He was born in Australia, and immigrated to the US with his brother and sister (my grandmother) when they were all in their teens.

He lived in San Francisco, and my family used to go visit him every now and again. He lived in completely scary housing, including a condemned building that he was being forced out of when we visited once. He was an alcoholic, and the angry kind. He hated his brother (who also lived in SF), and hadn't spoken to him in 30 years. He hadn't spoken to his own kids for many years either, and they wanted nothing to do with him. But, my mom and dad would take us to visit, and for some reason he decided he liked my dad.

When he passed away in the late 1970's, he was worth a lot more than was apparent by how he lived. He had 3 living nieces (my mom, and two aunts). He left them each $10,000. He also left $5000 to 2 of his grand-nieces (my oldest sister, and my oldest female cousin). He left the rest of his estate to my dad, which was somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000. In all the time we visited him, we had no clue that he was anything more than a drunken bum uncle that hated most of the world.