature for his age. He didn't get along with my Great Grandfather and it was said that Great Grandfather picked on him. I vaguely remember hearing that he had been institutionalized for a bit and when he came home he got in a terrible row with his father. After the quarrel the last anyone saw of him was when he was heading across the fields to Fairfax Station having told his Father and anyone else who was there that he wouldn't come back until he was the richest Shelton known. He hopped the train at the Station and never returned. (I understand train hopping was sport to the boys in my grandmother's family.) Grandmother said that her father tracked Brian to a circus in Baltimore, Maryland and he went there to bring Brian home but the circus people helped him hide. He had joined the circus as the strong man and he was only seventeen years old. Great Grandfather came home without him.
My Great Uncles and Aunts believed all their lives that their missing brother was Jack Dempsey. Jack Dempsey was known as the Manassa Mawler. Manassas, Virginia was the biggest town down the railroad line from Fairfax Station. He looked and talked like Brian. Aunt Lena's children were offered scholarships from an anonymous person when they were in school and she believed they came from Jack Dempsey (Brian). My Uncle Oscar went to a Jack Dempsey match and stood at the ring saying "come home, Brian, come home" and Jack Dempsey didn't acknowledge him. In this day and age would my uncle have been seen as a stalker? My grandmother had a bow tie that she said was Brian's but it's been lost over all these years.
In the early 1970's I worked for Sears Service Center on 19th Avenue in San Francisco, California. A person who was retired from there used to come to visit all the time. His name was Jack Downey and he had been a professional boxing referee in the day and had known Jack Dempsey. I told him about how my family thought Jack Dempsey was their long lost brother who had run away from home and he told me there was a hotel bar or restaurant somewhere with a picture of Jack Dempsey's parents. I Don't remember where the bar was, somewhere in California, but he thought my relatives were in error. I never pushed for any more information nor have I read any biographies or autobiographies and maybe I should have. In writing this I just wanted to record what my older family members thought and not to try and prove anything.
My Great grandmother waited all her life for Brian to come home.
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