The History Room: My Favorite Day

Currently Reading: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

She walks into the Local History Room as many of them do- timid, unsure. She is about my age, with long blond hair and a pretty smile. Her eyes are uncertain. She talks quickly, with a nervous energy that tells me her story long before her words do. She is here for a reason. They always are. The books, the obituaries, the newspapers all pause in anticipation, wondering if they have her story, if they will be what she needs.

Her mother had been adopted, she explains to me breathlessly. They had just learned the name of her real grandmother and that she had been a high school senior here. They are trying to find her, they've just started their search, and would we have her old high school yearbook? She pauses, still unsure, now a bit afraid. I smile, trying to convey some sort of reassurance in a single glance before answering in the affirmative and grabbing the key to the yearbook cabinet. I find the one she needs and show her to a seat. The History Room waits, breathless. Thanking me, she pulls out her digital camera and begins turning pages. I leave her, returning to my desk to afford her some privacy. Ten minutes later, a sob bubbles into the History Room, filling every corner with its pain and its relief, asking to be heard. I hear. I turn, to see her bending over the page, her blond, wispy hair falling across the photograph of the grandmother she's never known. I go to her, touching her lightly on the shoulder. She turns to me, her eyes pleading, holding out the yearbook, no longer unsure but still afraid. In a voice as innocent as a child's: "This is the first time I've seen my grandmother." These are not the first tears shed here, as pieces come together and stories are rediscovered. She is not the first to cry here and she will not be the last. Without words, I put my arms around her and we stand quietly, crying together, creating a moment of fragile strength, a bond linking the past to the present, the living to the dead.

A Celtic Halloween

Currently Reading: The Witch's Daughter by Paula Brackston

All Hallow's Eve is upon us.... an ancient celebration with its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain. Our Jack-o'lanterns are glowing outside on our balcony; I'm still in my witch's costume. Nathan and I have had our fill of candy and watched our annual History Channel special on the Salem Witch Trials.

The back of Mary Adams St. John's grave in Riley Cemetery. My great-great-great-great grandmother. I thought a tombstone picture is more than appropriate for Halloween. Besides, it is beautiful!

As it does every year, Halloween inspires me to think about the real history behind this holiday that I love so much. We may not celebrate Halloween the way the ancient Celts did, but the idea behind the holiday has survived for hundreds of years. I believe this is one of my favorite holidays because of that feeling of tradition. Although centuries, beliefs, and languages have changed, the tradition continues.
Samhain was celebrated by the Celts as a farewell to the light season and the beginning of the dark season, when nights were longer, days were colder, and the world died until the light season began once more. Because it bordered two seasons, it was a fragile night, where the veil between this world and the next was paper-thin and able to be breached. They welcomed their ancestors, but also feared the fragility and instability of the night. A combination of sacred and terrifying. On Samhain, the Celts burned bonfires throughout the night to ward off evil spirits; it was believed that on Samhain, not only could ancestors return from their graves, but evil spirits could also steal one away to the otherworld. It was a night of fear and a need for protection- something that is replicated, though unconsciously, in our costumes of ghosts, witches, and Disney characters. It was (and still remains) a night where everything is topsy-turvy- on this one night, we are allowed to traipse through darkened streets and knock on stranger's doors, demanding treats. We can dress outlandishly in public (as I did at work today) and not receive strange looks. It is a day when we can have fun and relax, before the cold comes again and we must bundle ourselves against the elements. It's true that the ancient Celts may not recognize our own Halloween traditions, but underneath it all, we still have a need to face our fears, celebrate life, and look back to the ones who have left this world.

In case you are interested, I have many wonderful books on the ancient Celts that I recommend. Celtic Heritage by Alwyn and Brinley Rees, The Flowering of Ireland by Katherine Scherman and Irish Folk History by Henry Glassie are some of my favorites. If fiction is your thing, I love the Sevenwaters Trilogy by Juliet Marillier. Although it is fantasy and not entirely historically accurate, it depicts Celtic society in a way that not many fiction authors do. Those books first inspired my fascination with Irish and Celtic history, and I love to revisit them.

Enjoy your Halloween! Just for kicks and giggles, here's a picture of me many Halloweens ago:

Note the book! I never stop reading! :)

Family Links

Currently Reading: The Witch's Daughter by Paula Brackston and The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

I love old photographs.

My great-great-grandmother Mildred Gray Driver with two of her sons. One may be my great-grandfather Graydon.

I love to gaze at family photos- at their smiles, their facial features, yearning to catch a glimpse of myself in their jaw line or hair color.(I do apologize for the grainy quality of these photos... they didn't download as I had hoped.)

I wonder about their dreams and hopes and the thoughts going through their mind as this picture was taken. Were they happy with their lives? What were their best memories? What irritated them? What did their voices sound like? What did they pray? What did they dream of? 

My great-great-grandparents John and Wilhelmina Kastning, on their wedding day June 4, 1891.

My passion for history and genealogy no doubt stems from an active imagination, one that causes me to lose myself fully in my research and in the stories I unearth. Studying crinkled photographs and weathered papers allows me a brief respite from this world and entry into theirs. My pleasure for research is not solely in the gleaning of information, but in the sacred moments when I find their name in a newspaper or study their portraits, for it is then that I feel as if I am giving them another moment of life. In that moment, they are remembered and thought of, no longer forgotten. I love my line of work because I know I am connecting families and making the dead alive again in some small way.

My great-great-great grandparents Friedrich and Charlotte Kastning, parents of John. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from my father's side of the family scanned into my computer yet. Soon enough!

I love to gaze at these faces- so long gone, but still somehow part of me. Still a part of this world, even though they are no longer in it.

friday poetry slam: happy birthday, e.e. cummings!

Currently Reading: Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharratt

Happy Friday! In honor of e.e. cummings' birthday today, I am posting 

one of my favorite poems of his. The beautiful thing about cummings' 

poetry is that it can mean different things to different people. His poetry 

is full of images and metaphors and words that flow like water over rocks. 

This is what I love about him. 

P.S. Another wonderful celebration today that gives me shivers of 

happiness: 180 years ago today, my 5th great-grandparents, Rebecca 

Whittome and Robert Driver were married at St. Margaret's Church

in Hilgay, Norfolk, England. Happy Anniversary to my ancestors! 

In fact, upon rereading this poem, I realize that it is quite appropriate 

for this occasion as well. 

St. Margaret's Church, Hilgay, Norfolk, England

if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have
one.  It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses

my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)

standing near my

(swaying over her
silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see

nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my

            (suddenly in sunlight

he will bow,

& the whole garden will bow)