Forgotten People & Things

 Those of you who follow this blog are well acquainted with Isaac Werner, a once forgotten man whom many of you now know well, whether through reading "Prairie Bachelor" or by following this blog or by attending one of my book talks.  Except as a name on a genealogy chart, until I began my research, even his family had forgotten Isaac.  Perhaps his life would have remained unknown had he not kept a journal, and but for my curiosity about my own family, would anyone else have picked up his 480 page journal and discovered its priceless content?

I am intrigued by history.  As a new bride, I began the genealogy quest for both my own and my husband's family that has grown into three long shelves of research.  Now the question is, what to do with all of that research!  Last April we were in Wichita and my husband spotted a newspaper rack with a Sunday New York Times for sale.  He bought it for me, knowing it would keep me busy reading for several days.  He was wrong.  I am still reading some of the articles I clipped out of it, and one of those articles inspired this blog.

The book of an author named Maud Newton, "Ancestor Trouble, A Reckoning and a Reconciliation" was reviewed in the Times.  Her book was inspired by her own family, but, she admits it is only partially true.  Is it also true sometimes that as we prepare our own genealogy charts, what we put on paper is not always fully accurate.  Do the family secrets get into the genealogy chart, and should they?

I once gave a now long-deceased elderly person a blank book with the instruction, "Please write whatever memories you want to share."  The memories that person chose to share were angry, critical stories about other people.  Only a few pages were written, and nothing was about that person's life, although I'm sure a history that reached back into the 1800s could have provided a wealth of interesting information. For a long time I left that book on the shelf, unsure what to do with it.  After all, I had gifted the blank book with the instruction to share whatever history that person chose to share.    Eventually, I carefully tore those hateful pages out of the book.  Maybe some things ought to be forgotten.  

Sometimes it is objects that provide family history.  In my case, it was my Aunt Helen who gifted me a teacup and saucer that started my collection, perhaps because she had no idea what a girl too old for dolls and not old enough for anything a preteen might want I was transformed into a collector of teacups, continuing my collecting for decades.  I put notes in the cups to describe where I bought them or who gave them to me.  What would that collection reveal about me?  Since I don't really know why I continued this collection, why would anyone else know?

Author Maud Newton suggested that there is much to discover from the 'deeper the connections, deeper questions' of material objects once held close by her ancestors," but as my examples of family objects described in this blog show, sometimes those forgotten people and things leave behind more questions than answers.  Maud Newton used the term "ancestor hunger" to describe that quest.  The popularity of genealogy research is proof that many of us share that curiosity. 

I will close with a picture of one object that does connect me with the memory of my father's oldest sister.  Verna died at the age of 22, but the picture of her dresser set is dear to me.  She was a young teacher who died from consumption, probably contracted from one of her students.  If my only connection with her had been knowledge of her early death, my memory would be sadness.  Instead, her dresser set makes me think of a pretty young woman who must have sat at her dresser many times getting dressed for a party or some other happy occasion.  

Verna's Dresser Set