Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Today's Blind Items

This item would be way better as a more in depth feature of grandpa and everything he did, but space is short. This A list female country singer comes from a very interesting family. It turns out that her grandfather had at least four or five different families that he kept scattered across the country. Sometimes he would divorce before marrying and sometimes he wouldn't. He had families and kids all over the place. Our singer's mother was from the first woman he married.

59 comments:

  1. Loretta Lynn.

    Yeah, I know, she's beyond A list, she's Legendary - but still...given her background, it makes a lot of sense.

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  2. First, let's not even mention the usual A-List country suspects like Taylor and Carrie, since their grandpas are young enough that all their information is searchable. Has to be someone in the Loretta-Dolly age range. This should be fairly easy to narrow down with some googling.

    Dolly's wiki page says that her grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher in the area where she grew up. That would most likely take her out the running, as I'm assuming since the singer's mother came from the *first* of several wives, then the singer may not know much about her grandfather.

    Loretta Lynn's grandfather taught her how to play the guitar. Going by the logic above, if Loretta knew her grandpa well enough to learn the guitar from him, he probably wasn't on the run with several women.

    Reba's grandfather was a world champion rodeo performer. Assuming that this guy had to travel a lot, I'm betting he planted his seed in more than a few places. So that's my guess.

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  3. I love the Reba guess.

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  4. Hell, all of them? Probably married a few cousins too along the way.

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  5. I'm going with Reba-my-accent-gets-stronger-the-longer-I'm-away-from-the-South-just-like-Paula-Deen McEntire.

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  6. Anonymous2:35 PM

    Why is Reba always hosting the country award shows? She is entertaining, but isn't there someone else? Or are ratings stronger when she is the host?

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  7. 1. I'm not sure why this is a CDAN blind item. The person in question is two generations removed from a celebrity.

    2. I would love to have something so juicy in my family tree. My family history is rather boring. I'm a little jealous.

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  8. i wouldn't say learning guitar from grampa means it can't be loretta. but i don't think it's her.
    reba's grampa being a rodeo star fits much better. how interesting!

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  9. I'm going with Tanya Tucker or Loretta Lynn. This on the assumption that the artist is alive.

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  10. I should probably say Reba if I was smart, but I'm gonna say Wynonna, b/c that family could use some more problems ;)

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  11. I hate to be this person, especially since I'm not even the first, but...

    ALL OF THEM!

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  12. I'm going with Wynonna because there are too many secrets and half-truths in the "Judd" story.

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  13. hahahaha! syd you are sooooooo funny!

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  14. Faith Hill. So I hear Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy broke up. I wonder if they were the subject of any blinds.Wasn't there one last week about a celebrity couple that had been together quite awhile by Hollywood standards?

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  15. @ Paisley, I have a closet stuffed with family secrets. Murder and infidelity with incest thrown in. You are more than welcome to the lot. Where should I deliver the skeletons?

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  16. Since you asked, the best skeletons in my family closet: Well, actually, they're in the Smithsonian. A couple of generations ago my distant cousin gave birth to quintuplets. They died soon after birth, and family legend has it they were "handled to death." Now all five of them are in a jar in formaldehyde in the Smithsonian. I'm sure I've told that story here before, but I love re-telling it, so there.

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  17. W.T.F?!?!?!?!

    Your baby cousins are in a jar of formaldehyde in the Smithsonian?!?!

    Ok, you win.

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  18. Patty Loveless that's where she gits all the pain in her voice.

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  19. @ Paisley,
    Just do some genealogy research on your own. You will find something fun and interesting.

    I found out I'm descended from Mary Boleyn. Henry VIII took our family castle, Hever Castle, when he beheaded all the family except Mary. Can anyone help me reclaim my castle? I'll let you visit one week a year for free!!

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  20. It's not Wynonna. Her father never married Naomi. Naomi just lied to Wy all her life that her first husband (Ashley's bio father) was Wy's.

    Gotta think about other suspects. Hmmmm.

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  21. Also not Patty Loveless (who is related to Loretta). Her dad was a coal miner who stayed with the family and, as far as I know, stayed with them and they cared for him when he got black lung disease.

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  22. @Terri,

    That's awesome. I wish I could do a geneaology search, but India was CRAP at keeping records, and I'm originally from there. :( Anything cool that my family might have done or anything is pretty much just...lost.

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  25. Wynonna. "Grandpa" was a huge hit. And it's grandfather, not father. (So it could have been Naomi's dad. Or Wynonna's Bio dad's dad....)

    So who was Naomi's dad? Or Wy's Bio Dad's Dad?

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  26. Who knows? I don't even think Wy has met her bio dad, much less knows who his grandfather was.

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  27. Sorry, read the info wrong... Had to be Mom's dad, not bio-dad's dad.

    So, still Wynonna.

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  28. FYI, was talking about their dads to show the connection. Like Patty Loveless coming from a coal miner father, very unlikely his father was traveling the country siring other children.

    Reba seems like the likely culprit.

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  29. Was Minnie Pearl a singer?

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  30. Mooshki,
    Is this yours????
    And the mummified bodies of five newborn babies -- the Lyons quintuplets, who were born and quickly died in Kentucky in 1896 and then spent years exhibited in carnivals before their mother sold them to the museum in 1916. (The quints aren't the only carnival attraction in the museum's collection. In a warehouse is the embalmed corpse of bank robber Andy "Dutch" Kapler, who was shot by lawmen in 1922 and became a posthumous sideshow attraction before he was donated to the museum in 2003.)

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  31. P.S. I have long been fascinated by the underground Smithsonian exhibits. Sorry, I actually had this!

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  32. My first thought was Kelly Pickler, just because she's so very interesting. Then I saw her in the photos, so I'm sticking with this guess.

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  33. my grandfather was an artist not only did he work with Charles Schultz who created Charlie Brown at the Bureau of Engraving in St. Paul, he also made a calendar with a little gopher making trouble on a golf course. He had all the characters, etc, etc, and every month the gopher would be doing something naughty--when Caddyshack came out he was super pissed and swore that it was just too close to his to be an accident.


    Also, his uncle developed glow in the dark tape AND reflective tape. He went to 3M and showed them how he did it and all and wanted them to buy it. They said, "that is awesome! Just get it patented and we will buy it from you." and then they went and got the patent first. He hung himself.

    Or those are the stories I am told, anyway! :)

    Oh, and a relative of mine Benjamin Jarvis was in the first group of settlers to Minnesota and his son was the first white baby born in Minnesota.

    And my grandfather's father donated the land on which the capitol in St. Paul is built!

    YAY my family, Lol

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  34. These have been the most enjoyable and insightful blind item comments I have read in 2 years. You guys are making me laugh out loud, thank you.

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  35. These have been the most enjoyable and insightful blind item comments I have read in 2 years. You guys are making me laugh out loud, thank you.

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  36. OK so colour me naive, but what the heck does "handled to death." mean?! I HAVE TO KNOW! LOL

    I'm gonna go with Wynonna on this. That whole family just...yeah.

    Nothing too exciting in my family's history, but we have a LIVING relative, an uncle, my mom's brother, who has 3 illegitimate kids (and counting.) They just keep showing up. Growing up I only knewmy two cousins, his two daughters; now there are five. WTF? Canadian White Trash...ahhhhh....LOL

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  37. This item is more about the first sentence than anything else. Its more about the dude, ie. grandpa than the country singer. But ironically, " 'SPACE' is short." How many times have we read an enty blind item that is ridiculously long? So, and I may be more than schematically off-base, but I think the grandpa = Buzz Aldrin (sp). Its just an aloof guess with no reserach behind it, but it might make sense

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  39. Ugh, I meant Carlene Carter, not Deana. Oops.However, I doubt she's A list.

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  40. I have no idea, but I love this blind, partly because it's so different, and partly because it got people sharing really interesting stories about their own families. Great stuff Enty :-)

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  41. Lissette, that sure sounds like them! I just heard the story from my dad, so I don't know for sure. He was from Alabama, so Kentucky would make sense.

    Jen, the way you asked that made it sound dirty, LOL! What they meant was that people came from all over to see the quints, and they all wanted to hold them, so they thought all that being passed around from person to person killed them.

    chihuahuense, you are Minnesota royalty! Cool!

    Terri, I have Richard III and Benedict Arnold in my family tree. To those who think I am evil - it's genetic, I can't help it! ;)

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  42. You guys now how I am...totally bitch.

    Normally, I don't read blinds...find them retarded but I READ THIS ONE and I don't understand how this could even be considered a blind item.

    So, I wonder why is this even a blind...tell....couldn't come up with a better one.

    Why have blinds anyway....this is a gossip site post if its true.

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  43. my vote's for wynonna, partly because of her families history and partly because i can't get her song 'grandpa' out of my head now.

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  44. I agree that these have been some of the most enjoyable BI comments in awhile :D
    So, to throw my own hat in the ring... my grandfather was born a conjoined twin, his brother was on his back, half formed. The surgery was succesful but my grandad was always plagued with illnesses and somewhere along the line ended up with an amputated leg that I used to swing from and knock on like a door and ask knock knock jokes to it. Hehee, he called me 'brat' affectionatly.

    He was born in the early 1930's and for him to have survived this surgery was pretty impressive so I'm told.

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  45. oh yeah, his mama (my great grandma) gave birth to 20 children, 2 sets of which were twins, the one being conjoined. One of my most irrational fears is that no one since has had twins yet and I am the oldest girl of my generation... I have nightmares sometimes of delivering like 5 kids stuck together at once, lol

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  46. Maternal Grandpa used to work at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans (and used to bring home one of the lions for mom to play with). His picture is also in the Cabildo in Jackson Square.

    Related to Pat O'Brien (hic) and Brett Favre (only we spelled it Faure).

    Love the geneology here.

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  47. I'm a descendant of one of my least favorite founding fathers - Alexander Hamilton. :)

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  48. Charlie Pride no doubt.

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  49. After my grandma died, I was going through the attic of her house with my uncle, when we dug up a bunch of newspaper clippings and what not of Joseph McCarthy, and he informed me that McCarthy was his godfather. As in, the guy who started the Red Scare and made everyone paranoid of communists. I really only wish I had known this when my English lit was reading The Crucible (the Salem Witch trial was an analogy for the Red Scare). My grandma was a staunch Democrat, but it makes sense because both McCarthy and my grandfather went to Marquette, so I guess they were friends from back in the day?

    Also, supposedly my mom's side of the family can trace themselves back to the Mayflower and both Abe Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth are descendants...

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  50. I'm going with Taylor Swift because her maternal grandmother was a professional opera singer and they haven't released her name to my knowledge.

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  51. @Vanessa - because we LIKE the blinds. They are the epitome of celebrity gossip.

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  52. Thanks, Mooshki! And you're right, now that I read what I wrote, it DOES sound dirty LOLOLOL :D

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  53. I like the Dolly guess. I myself am descended from Henry Ireton who along with Oliver Cromwell, murdered the Catholics in Ireland way back when... Since we are Catholic...I am wondering if there was any pressure to make the switch from Protestant. Oh, they were hanged for their crimes. So proud!! Anyway, some of the Ireton relatives have been to Ireland where the older Catholic folk still bristle to the Ireton name...seems you can run but you can't hide...

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  55. I don't know much about my geneology, but my mother is illegitimate! *gasp* She was embarrassed to tell me until I was in my 30's. She said my dad held it over her head all the time. That made me so mad at him.
    Also had a cousin who was once in the Moonies cult.

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