A matter of family history, college recollection, and one younger sister who apparently never learned discretion
By Deep Aster Schitt
Senior Correspondent & Public Affairs
There are stories preserved because somebody carefully recorded them.
There are stories preserved because a courthouse clerk filed the proper paperwork.
And then there are stories preserved because somebody’s little sister wouldn’t shut up.
The following belongs principally to the third category.
The Asse Family
Arthur Douglas Asse [ASE-0001] and Fanny May (Bottoms) Asse [ASE-0002] had two daughters:
Anita Kay Asse [ASE-0003], born 1961, and her younger sister, Nancy Lynne Asse [ASE-0004], born 1965.
By most surviving accounts, the family was unremarkable.
This condition did not survive Nancy learning to talk.
According to family recollection, Anita later attended college, where at some point she became acquainted with Crock O. Schitt.
Precisely how acquainted has proven more difficult to establish.
Nancy had an opinion.
Nancy generally did.
According to Nancy
Nancy maintained for years that her older sister flirted with Crock.
Not met.
Not spoke with.
Not happened to know.
Flirted.
Nancy reportedly supplied this information freely, repeatedly, and with considerably greater enthusiasm than either of the alleged participants.
Whether Nancy personally witnessed the behavior, learned of it from Anita, reconstructed it from subsequent family gossip, or simply possessed the younger-sister ability to know things nobody remembered telling her remains uncertain.
What is reasonably established is that Nancy told people.
Those people remembered.
Eventually somebody wrote it down.
And now we’re all here.
Anita’s Position
Available family material contains no categorical statement from Anita confirming Nancy’s account.
It also contains no particularly energetic denial.
Make of that what you will.
I certainly have.
Crock’s Position
The Chief Archivist was afforded an opportunity to comment.
His response was substantially less useful than Nancy’s.
Crock acknowledges knowing Anita during the relevant period but disputes the wisdom of permitting younger sisters to serve as historical authorities concerning the social behavior of their elders.
When asked specifically whether Anita flirted with him, Crock reportedly became interested in discussing archival standards.
This correspondent considers that responsive in ways he probably did not intend.
The Rumor
Here is where responsible journalism requires me to distinguish documented fact from rumor.
Documented: Anita and Crock knew one another.
Family account: Anita flirted with Crock.
Principal source: Nancy.
Rumor: Everything after that.
And there is plenty of everything after that.
Various retellings have enlarged an apparently ordinary college acquaintance into versions involving dates, missed dates, dances, arguments, reconciliations, parking lots, one suspiciously long conversation after midnight, and an incident involving a borrowed jacket.
No surviving evidence presently supports any of those embellishments.
Nancy has reportedly supported several of them at different times.
This has not helped.
What Probably Happened
My professional assessment, reached after careful consideration of the available evidence and absolutely no consultation whatsoever with Crock, is that Anita probably flirted with him.
This is not an extraordinary proposition.
Young adults occasionally flirt.
Crock was apparently young once.
Documentation supporting that last assertion remains surprisingly adequate.
Whether anything resulted from Anita’s alleged efforts is another matter entirely.
The record is silent.
Crock is quieter.
Nancy was not.
Why This Is in the Archives
Because family history isn’t composed exclusively of births, marriages, deaths, deeds, census entries, and people standing stiffly beside furniture for photographs.
Families remember stories.
Some are accurate.
Some are exaggerated.
Some begin accurately and spend forty years being improved at reunions.
And some survive because one younger sister discovers that a particular story annoys her older sister and therefore recognizes a solemn obligation to preserve it for future generations.
Nancy Lynne Asse appears to have understood this responsibility exceptionally well.
Consequently, the Master Family Register contains the notation:
“College attendance; flirted with Crock!”
The Archives has no intention of removing it.
I checked.
Correspondent’s Closing Note
Anita’s version of events would be welcomed should it ever become available.
Crock’s version is technically available.
Nobody has found it particularly illuminating.
Nancy’s version has been available to virtually anyone within conversational distance for decades.
Until better evidence emerges, readers are encouraged to examine the record and reach their own conclusions.
Personally, I have.
But Public Affairs has advised me that apparently I’m supposed to keep at least one thing to myself.
— Deep Aster Schitt
Senior Correspondent & Public Affairs
Crock O. Schitt Historical Archives