Category: Genealogy

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?

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2017-03-31 12.47.55For those not addicted to the Broadway musical Hamilton, the title is the name of the final song.  I’m kind of obsessed with Alexander Hamilton right now.  But that is not what this is all about.  The lyric just happened to fit my thoughts for today.

As many things do, this started with a dinner discussion with my daughter and her fiancé who were sharing the story of getting their marriage license this week.  Questions were asked of them to which they had no answers – for one, his father’s birthplace.  By way of a brief explanation, his father was not in his life for most of his life and there has never been a need to have knowledge of personal things.

Discussion turned to my late husband’s birthplace.  She said he was born in Ducktown, Georgia.  He was not. I explained he was born in Copperhill, Tennessee.  I asked her what she put down for me.  She replied, “Clarksville, Tennessee of course”.  I smiled and said, “Murray, Kentucky”.  We all laughed but it really made me think.  Watch out when I start thinking.

Genealogy is my passion.  Historical Records, such as marriage licenses, court records, birth certificates, death records, etc. are validation for researchers that one has the correct information.

It is also a passion of mine to tell stories about our family history.  I want my children and my grandchildren to know something about the people that came before them, both significant and insignificant.  We have family members that influenced American history, who impacted the lives of entire communities, and those that quietly struggled through their daily lives one day at a time and influenced only those directly related to them.  All of them are interesting and important and beloved.  And as long as I tell their stories, they stay alive in some way.

But who is telling my story?  And their Dad’s story?  And their grandparent’s?

So much of what we know about our family history, or any historical figure studied by writers or researchers, comes from stories and letters that were WRITTEN DOWN and saved by someone.  We don’t do that anymore.  We don’t write letters.  Few people keep written journals.  Everything is online or done through emails or text.

We do have Instagram and other social media that will give us what our ancestors did not have – lots of photos.  But what about the stuff going on in their brains and in their hearts?  I want to know about that stuff.  I know a great deal about relatives I never met because I have letters that were shared between them.  I learned of their hopes and dreams and fears.  I learned about their personalities and how they felt about their families and about themselves.  I feel like I knew them.  They are people I care about, even though they were born over 150 years ago and died over 90 years ago.  These things are really important to me.  But maybe not to my kids.  Or maybe just not as important as they are to me.

So what’s the answer?  I’m not sure yet.  My only solution right now?  To write my own story.  I need to figure out how to put aside some time to do that.  Maybe I will periodically do that here.  What have I left out in sharing stories of my childhood?  I feel like it’s well known but maybe not – do my kids even know WHY I was born in Murray, Kentucky?

It’s because my parents met in college at Murray State, got pregnant, got married, and had me there.  My brother was also born in Murray soon after I was.  Our parents struggled as young married college students with two kids but my mother was determined that they would graduate from college and would not drop out.  My dad joined ROTC because the small stipend he got monthly (I think they said $45 per month) would pay for married student’s housing.  My mother asked her father to go to the bank with her to get a loan, even after he told her she needed to give up on college and go be a wife and a mother.  Mom’s parents kept us during the week on their farm in Hopkinsville and we saw Mom and Dad on weekends.  They both graduated against all odds and my dad was obligated to join the Army.  Our family traveled the world and my dad retired as a General at the end of his long career in the Army.  Not what anyone planned but really, does life ever go the way we plan?

Why do I know those details?  My mom shared stories with me.  She wrote letters.  And when my grandfather passed away, she wrote down more details in a speech to be read by my father at my grandfather’s funeral.  She gave me a copy.  She was sharing stories of the type of man my grandfather was but she also shared a little about what kind of woman she became because of his influence.

I love those stories.  It says so much about the determination my mother had in anything she wanted to do.  And it shows the positive influence she had on Dad.  Mom had a quiet, respectful way about her until you told her she couldn’t do something.  But when she made up her mind, get out of her way.  She was the first person in her family to go to college.  And she eventually obtained her Masters Degree.

My story is intertwined with many others.  We all have both individual and a shared history.  We will see where this goes.  Maybe it is me who will Tell My Story.

 

I Want To Know More

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ezmaOver this election cycle, there has been frequent talk about women, notably the fact that we had a female candidate, the photos of the lines of people waiting to put an “I Voted” sticker on the grave of Susan B. Anthony, the controversial comments about women.  Several times I have wondered who was the first woman in my family to vote?  When was that?  I don’t see any suffragettes in my female genealogy and am more inclined to believe that the women in my family did what their husband told them to do.  Until we get to my mother.  She was strong.  But in a quiet way.  She was not afraid to express her opinions or take advantage of options presented to her.  Quietly and with strength.

Today, as I sat and absorbed the election results, I needed to get off social media and distract my mind.  I perused some of the blogs listed on my old blog list.  Many haven’t posted in months but I looked back over the last year, just to find something interesting that would make me think.  I found this post from Planting Dandelions.  It is about finding her female line.  It made me think.  I have never really paid much attention to the line of mothers and grandmothers as I delved into my genealogical research. I followed names and history, mostly male but some female lines.  What about the mothers and grandmothers? What would that look like for me?

So I did some research.  Starting with my mother, I looked at her mother and grandmother.  Then I kept going.  Until I couldn’t anymore.  Here is what I found:

2016-07-07-12-00-07Me – Tere Cunningham Priest

09-12-2005-10-27-18-906My Mother – Annette McKnight Cunningham (1940 – 2005)

4canslerkidsHer Mother (on right) – Ezma Cansler McKnight (1912 – 1992)

image-13Her Mother – Flossie Bennett Cansler (1890 – 1991)

jamesandneciebennettHer Mother – Necie Lantrip Bennett (1853 – 1929)

Her Mother – Mary Ann Menser Lantrip (1830 – 1904)

Her Mother – Dorothy Croft Menser (1804 – ?)

This was an interesting exercise for me.  While I have strong, loving relationships tying me to my mother and grandmother, as well as my great-grandmother, these are not the women in my history, other than my mother, who fascinate me the most.  I loved them deeply and respected them beyond measure for the hard lives they lived.  But I am fascinated by some of the other women throughout my family tree.  Women who dealt directly with war, literally in their backyards.  Women who lost children and husbands to war, sickness, fire.  Women who wrote everything down so generations later we know something about them and their lives.  Strong women who took what life gave them and lived the best life they knew how.

But these women are my direct line, mother to mother.  I am descended directly from them in a straight line.  Suddenly that means more to me.  I owe it to myself to find out more about them than I knew yesterday.  These are country women.  The other side of my family was made up of families who were part of the birth of our nation with fathers who were doctors, statesmen, and landowners.  Those women were educated and kept diaries.  Many in my mother’s line may not have known how to read and write.  But those families were also a part of the progress of our nation.  They were the ones who left and moved across the wilderness to make better lives for their families.  They settled in primitive areas and farmed the rocky land, the women and children right beside their husbands and fathers.

I want to know more.

My Big Adventure

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I am building a house.  I have never done that before.  I have learned a lot.  And I cannot wait to be in that house which should happen in mid-December.

The process started in April.  I was going to sell my house and move to a newer house. I had lived in that house since 1997.  It was our first time buying a house .  Although both my kids were born in Alabama before we moved to Tennessee, we had only rented before moving into this house.  My kids basically grew up there.  My husband died there.  My grandson came home to that house and they lived there with me for 2 1/2 years.  Lots of memories.  But not a lot of outlets.  It needed new . . . everything.  And I needed a change.

My realtor sent me many home listings to look at.  He is a friend and he knows me well so he knew what I was looking for.  I didn’t want to live right up next to people with no spaces between homes.  I wanted something newer, not necessarily bigger.  My home was 2000 square feet and I was the only one living there so the size was fine.  I loved my sunroom that I had built on and I spent a lot of time in that room and little time elsewhere in the house.  I just needed the new space to be more useable space with a little room for entertaining.  My house was a tri-level, built in 1978 so the space tended to be chopped up and closed in.  I needed more counter space and storage space.  And I needed more outlets.

He sent me several new builds which I had previously not even considered because I didn’t think I could afford them.  As I looked at them . . . ding, ding, ding!  I COULD afford them.  Why would I keep looking at someone else’s home when I could build one I wanted with EXACTLY what I wanted?  I decided I needed a master on the main and a large kitchen.  My knees didn’t really want to do stairs and I am, after all, a Nana and only getting older.   He took me to look at some models. I really WAS trying to be practical.  Really.  And then I fell in love with a house.  Well, really I fell in love with a kitchen.

The Wakefield kitchen is part of a large open space across the entire back of the house.  The kitchen had tons of cabinets, tons of counter space, a huge pantry, a large bar and lots of light.  It was open to the eating area and family room with fireplace.  The cabinets were white, the granite was light in color and there was a light blue subway tile backsplash.  It was beautiful and exactly my style.  It was MY kitchen.  I wanted it.

I didn’t care that the house was 3500 square feet, much too large for just me.  I was so excited that my family could come and visit and would have space to stay.  I didn’t care that there was virtually no yard and the homes were 10 feet apart.  I didn’t care that the stairs were steep and straight up to the second floor.  I didn’t care that the master was upstairs because the master/master bath/laundry room were all amazing too.  I wanted it.  And I could afford it.  That is, IF I got the right price for my existing home.

Everything went smoothly into motion.  I proceeded with faith that this was going to happen.  I put my house on the market in late May and it sold for what I wanted and in less than 3 weeks.  OH, there bumps along the way, including a raccoon having babies in the walls under my master bath.  That’s another story for another day.  But it sold and I moved into a 1 bedroom apartment to wait patiently for my kitchen, I mean my house, to be built.

While I waited, I began to wonder if this was the right thing for me or if I was being selfish.  This house is too big for just me, what if I lost my job, what about the upkeep, am I being crazy?  But here’s the thing . . . I am 54 years old.  I always dreamed of having a house like this.  If not now, when?

I have worked hard and supported myself and my family.  I have done it alone since 2001.  I don’t want to say I “deserve” it.  No one “deserves” anything, good or bad.  I believe if you make your life choices based on the right reasons and think them through, you will make choices that enhance your life as well as others.  Sometimes it’s what you desire and sometimes it’s a learning experience.  But you always grow.  And sometimes you gotta take a chance.

I’m taking my chance.