That trait comes from my MIL's family line.
Start with an American man who feels called to the mission field in Rhodesia at the age of 20. Both of his wives (first one killed by a drunk driver), missionary nurses. He meets the first one on his initial boat ride to Africa and they marry during the passage.
He spends more than 65 years in the mission field, then returns to the US when he has weeks left to live, to meet his grandchildren and great-grandchidren. Lung cancer, the asbestos type. During those 65 years, he built countless churches, schools, medical clinics, etc.
Ten children, one a boy. Those children? Five years in the bush with missionary parents, years in a strict British boarding school for missionaries' children with summers and holidays back in the bush doing missionary work.
Sent to the US to finish high school and attend college, living with and on the dime of the very wealthy BIL, husband of the missionary's sister. To complicate the already odd upbringing, the missionary's sister, who is the 'mother' to finish HS and college, is a woman of another age. Servants. Always in white gloves. Button-up shoes in the early 50s. Etiquette classes for the kids in which they learn about oyster spoons, pastry forks, sugar spoons, fish knives . . . all of which is confusing, because US placement sometimes differs from the British placement they were taught in boarding school. Debutantes. Formal dinners with courses. Oyster spoons and pastry forks. Introductions made to young men in the proper fashion.
Cultural whiplash for the missionaries' kids. Most are too soft-spoken to hear when they speak. The sweetest and most caring people. All free time spent in volunteer work. None will ever knowingly inconvenience anyone (one inconvenienced you all the time, but she spent her life as a nurse/missionary in Rhodesia and never developed the basics of social interaction). All scatter-brained to the extent it's a constant joke among them and their spouses.
So that's where my MIL came from, and that's where Mrs. Scoutmaster gets it.
FIL? A farm boy. Salt of the earth. Worked with his hands as a boy, as most of my family lines did throughout life.
I love reading about such people. I would love to have been one but I squandered my youth doting on my children instead of teaching them to serve others.
That is one of the most interesting familial anecdotes I’ve heard in a long time! Thanks for posting it.
*hugs to you and MSM*
What a very interesting life your in-laws had!