Terrapin Station

Sad Stuff

I spent some time this evening poking around in Ancestry.com and Fold 3, which is a site with a lot of military records. 

I followed the trail back on Ken's family and was reveling in the names of his great-grandfather's siblings. Paralee! Ferdillen! Tipton Cicero! Parisade!

Then I checked Fold 3 and realized that two of the eleven siblings in that family died in the Civil War. They were both Confederate soldiers in the Alabama 10th Infantry. Ferdillen Pritchett died of diarrhea in 1861. Davenport Pritchett was taken prisoner of war after Gettysburg, and died in captivity...also of diarrhea. What a horrific waste. I need to lie down with a rag on my head. 

William Lehnholf Marshall, A Renaissance Man

This story was compiled for the Finding Family contest in the San Angelo Standard-Times. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Mom and I were unable to meet in person, so this was dictated by her to me via her Facebook Portal. The entry won a special recognition and a $20 gift card to the wonderful local independent bookstore, Old Town Books.

By Mary Jane Butler as told to Mary Beth Butler

Today, I am 89 years old, and I have been a resident of San Angelo for over 20 years. This is home now, but I have come a long way, from a vastly different place. I was born in Tallahassee, Florida in 1931, into a large and close family. My paternal grandparents lived a few blocks away and were very much a part of my everyday life. Today, I particularly remember my grandfather, William Lehnholf Marshall, who was born on April 28, 1873, and died on March 26, 1957. His life was a rich tapestry of creativity and public service, with the sea always in the background.

Granddaddy was the sixth son of John Marshall, who came to America from Portugal on a whaling ship as a 10-year-old cabin boy. At that time in Portugal, the inheritance structure dictated that the oldest son received all the property, the second son would be destined for the military, and the third son was dedicated to the priesthood. John Marshall did NOT want to be a priest, so he went to sea.

He entered the United States in Baltimore, Maryland. The immigration officer couldn’t spell his Portuguese name, so they chose his new name in honor of the Supreme Court’s fourth Justice, John Marshall. In 1862 John married Miss Wilhelmina Lehnholf, an immigrant from Prussia.

John and Wilhelmina had seven sons and a daughter, of which my Granddaddy Will was the sixth child (born in 1873). John had served in the Navy, and in Baltimore, he had a good career as an oysterman. Sadly, though, things went wrong for John, and he left his wife and sons on their own.

To help support Wilhelmina (who was called Minnie) and the younger children, the older boys signed on with a traveling circus that moved across the United States. They were also looking for a new place to settle down. They experienced lots of places, but when they reached Apalachicola, Florida, and smelled the salt water, they knew they were home. Apalachicola is a port city, the seat of Franklin County, Florida, in the “Big Bend” region of the Florida Panhandle. The Marshall boys sent for their mother and began a life of seafaring and construction. They built many boats and many beautiful homes in the city, as well as doing masonry and concrete work.

Back in Baltimore, John Marshall served for seven years as a janitor at the Friends Gospel Mission on Light Street. He died on February 5, 1885 and was buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

As a young man in Apalachicola, Will Marshall was employed as a contractor and was also much engaged with fishing, shrimping, oystering, boat building, and other seagoing endeavors. In 1901, Will met Miss Grace Spiller, a belle of Tallahassee, who was serving as a nanny for some children in Carrabelle, Florida. He won her heart, and they were married at her mother’s home that May. They returned to their Apalachicola beach home to live. The home he built in Apalachicola is still occupied to this day.

When their first son, Lehnholf Spiller, was born in 1902, the consternation of the Tallahassee relatives and society was great! The distance between the two cities is only 75 miles, but in those days, that was a long trip. Within one year, the new family had moved back to Tallahassee. Lehnholf was my daddy, and their home was right across the street from that doting grandmother.

Will and Grace Marshall had three sons and a daughter. Will was a Boy Scout pioneer, a city commissioner, and Mayor of Tallahassee. He was also a 32^nd degree Mason and a leader of St. John’s Episcopal Church. The two stained glass windows on the back wall of St. John’s are dedicated to Will and Grace Marshall.

Before I could walk, Granddaddy and my daddy took me out onto the dock one day and my daddy tossed me into the water. The idea was to see if I would swim – my Granddaddy was right next to me for safety. I came up swimming!

Next door to Granddaddy’s house were two young boys. I knew them from school and we all played together. They were the same ages as my older cousin Grace and me. One of Granddaddy’s habits was to give us treats in the form of bread and butter and with sugar on top. As you can imagine we always gobbled it up. One day, he gave us the treat (or so we thought!) The two oldest took one bite and stopped. I stopped after two! The fourth child sat chewing stolidly, drooling as he ate. We had to tell him to stop eating: the treat was made with lard this time.

On his desk Granddaddy had a bone china skull with a detached lower jaw on a wire. He would set the jaw in motion and tell us it was saying, “Someday you’ll be just like me!” I knew I should be horrified, but I was fascinated. We’d always ask for him to make the skeleton do his thing before we went home from a visit.

I had a pet chicken and would put her in the basket of my bicycle and ride over to Granddaddy’s house to visit. He was always very amused to see me and my chicken.

My grandparents had a beach house at St. Teresa Beach, and we went to visit one or two times a month. My older cousin Grace and I were allowed to spend the night with them on our own because we were the oldest. It was a very great honor. Our friend Betty Ann Roberts lived down the beach and together we would put on plays. Everyone at the beach was requested to come and sit and watch. We’d climb in and out the porch window as a way of getting “on stage.” I remember Granddaddy just sitting and laughing.

Granddaddy also taught me not to dawdle over my food. He had tried everything he would think of to try to get me to eat faster. But I wouldn’t do it. So, he conspired with Grace and one morning after breakfast, he told Grace, “Okay, you can go swimming now. But Mary Jane, you have to stay here.” I protested! But he reminded me that not only had Grace finished her food, she had waited the required hour prior to swimming. I still had food on my plate and THEN an hour to go after I was done. What a sad lesson, and one I still remember!

One of my best memories of my life was singing on the porch together at the beach. We’d sing old songs from World War I like K-K-K-Katy, Keep the Home Fires Burning, and It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and others like Oh My Darling Clementine. We also sang lots of hymns.

When Social Security came in, Granddaddy told me, “I don’t need that, I have my own Social Security.” I said, “tell me about that.” He showed me an area behind his home where he’d built several small apartments and had planned on that as his retirement income. I’m sure he eventually accepted the payments from the government, too! The apartments were much in demand, because people who worked at the State Capitol always needed modest places to live.

After my daddy came home from World War II, he and Granddaddy built us a cinder block house down the beach about 2 miles. That house is still in my family, owned and maintained by my youngest daughter, and it is my idea of heaven on earth.

Granddaddy was an exceptionally talented carpenter and woodworker. I have a sheet of his business letterhead stationery which reads as follows: “W.L. Marshall Novelty Works. Termite Eradication. Tallahassee, Florida.” The following other items are noted: “Repair work a specialty” “Wire screens that work” “Cabinet Work of All Kinds” “Phone 121.” The footer states, “Marshall can do it!”

Grandma Grace died during the war. The daughter and daughters-in-law tried to help after her death so Granddaddy could remain in his home, but they had many responsibilities. The Marshalls had four female boarders in the upstairs bedrooms, and those ladies pitched in too. Mrs. Bessie Lee, a widow, was one of these. After some months, Will proposed marriage to her and she was his companion and caregiver until his death in 1957.

I genuinely believe that I led a charmed life in a loving and vigorous family. My grandfather and my father were both determined that the best thing for a child was to be exposed to boats and the ocean, and they were committed to providing those opportunities for their families. The influence of the Portuguese cabin boy remains strong in my family, extending to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I am grateful for William Lehnholf Marshall.

W.L. Marshall, Mayor of Tallahassee

 

W.L. Marshall, Senior Grand Commander, Knights Templar of Florida

 

Addison Marshall and Lehnholf Marshall, ca. 1904

 

Lehnholf Marshall, first gun, age 2

 

Four Generations: William Lehnholf Marshall, Lehnholf Spiller Marshall, Mary Jane Marshall Austin, and William Lehnholf Austin

 

Mary Jane Marshall Austin & William Lehnholf Austin, 9 mos.

 

How can the Truth set us free if we can't find it?

Have you seen the recent article about the New Jersey man whose wife and girlfriend each published an obituary for him? They ran side by side in the local paper. You can read about it at this link. 

It's clear that Leroy Black was greatly loved by a lot of people and that they had different truths and different stories they want (and need) to tell about that. I'm praying for those people, who lost a man just four years older than me to lung cancer. 

The story particularly struck me because in my new retirement I've been spending time on Ancestry.com, and it's absolutely stunning how much is there now, compared to about five years ago, especially in terms of records and photos. I found a picture of my maternal great-grandfather. This is Charles Culbreath, 1871 - 1943. He has a very look of my grandmother in his eyes and mouth. 

  

I also found a Word document uploaded by someone (perhaps a relative of mine) that included an undated story from the Sumter County (FL) Times about his service on the Board of County Commissioners:

He was married in this county (few words are not legible) to Hattie Barren and they have made a comfortable and happy home about halfway between Sumterville and Bushnell. Charlie is a factor in politics in Sumter County, he never hesitates to roll up his sleeves and work with vim for whatever cause he believes to be right. 

In the same document, his obituary is reproduced, which reads in part: 

Due to the fact that he has lived in this county for nearly 60 years, he was known by many people and had many friends in all sections of this county and over the state.

Mr. Culbreath will be greatly missed by his many friends, as he was always very lively and had a word for every one. He was a kind and big hearted man, always ready to do anything, anytime or a friend in need.

The obituary goes on to list his surviving widow and six grown children, including my grandmother, and the entry finishes: "Our sympathy is extended to the bereaved family in their hour of sorrow."

Sounds standard. But when I read it, I gasped because: Charles Culbreath did not live with his family at the time of his death, and I don't think any of them were sorry for his passing. His wife had put him out many years before. My grandmother despised him. She hadn't seen him for years when he died, and she didn't want to go to his funeral or have anything to do with it; my grandfather insisted. My grandmother would never talk about it, but it's obvious that some very bad things happened to her in association with the man. She was a deeply scarred person.

I called my grandmother "Meme." She loved family history and made huge scrapbooks for her daughters with copies of family records. Her father is listed and pictured, as a fact. You would not know, if you looked at the scrapbook, that things were any different from the normal in that family, just as you would not know it from the obituary. 

*

And this is the story that I know about it, which I know from my mother, who is now 84. She knows a different version of this story, and so did my grandmother and her siblings, and so did Charles. 

It points out to me how the truth is an absolute, but the stories we tell and hear and remember about it vary infinitely because we all own some part of it: our own truth. 

In a world that (it seems to me) has clearly gone mad, where calling someone "evil" or "Lucifer" or worse has become part of daily national discourse, how can we discern the truth? The media has its own story to tell, and its own purposes for telling it so. An infinity of internet sources contribute to the confusion: "if I read it, it must be true." 

I don't know the answer. I don't. I wish I did. 

 

 

 

 

 

Labor Day: Thinking about Work

H/T to internet friend and RevGal Ellen, who posted on Facebook:  This is in honor of all working people everywhere, and in memory of the many generations of peasants, artisans, domestics and factory workers in my own family whose labor helped build both Europe and the United States.

I think of my great-great grandfather, Henry Meadows Butler, who was a miller, and his wife Louisa, who was the daughter of a miller.  Henry's father was Richard Butler, a tallow chandler.  Louisa and her second husband, William Davy emigrated to Chicago in 1879 and they started a company burning clay ballast for railroad cars.  My Butler grandfather was still engaged in this family business when he married my grandmother in 1912 and they moved to Texas. 

Later the family owned a dry cleaner's, and after a financial reverse, my grandmother and great grandmother did ironing at home. 

I think of my Gramma Beth's grandfather, John Dawson, who left England for America to avoid debtor's prison.  He took his wife and daughter with him (my great-grandmother, Gramma Etta).  My Gramma Etta invented a thread cutter that pinned to the blouse of the seamstress for easy access.  It was patented. 

I'll be working this Labor Day, about which I have moaned somewhat.  Looking at it, I don't have much to complain about.  I am part of the "knowledge economy;" my tools are words and images, my workplace a computer station.  My office is cool and warm in approximately the right degrees at about the right times.  In  fact, I "suffer" from pain in my arm brought on by sitting still and using a computer for hours at a time. 

I am grateful for those who've gone before me. 

 

 

 

To read about the history of the song

 

Here are the lyrics:

 

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,

For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!

 

As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,

For they are women's children, and we mother them again.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.

 

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead

Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.

Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.

 

As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,

The rising of the women means the rising of the race.

No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,

But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.

 

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.

Friday Five: Memories of my Grandfather

Sally says at RevGals:  This year Tim and I have planted and nurtured a vegetable garden, and I have just spent the morning preparing vegetables and soups for the freezer, our veggie garden is producing like crazy and it is hard to keep up with, that said it'll be worth it for a little taste of summer in the middle of winter :-). That got me thinking of the things I treasure, memories are often more valuable than possessions. How about you, can you share:

Inspired by Sally's amazing garden, this memories Friday Five has turned out to be all about my grandfather and gardening he loved.  

1. A treasured memory from childhood? My grandfather (Bigdaddy) was a chemist by training (and a banker by trade, but he was retired by the time I knew him). He was a man of the land and the sea, and he loved his gardens; was always doing things to the soil to make it produce better. He had three gardens...two BIG ones...one at the beach and one at the house in Tallahassee, plus a dedicated tomato garden at the beach. We ate like royalty for sure. And carried home jars and jars of home-canned food, too.  (Oh, and his camellias would be a whole other blog post...)
2. A teenage memory? I would always ask my grandparents how I could help (they were always doing such hard, hard work. My grandmother (Meme) would say, "no, you're too little" (!)...she said this to everyone, no matter their age or size!!  My grandfather would always find something for me to do. Sometimes it was bringing wheelbarrow-loads of seaweed up from the beach (and I mean up, the house and garden are on a 12-foot dune) and rinsing salt water off of them for them to later nourish the garden. One time it was climbing a 20-foot ladder and holding an AC unit in place (outside) while he was inside securing it to the window.  I think I was more like 10 when this happened.  I thought, "Oh, my God...this is too heavy for me!"  But I didn't dare say anything, or drop it.  Maybe he knew that I could do more than I thought I could.  Hmm!
3. A young adult memory?  My college roommate, Lori, and I went to the beach one summer during grad school.  My grandparents were not well enough to stay at the beach by that time (steep stairs) so they left us there alone.  They pointed out the garden and the freezer full of food.  I'll never forget getting out a frozen whole chicken and wondering what to do with it?  We found an old Rumford Baking Powder cookbook.  For chicken, the recipe in that book included something like, "once killed, scald well and remove all feathers."  Uhhhhh....I think we mostly ate veggies.  There were lots of them available!
4. A memory from this summer?  I went back to that beach this summer and stayed in my cousin Grace's house, next door to the home my grandparents and parents used to own.  The back lot is wild now and the garden plot and compost bed are completely grown up.  But I remember. 
5. A memory you hope to have?   One day I hope to live in a place that is not completely shaded, so that I can have a garden of my own.  At my last house we had a 6x6 raised bed for tomatoes, and I'll never forget teaching Brandon to eat a yard tomato, fresh from the vine.  When I invited him, he said, "oh, no, I don't like tomatoes."  The first bite converted him, and I used to look out back and see him and a group of friends all standing around eating warm tomatoes like they were candy.  :) 

““Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and home grown tomatoes.” – Guy Clark

Bonus- a song that sums up one of those memories It has to be opera, perhaps Bizet's Carmen.  My grandfather loved music and would listen to tapes of classical music.  He told me when I was with him in the hospital that if he could have had any career at all besides the one he had, he would have been an orchestra conductor.  I can see that. 

Ancestry.com #WHOOPS

One of the reasons I enjoy pursuing family geneaology on Ancestry.com is that I like to think about and imagine the stories of the people I find.  I know names, dates; in some cases I can see enlistment records, census data, and when very lucky, photos and items uploaded by other folks.  How the people lived, what their day to day lives were like, is a mystery that the documents hint at. 

For instance, various versions of the census ask where people were born, what their mother tongue was, and the same questions for their parents.  Also asked are whether they are head of house or boarder, their employment, education, and in some versions, whether the person is "blind," "deaf and dumb," "idiotic," "insane," or "maimed, crippled, bedridden, or otherwise disabled."  The last set of choices from the 1880 census.  Another version uses "imbecile" and "moron" as choices.  I am not making this up!

 
However, there's a certain amount it that must be taken with a large grain of salt.  Or a barrel.  For instance, I traced my great-grandfather Culbreath back to Geoffrey Chaucer.  Really!?  Well, I'm not going to be putting that on my resumé anytime soon. :)  Because the truth is, frequently you may be going a wrong direction.  You may be taking your family tree the wrong way.  Someone distantly related to me pointed out that I had linked my aunt's first husband's family to a person who was listed on the census as "negro."  Which is actually a pretty good joke, because I think those were probably some very bigoted people. 

And, for instance, another Ancestry.com member messaged me within the system yesterday.  I'd added some people who were related to her / him, and clearly NOT to my husband's supposed ancestor and his siblings, as evidenced by this message: 

Rosannah Gunnell on 10 Jan 1786 swore in open court that she gave the gift of life to Daniel Gunnell, Moses Gunnell, Dicey Gunnell, Sarah Gunnell, & Saunders Gunnell, which was recorded in the minutes of the county court of Edgefield dist, South Carolina.

Nicholas & Roseannah Gunnell are not the parents of William Gunnels. 

Well, okeydokey.  Easy enough to delete those parents for Ken's five-times-great-grandfather.  And I'm glad for the correction.  But I wonder:

Why in the world did Rosannah Gunnell do that?  What was the event that caused her to go to open court and swear as to who her children were?  That seems very, very, very peculiar to me.  Who does that?  Who did that?  What was up with Rosannah!? 

We'll never know.  But I wonder.

My Gramma Beth

My Gramma Beth was, of course, not just mine...she was a lot of other people's Gramma Beth, too.  Most of them came before me!  I was rather at the end of the line of cousins in that family, the next to the youngest.  But I can tell you what I know. 

And I can tell you why I am thinking about this today:  My Kleenex box.  Yes, you read that right. 

The pattern on this box, I chose because it reminds me of Gramma Beth.  I don't know why.  But it's sitting on my desk today, asking me to tell the story. 

Her name was Henrietta Elizabeth Swarthout Butler.  One of my two names is a gift from her...the other is from my maternal grandmother, Mary.  There are, by my count, five other people in our family who carry some variant of her name.  (It's all so Southern, isn't it?) 

She was born in 1888, and whe was on the Illinois State Champion Basketball Team in 1905.  (She was tall!  Another gift she gave me.)  She married my grandfather Butler, whom she had known in high school, in 1912.  She went to college, and she also worked in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. offices in Chicago, taking mail orders from the Catalogue.  Doing this gave her a facility for deciphering handwriting that was useful to her all her life. 

 

Her mother, Henrietta Swarthout, was born in England, to John Dawson, a man who emigrated to the US to avoid going to debtors' prison.  He had sent money home to his cousin in England for many years, so that the debt would be paid off.  Guess what...the cousin did not pay a penny of it toward the debt.  It troubled Great-great-grandfather John VERY greatly.  He wrote a 12-page letter (longhand of course) to his relatives and associates back home, explaining what had (and had not) happened.  He copied it out in longhand to all of them.  I have a copy of it.  It's his testament...he was a man of honor and he did the right thing. 

The letter, along with many letters from the dishonest English cousin, are preserved in a black metal box that I received when we closed the house where Gramma Beth had lived with her oldest daughter, after Aunt Etta Jane died.  They were bundled together with a note on top from Gramma Beth that said, "Mother always set great store by these."  I bet she did! 

Gramma Beth had one sibling, a brother named Orville.  He was killed in a sawmill accident in Washington State in 1914.  So tragic.  He had a fiancee and their father later helped her finish her college education. 

Gramma Etta (Gramma Beth's mother) lived with her daughter's family in Texas for  forty-one years following her husband's death.  I never knew her, but she was, by all accounts, formidable.  One of the specific rules of that family was, "Always obey Gramma Etta."  I have heard that more times than I can count...even though she died eight years before my birth, at the age of 89. 

Gramma Beth and her unmarried oldest daughter, Aunt Etta Jane, lived in a brick two-story duplex, in a far-away part of Houston called Montrose.  It had once been a very nice part of town, and by the time I remember it, it was a very BAD part of town, and getting worse.  One of the most terrible things I remember was when a bad man (men?) broke into their house and beat them up for money.  Aunt Etta Jane had two broken arms.  Gramma Beth had a black eye.  I was really little (6?) and I was not told much about it, but I date a large loss of innocence from that experience.  Who beats up old ladies!?  It still makes me cry to remember it. 

Gramma Beth had a gumdrop jar in her house.  You could have "one for each hand," that is, two gumdrops.  Her house had wonderful push-button light switches!  When we moved into our 1924 house here in Denton, my delight was that we had some of those switches!

 

Sadly, they had to be replaced; the wiring to them was Romex, old and a fire hazard.  (We still have one in a rarely used closet, tee hee!) 

Gramma Beth was an amazing knitter.  She knit all of us wonderful Christmas stockings of different patterns and with our names worked into the cuff.  Mine has Santa Claus coming out of a chimney and his beard is all fluffy!  When I knit, I think of her.  Another thing that I was given after her death was a fantastic hand-knit coat (full-length and lined) and hat (picture a Gramma-type hat like a pillbox!) of a blue-green wool.  I never wore it...but you may be sure that I would be wearing it now if I still had it.  It was lost in a house fire in 1999.  That makes me so sad. 

One time when we were at Gramma's house the news was on and the reporter said how many rapes there had been in Houston that month.  I was about 7.  So of course, I said, "Gramma Beth, what's rape?"  She suggested that I ask my mother.  That would be about the essence of that family...a great deal of love and caring, the fiercest of loyalty, but all in a very reserved and proper way.  I got the impression that she was not unhappy about me asking something that was clearly awkward for her, but more that she was angry that I had been exposed to it at that age. 

I was only 11 when she died.  She'd had a broken hip and lingered; she was ready, ready to go on...the last few years of her life were NOT of a high quality.  I feel sorry that I did not get to know her as an adult.  I think we would have been friends and liked each other.  But I am grateful for what I know and imagine of her.  For the values and principles she instilled in my father, her younger son, and in his family.  For having her be part of me. 

Family Reunion

here's my sweetie and his sister Gail!

Reunion was Sunday.   We had a great time and what a meal!  Never saw so many different baked beans...except at the Freeport Bean Suppah! 

More about Ancestry.com

Update:  In addition to previous reporting, now peering out of the leaves of my family tree are Mohawk Chief, Mohawk Woman, a lot of Vikings, William I Longsword (second Duke of Normandy), Richard the Good, Robert the Devil (!) and a tremendous number of Welsh people. 

In a comment to that post, Laura mentioned that some members of her family are very into geneaology, and it sounds like maybe not in a healthy way.  I'm fascinated by it, but I agree with her comment that who we are here and now is the most important thing.  What I love about this is the connection I am feeling to history.  I imagine, imagine...what must their lives have been like?  I plan and plan for the historical reading I will do about those places and times. 

Also, when I worked on this before I found some real live, living members of my father's family who had lost the trail to us and were delighted to be re-connected. 

And...and...

what makes me powerfully uncomfortable about this is that probably most of my African-American friends would not be able to go far back at all with such a search as I've made.  As I noted, women in my tree were being de-personed by being listed only as "wife," "Mrs.," or "Concubine." 

In a far more hideous and inhumane way, slaves brought into this country were nobody, nothing, nowhere. 

I just finished reading The Color of Water by James McBride.  It was so powerful that as soon as I finished it, I turned back to the front and read it right through again. 

How infinitely privileged I have been...merely by accident of birth.  How indicted I feel. 

Lord, have mercy.

The Legend of Good Women

I am doing lots of work on Ancestry.com.  It's fascinating to click on the little leaves and see the parents, spouses, children of my forebears come up.  Thinking many things as I do it...

Beyond a certain point, I don't know how these relationshops can be proved...but there sure is a lot of data out there.  Utterly fascinating.

Fascinating in the way that I've always found obituaries fascinating...they are the story of someone you would never know otherwise. 

I think so much about the women in these scenarios.  Often, the farther back I go, they are listed only by first name, or as "Unknown Adams" or by the same name as the man of the couple (talk about losing your identity!). 

They marry often...you can see that as a husband dies, they remarry, because really, what else could they do? 

And the children...oh, the children...two or three marriages and four, seven, ten children by each one.  My word.  What a horrible strain on their bodies. 

So many of the children certainly didn't survive...it's notable that many times there will be two or three listed by the same name with different years of birth.  Is this a mistake, or did they just keep trying for an Elizabeth or William or Agnes who lived? 

As I click, I imagine stories about them sometimes, based on where they lived (Bamburgh Castle, Holy Island, Hull...places where I have been!  I've been doing this for several weeks now with my and Ken's family, with very interesting but unremarkable results. 

and then...a shock...a real and verifiable story (if the link is true, which who knows):

It appears, in the Culbreath line (my maternal grandmother's), that I am descended from Geoffrey Chaucer and his second wife, Philippa DeRoet. 

WHAT!?

No, really. 

(I don't think I look much like him, do you?)

Is this like past life regression, where everyone turns out to have been Cleopatra or William the Conqueror? 

Wow.

In Philippa's line there are countesses of Luxembourg and Holland.  There is a Baudouin The Bald.  There is some Count of Flanders.  I am starting to disbelieve this.  ...

There is a Charles the Bald, and his father...wait for it...his father was "Louis I the Pious Emperor, Holy Roman Empire."  and of course, you know who his dad was.  Remember?  Yep.  Charlemagne.

(Okay, now I am seeing the resemblance.  You?)

OMG, one of Charlemagne's spouses is listed as "A Concubine Himiltrude."  That's just WRONG!

This is getting way, way too weird. 

So, in case I wasn't obsessed before...I sure am now.