Malissa looked up from the garden and pushed a strand of hair from her
sweaty face. "Where's Jim?" Nate hollered, drawing his horse up and
ignoring the cries of the children welcoming their uncle. Malissa blinked
and Nate did not bother awaiting an answer…of course Jim was down
pasture. He galloped off and Malissa stood with her hands on her hips and
a feeling of alarm. Her alarm was well grounded, for Nate had come with a
warning. War had entered their homeland… and nothing would be the same
again. Tonight she and Jim would bury the six place settings of family
silver and the few coins they had to their name. They would bury the
silver teapot that had come over the mountains with Jim's grandparents.
Tonight they would convince their twelve-year-old son to wear a dress
and a bonnet. Tonight they would warn their children to stay close. They
would hide away food provisions. And in the days that followed
they would cringe at the sound of the cannon fire. Folks would drop by and
speak to Jim in whispered tones. Finally Jim would arm a gun for Malissa
and one for himself, he would remind her what they had planned in case of
trouble, and he would ride off with his brother. And when that was over,
the nightmare would just have begun…and it was not even the armies
themselves to fear, but the drifters who took advantage of a war ravaged
country. And when that fear had abated, the carpetbaggers would come…
I do not know that this scene ever took place, but it might have, might
well have. For my family lived so close to a battlefield that my
grandfather was able to tell me of his own grandparents telling him of it,
of the sound of the cannon fire, of the dark days afterward. He would
stretch a hand toward me, and uncurl his fingers to reveal a mini ball, and
as I sat rolling it in my own smaller palms, he would talk of those days he
did not remember, but the scar of which was firmly imprinted on his memory
All too often, all I have of my ancestors is the paperwork that prove they
existed, if I am lucky a tombstone, sometimes a living memory link, but no
more than a wisp… And so I look at the time frames they lived in, and
where they were, and try to visualize a scene that was likely to have taken
place, a word that was likely to have been spoken, a worry that had to have
been carried on a heart. Maybe you do the same.
It has occurred to me often to wish there were diaries, journals, something
to tell me what they witnessed, what they lived through, what they
remembered… but there is nothing like that. There are letters of a
grandfather and a great grandmother, and the telegram they received telling
them a brother and son had been killed in the first World War...there are
his letters… I touch these, read them, feel the emotion…and wish for all
of the stories of the past…the Confederate soldiers I know were there, the
Revolutionary soldiers, the natives and the native fighters…that there were
words on paper, words written by them.
The act of pursuing genealogy, ancestors, has made history live for me, and
just knowing they were in a place I have read of, a part of an event I have
memorized in a class, has been thrilling. None of my ancestors were
important enough to have been documented in history, none of them made
great names for themselves, none of them were anything more than the common
people who made up the backdrop for history to unfold. And all of them were
the quiet characters on the stage that gave the scene the energy and
vitality to unfold. I can use that which is documented, and my imagination
and fill in what might have been their thoughts and their fears, their
dreams, their motivation. But oh to have it in their words! That would
not change history, or give insight into the power bases that made
history…but it would do something more. It would give a glimpse of what
each event was to the common man and woman who lived in its time…and that
is what most of our families are.
My life is but a short strand in the long links that make up time, but my
children think it amazing I remember when John Glenn took his historic
flight around the earth. They think it amazing that my husband was a part
of the blockade during the Cuban missile crisis. It came to me recently to
make a list of all of the things I remember of historic importance. The
Cuban missile crisis, fallout shelters and drills, the assassination of
JFK, the clips on evening news of war zones in a tropical country… For
such a short strand in time, it is amazing the list that unfolds. And for
each of these times and events, I have written a short paragraph telling
where I was, why it is that the moment is carved so poignantly in memory,
what the words were I heard spoken about me, what the feeling was. My list
is not so long ago, it seems to me. For my children, it makes history
live. I wish my parents, my grandparents; all of my ancestors had done
such a thing… It is not too late to begin.
Such a simple idea…why did I never think to do it before?
For Christmas, my children will receive a living legacy and a
beginning. My mother, myself, my husband will list all of the events that
shaped a nation and a world, and which we personally remember or were a
part of as common people. We will write a bit about each time, and try to
make our adult children feel the mood of the times, and see it as it
was. And we will end this notebook with blank pages that they might begin
the same such documentation to pass on to their own children. And…we
hope…that at least some family lines will continue this tradition of
making history a living thing. We hope that at least some of our descendants
will keep the tradition, and that for many, history will become a real and
breathing thing, a link to the past…and a glimpse of a future should history
repeat itself. And something more…a source of pride, a feeling of belonging
to some great chain of events much longer and more meaningful than our
own singular strand in it.
We invite you to do the same for your children, grandchildren, nieces and
Copyright ©2002JanPhilpot
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