Carol Hoyt, Neodesha, Kansas: My great-grandmother Minnie (Wisner) Calhoun lived with her daughter Minnie (Calhoun) Splinter in North Platte, Nebraska. One day in 1948, elder Minnie fried an egg for her daughter’s breakfast. Younger Minnie was not yet ready for breakfast. By the time younger Minnie got to the egg it was cold, so she threw it out. Elder Minnie had a strong reaction. She called another daughter, Emeline, claiming that younger Minnie was throwing her out of the house. Elder Minnie moved in with Emeline that day and stayed until her death in 1957. Elder and younger Minnie never spoke to each other again after the egg incident.

Bob Hall, North Easton, Massachusetts: My great-uncle willed my mother and her siblings his camp on a New Hampshire lake. My mother’s brother wanted my mother’s share in addition to his own. The brother was cantankerous. He had a temper and carried grudges. Eventually, my mother sold her brother her share. Despite the resolution, the brother refused to speak to my mother again.

Peg Werner, Fergus Falls, Minnesota: When my great-grandfather Thomas Bossmann died, he left his farm and tree claim in Turner County, South Dakota, to his sons, Tom and Ben. Thomas’s daughters Harmke, Swantje, and Jennie (my grandmother) had received significant monetary gifts upon marriage. A fourth daughter, Bena, did not marry; she lived with her brothers on the family farm. Harmke and Swantje’s husbands successfully sued Thomas’s estate for equal shares of the farm, forcing a sale. Tom, Ben, and Bena relocated to the tree claim. Swantje’s family was later forced to sell their share of the farm to pay for medical expenses for their child. Jennie, who had chosen not to participate in the lawsuit, was bitter about the breakup of the family farm. She told her sister Swantje, "Well, I guess you got yours after all!" Those relationships were never mended.

Iain Bruce, York, Maine: My paternal grandparents, Robert "Red Bob" (for his hair color) Bruce and Christina "Chirstie" Mitchell McTavish, were from adjacent small villages on the west coast of Scotland. Chirstie died from an infection in 1941, when my dad was ten years old. As a fisherman, Red Bob was absent from home for long stretches of time. He believed that his sons should have a woman at home to care for them while he risked his life at sea, so he remarried quickly—too quickly for Chirstie’s family. According to family lore, the McTavishes were so upset by Red Bob's rapid remarriage that they dug up his late wife from her husband's plot and re-buried her with her own family in a different graveyard. I have seen Chirstie McTavish's name and dates on two stones in cemeteries several miles apart, so I believe this outlandish story may actually be true!