I never met her, but she was my Aunt Esther. She was married to my Uncle John Shovan. He died before I was even born. I think he died about 3 years beforehand. I had no idea she was still alive, until my grandma Elizabeth Papp Shovan was losing her mind. She was 84 and started living in a reality from like 20 years in the past. She thought my mother was Esther who was married to her middle son, my Uncle John. She couldn't understand why John didn't come home to get his wife Esther (who she mistook as being my mother). Where my Grandma was existing at that moment was a time at least 20 years in the past. In this reality, my mother would have only been a little child about age 5. She did not know my mother at that age, but her mind had blocked out over 20 years of event , so she naturally thought my mom was her other daughter in law, Esther. Anyway, when this all happened, she also had no clue that my dad was her baby boby who had grown up, been in WWII or anything else. She did not recognize this 43 year old grown man! She almost killed him when he tried to calm her down and explain to her what current reality looked like. He tried to gently take her by the arm, but she was very frightened and totally trying to protect herself from this stranger whom she thought was trying to hurt her. She suddenly slung her other arm at him like someone in a bar brawl and she only missed clocking him by a hair. She startled him so unexpectedly that he instinctively through his head and entire body backward in an attempt to save himself from serious injuries. My grandma was a full-blooded old country Hungarian woman who was big and super strong from all the heavy work she did for decades. Luckily, my mom was standing behind him when this happened so she was able to stop him from a full crash to the floor. Needless to say, she terrified me so bad, I refused to go near her again, even when her head cleared up and she was her normal gentle self again. Anyway, that's how I found out all about my Aunt Esther. Story was that she started acting really strange and got so bad that her husband had to have her committed. Back then, nobody ever mentioned the strange relatives they had in the family. It was an unwritten and onspoken conspiracy to erase these strange, embarrassments to oblivion by pretending they didn't exist. How sick is this?! Got to see a photo of her from years before she was committed to the mental hospital in Middletown, NY. So, that was that. I've never seen her or got to spend any time with her. This still bothers me, as there are so many relatives I still wish I could have embraced even just once. Makes me feel like my vision of family is like serious swiss cheese so full of holes, many elements, people, relationships and experiences I have been sorely deprived of. I always think of my Aunt Esther as being a beautiful person inside and out. She had a beautiful name. I was cheated out of ever knowing my Uncle John, because he died so young, but to learn that my Aunt Esther was still alive, I so feel a chronic need and sense of sadness that I never had an opportunity to spend time with her to make the connection and fill in a very big hole in my swiss cheese family.
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Esther Shovan 1903 - 1979
Esther Shovan
Middletown, Orange County, NY 10940
June 17, 1903
May 1979
Female
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Esther Shovan's History: 1903 - 1979
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Other Biographies
Other Shovan Family Biographies
Shovan, Ellsworth (Sep 23, 1914 - Dec 14, 1996)
Shovan, Clayton (Jul 28, 1925 - Jun 15, 2000)
Shovan, George (Jan 7, 1910 - Jan 9, 1993)
Shovan, Florence (May 17, 1904 - Jan 1968)
Shovan, Bessie (Apr 7, 1910 - Sep 1986)
Shovan, Julia (Aug 27, 1879 - Sep 1968)
Shovan, Helen (Jul 24, 1912 - Apr 1986)
Shovan, Gilbert (Dec 8, 1902 - Jul 1987)
Shovan, Richard (Mar 8, 1927 - Jan 6, 2006)
Shovan, Thomas (Oct 6, 1939 - Apr 9, 1999)
Shovan, Dorothy (May 5, 1916 - Jul 25, 2008)
Shovan, Aubrey (Dec 20, 1932 - May 1979)
Shovan, Stephen (Dec 26, 1908 - Oct 1981)
Shovan, Joan (Dec 9, 1932 - Dec 18, 2005)
Shovan, Agnes (May 17, 1907 - Oct 1992)
Shovan, Barbara (Oct 19, 1914 - Oct 1, 2002)
Shovan, Beatrice (Jan 10, 1899 - Jul 1980)
Shovan, Herbert (Jan 19, 1908 - Apr 27, 1992)
Shovan, James (Jul 12, 1928 - Apr 19, 1994)
Shovan, Joan (Apr 25, 1934 - Feb 16, 2009)
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