Having the new realisation that not only did my Nanna - a seemingly placid born-again Christian with a daughter and two son's did WHAT before she met Grandfather.
I called my Dad and had to ask him a bunch of questions so that he could ask ME a lot of questions.
No, he didn't know that about his Mum. How did I learn about this, where is the evidence?
I took photos with my phone of the letter from the secret admirer mentioning Nanna's alias and the fact that was the Government sending out those requests to be actioned in the background.
I then text him a copy of a newspaper clipping with details about Harold's circumstances - missing at sea.
In the article, it says that Harold was at the beach with his *mistress, while his wife was in Canberra having an early Christmas party with coworkers and staff.
Though there is no confirmation, bar the newspaper article shoved amid these letters, no one can say with confidence that Marjorie Gillespie is the one he had an affair with.
But when a letter to Nanna from her secret admirer states that she is playing the role of Marjorie Gillespie, and Marjorie was on the beach with him that day, and if I can locate anything further, I might be able to confirm that it was my Nanna there that day.
If so, where did she go?
Why wasn't she spotted or photographed that day?
Harold's wife was away, so the cat does play.
Do I have to go to the library to find more information? Or will Nanna's house and all its information in the boxes be enough to quell my curiosity?
I decide both will work and I'm able to use Google while looking at information in the letters and documents.
After going over files and not finding ANYTHING more, I sit back to assess where I'm at.
Looking around the room while I think, I notice a filing cabinet and a long, wooden display cabinet.
I just know there will be more answers to find in there.
I spend a few hours making a path to both cabinets by way of sorting what to keep, donate or throw.
I take a break after three hours and go downstairs to Nanna's kitchen to make myself some lunch.
I enjoy a hot cup of tea and a ham and salad sandwich in the loungeroom with my eyes greedily searching the room.
Are there more secrets hidden in plain sight?
I do a bunch of back stretches and lunges before making my way back up the stairs to search those two cabinets.
I manage to make my way over to the filing cabinet, and pull open the first drawer.
Inside are filed copies of personal papers, bills, invoices, overdue notices, and medical histories for Nanna, Dad, and Uncle Mark.
I peek inside every manilla folder I find.
After not managing to locate anything of importance in the top drawer, I open the middle drawer to resume my hunt.
Inside I find old copies of English exams made for her students, and sheets to summarise the information needed for a quiz and Nanna's teaching degree.
My bones begin to almost vibrate when I close the middle drawer to open the bottom drawer.
Inside I simply find a disorganised pile of government documents and letters to Nanna from her secret admirer.
"Bingo!" I shout out loud to no one, "I found more!"
With that, I grabbed everything in the filing cabinet and place it in an archive box for me to look through.
I then head over to the long cabinet and as I assumed it was mostly full of collector spoons from around the world in her travels and collector plates, each representing a different time in her life.
If only there was a plate for Harold Holt, with a simple inscription of "I helped cause his death" and his date of death.
Pity life and its mysteries aren't that simple.
I flip out a little cupboard door on the cabinet and am rewarded with another stack of letters.
Between Addy and Harry.
And some extra information about Dame Zara, Harold Holt's ex-wife.
Zara had three sons with her first husband, Colonel James Fell, two of which were twins. Their marriage broke down soon after the birth of the twins.
After they divorced, she married Harold Holt in 1946.
He legally adopted her children from the first marriage, giving them his surname.
I sing to myself, "Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, what a mighty good man!" (Thank you salt n pepa!)
Imagine that!
A woman with three sons, managing to remarry and having her husband formally adopt her children.
During that time-period, getting a divorce, having a child out of wedlock and sleeping around are enough for people to stare, gossip and make waves.
The only reason I know this is purely because my great-grandmother on my Mother's side, gave birth to my Grandpa and because she was an unwed mother, and the father had ditched her to go to war. He passed away, and my Great-Grandmother was able to meet and marry a new man, Ron. He stuck around till the day of his death.
Smoking cigarettes as heavily as he had been for 25 years caused gangrene issues in his leg. They had to remove a leg, after which he went into shock and died.
It was after that, at a family reunion over 20 years ago, now, during which we were all meant to put our names and Date of Birth to visually show the family line, but also be able to see what genetics went where.
This was the reunion that outed Nan as being my Grandpa's Mum, not aunty. Which meant the relatives I had been calling Nan and pop, were actually great aunt and uncle.
Which made my Great Aunt, my great-grandmother.
So confusing, but also the other side of the family.
My Nanna was a decorated English teacher, that was requested to go to Papa New Guinea and teach the locals English.
After 9 years of teaching New Guineans English, Nanna moved back to Australia, settling in Corowa NSW, still teaching and tutoring English students and being a very active member of her church.
Nanna chose the 'Born again Christian' route, and after my Grandfather left her for another woman, leaving Nanna to raise her three children alone.
It was the early 70's when my Aunty Rose graduated with a music degree and as a result, the American School The Juilliard Academy of Music in New York, NY.
Aunty Rose was thrown a luncheon by the Australian Government to celebrate this and was gifted a gold medal and a gold coated flute.
The flute was Aunty Rose's speciality.
It was on that very day, however, that Nanna and Aunty Rose were hit front- on, by a drunk driver.
Aunty Rose was killed on impact, but my Nanna, her legs bones were literally crushed. This caused Nanna to be in hospital for 18 months.
During this time, Nanna got bored and so with permission from the hospital executives, was able to create Arts and Crafts sessions to teach those who had no skills.
All my other family members really do refer to Nanna as the McGuiver of Arts and Crafts.
I know no one else who can make a beautiful necklace made from a ribbon, marbles and giant beads.
Nanna taught me to write my name and decorate glasses with the 1980's puff paint.
So many of these things have helped mold me into the person I am today.
I'm determined to discover who my Nanna really was, and what she did before she was married.
I got this.