Sometimes they felt like motherless children...a long way from home

I love Saturdays. Every Saturday is for me a holiday, and this time of year--since it's warm in Mississippi--I love to take to the roads though I usually try not to venture too far since my 1996 Chevy Blazer is seventeen years old. Yesterday, however, it being Saturday, I threw caution to the wind and set off on what I expected to be a 150 mile journey (an estimated 2.5 hours) through the back roads of Mississippi and Arkansas.

Now, I knew that I was taking the road (or roads, as it were) less traveled. (I could have driven to Memphis and taken Interstate 40 all the way.) I tend to opt away from interstates whenever possible both because I like driving slowly and because I feel safer on back roads with my car. Help just seems more likely. (Perhaps this is very naive considering the South's history. Sorry, but I have a beyond middle age colleague who grew up in Holmes County, and you can hardly pay him to get off of the Interstate.) On I-40 or any Interstate for that matter I feel unprotected, anonymous, and minds and bodies are just moving much too fast. So, the day before my trip, learning that I could avoid the bridge to Arkansas in Memphis, I easily chose an alternate route in which the bridge to Arkansas is gotten in Mississippi across from Helena.

Out my door in Holly Springs (North Mississippi), I went through town and caught highways 4 and 7, which led to a 4 cut-off, which I took all the way to Senatobia in Tate County. Btw, Marshall County needs to work on 4 badly! I am ashamed at how much the road improves at the Tate County border. The countryside along 4, which I have taken a few times now to visit the courthouse in Senatobia, is interesting enough--with a few old churches along the way. Leaving Senatobia--having ignored the directions and instead hanging a right at the first major road in town--it wasn't too long before I came to a junction with Hwy. 3. When it split off again, I remained on 4 for who knows how long, well, until I finally arrived at the infamous Hwy. 61, which takes one to the Mississippi Delta region.

I was excited to be in the Delta. It was foreign country to me although when I was nine years old our family took a trip deep into the Delta--to Mound Bayou--that all-black town familiar to so many African Americans, founded by the Montgomery family. I was on 61 for what felt like a really long time, and--just when I was about to conclude that my having ignored directions (to look for Panola Rd. in Senatobia) placed me perhaps too far south of the next highway--I came upon it--Highway 49. I was glad to see 49 not just because I had worried I was lost and not just because I expect that the Blazer is going to quit on me one of these days but because 61, beyond the casinos of Tunica County, was so desolate it was eerie. Folks who live out west may be used to huge expanses of undeveloped land, but I am a Midwestern girl. Prairie in Michigan comes with tall prairie grasses. Along 61, the land is covered in what look like stationary tumble weeds (an oxymoron I realize).

Highway 49 wasn't much better in this respect, at least not until I was ten miles or so into Arkansas. There was an occasional house along the way, and of course I was wondering what I would do if my car stopped. I had packed my gym shoes in a backpack, but I wasn't sure just how far I could walk in the hot sun. It was only in the 70s yesterday, but I knew that the sun would feel as hot as fire on my head if I were forced to walk in it.

Into the third hour of my journey, I came to Highway 17, which I was supposed to take but didn't because I had already seen a sign indicating I wasn't far from my final highway--70, which would take me to DeVall's Bluff, Arkansas, where I believed they were holding the Lincoln Freedom Festival. Well, I haven't looked at a map, but Highway 17 appears to loop back, which may mean it's a shortcut, but I kept straight on 49 and then got 70, ten miles down the road. I still felt rather lost because I seemed to have been on 49 far too long, causing me to worry in the same fashion I had when I'd skipped the other suggested route. I thought about turning around. Thank God, I had a tank full of gas--not something I'm known for having (or I should say I had a full tank when I left Holly Springs. Near the end of my time on 49, I was already down a half tank.) Do I exaggerate when I say that in the entire trip (with exception of Senatobia) I saw less than a half dozen gas stations and only two really, really, tired looking grocery stores, the second from which I bought a big yellow onion--reminding me of the food that sustained Zero in the book Holes. (Really, I bought the onion because it was the only fresh produce in the store, which had about five drink machines full of every soda known around the country. I don't say this to talk down about the grocer, only to give readers an idea of what has happened to the South.) Well, anyway, I left there, and it wasn't long before I reached my final destination, and when there were no people milling about Sycamore St., where the festival was to be held, I suddenly realized my error--I was a week too early. I thought about going to visit my sons in Little Rock, another hour and a half away, but decided the Blazer had had enough and still needed to get me back across the state line. I deliberated the option of returning the way I had come, more or less, maybe the second time following the directions to the letter, but decided instead that as much as I hate interstates I could not stand the idea of going back through the Delta.

Maybe in a newer car I would not have minded the Delta so much. Then again, maybe the landscape engenders fear. How many times have I read about the horror with which African American enslaved people contemplated being sold to the deep South, meaning Mississippi and Louisiana? The expanses of barren land certainly were once, and still may be, cotton fields on which our ancestors toiled without the shade of trees. When I'd passed into Coahoma County, I thought about Lucien Bailey, brother of Africa Bailey, who having been bequeathed in 1844 to a son who would find his fortune in Coahoma, had had to add another journey to that which he'd already experienced between Virginia and Mississippi. How alone had he felt in that wilderness? Flat land offers no nooks, or crannies, no curvatures of the earth into which one may escape mentally if not physically. And spying that land, casting one's eyeballs upon it must have made it hugely difficult to contemplate escape or to envision returning to one's mother or father back in Virginia.

Moving too quickly is what made me take to the road yesterday without consulting a calendar or double-checking the date of the Festival, but I gained an important lesson, an experience of the land that cannot be learned either from a history book or even from a friend, a white Clarksville, Mississippi native who tried in vain some years ago to explain to me the difference between hill country and the Delta. I realize now that one has to drive it; our ancestors may even have walked it. Little wonder that they sometimes felt like motherless children...a long way from home.

Still Dreaming

I hesitate to write this because it's going to sound nuts. Yes, nuts, but, then again, if you have made a habit of reading this particular blog of mine, then you must be the open-minded type, which is to say not closed to strangeness. Now, my dream last night was not on the surface really that strange at all. I dreamed that I was at church, a majority-white one if that matters. I was there, but sort of didn't want to be there, and yet the ladies of the church were counting on me to help with miscellaneous tasks. Mostly, I think I was there for moral support. But, I was distracted, in particular by some other event that was going on which I actually did want to be at. It was a dark church; it's narthex was dark I mean.

Well, that's pretty much it. It was a short dream and only worth writing about because the the place was so familiar, and I am aware that I have had similar dreams of churches and mansions. With the mansions in particular, I get a strong sense that I belong to them (if you read my last post you probably are concluding that I have delusions of grandeur), that I am of that First Presbyterian class of people, which is true and not true since I in fact am a member of a First Presbyterian Church, but to my knowledge this is not my family's heritage. My gut tells me though that the churches in my dreams, especially the one last night, was perhaps Episcopal rather than Presbyterian.

Now, let me leap to something else--to the Hull family that I have been studying of Spotsylvania and Northumberland counties in Virginia. They were likely Whigs, some of them anyway, and while in Virginia they belonged to the Episcopal Church. As far as I know, they seem to have joined the Presbyterian Church after moving to Mississippi. This is true, for instance, of Elizabeth Hull the Younger, wife of William Crump. Elizabeth died a sad death and unfortunately also had a sad marriage for reasons I do not know for certain. It does seem, however, that Mr. Crump did not treat her very kindly. When she was nearly deathly ill, she chose to travel to Spotsylvania. (There was still family there who hadn't migrated to Mississippi, and I think she wanted to see perhaps for the last time both them and the land of her birth.) I think she may also have wanted to die there, but before expiring she in fact made the journey back to the deep South. Her home was Marshall County, Mississippi, but I think she only made it as far as Memphis before passing away.

I know all of this about the family that owned my family because, like most of the planter class, the Hulls left behind a pretty decent paper trail and also because one of the Crafts of Marshall County, another big planter family, was smitten with both Elizabeth and her sister Lucy and provided a nice journal where he wrote in depth of both of their passings.

A couple of years ago, I went to Spotsylvania County to check up on the Hulls, that is, to look for all documents that would tell their story, and, in turn, my own family's story. I had a very lovely day at the Central Rappahannock Research Center, coming away with quite a bit of information including the name and location of the home of Elizabeth Hull the Older's farther, Laurel Hill. The next day, before heading out of town, I treated myself to a nice stroll down Princess Anne Street, which is home to probably fifty quaint shops selling antiques, gifts, t-shirts, coffee and spices, etc. Just as I started down the street, a middle-aged white woman who was exiting her car spotted me, and with the biggest smile exlaimed, "Hey you!" I could tell that she was looking at me, but I nevertheless,feigning dumbfoundedness, turned around to look behind me. She continued to focus on me, waiting, and I continued to act as though I hadn't a clue who she was speaking to. Finally, after what seemed an eternity but could not have been more than five seconds, she said, "Oh, I thought you were someone else."

The rest of my time in Fredericksburg was uneventful. I bought some gifts for friends I would be staying with at my next destination and got on the road.

But the next summer! Well, there's nothing spectacular or spooky that happened unless you're easily frightened. I traveled to Albemarle County, Virginia--Charlottesville--to look at the Hull/Herndon Papers at the University of Virginia. This too proved to be a fruitful trip. I learned of the earliest Hull settlers, how the Herndons and Hulls came together and more. I learned of the name of Brodie Strachan Hull's family home, or one of them anyway--Hay Farm. The one thing that I didn't find, which I have been looking for for many years is a connection to a Walker line. Our family, owned by the Hulls, used Walker as a middle name for years and gave it as a first name to at least two generations of men. The closest I have come to understanding and explaining this practice is that, one, our family may have been owned by Walkers at some point and, two, that the Herndon/Hulls were definitely associates and relatives of Thomas Walker of Castle Hill, which is in Albemarle. I've been meditating on this connection for several years, and this is all I've come up with. Thomas Walker was quite a figure (I'll go into his life story some other time). In short, he was definitely, like the Hulls, part of the elite families of Virginia, and it makes sense that our ancestors could have been with him at some point though it is difficult for a modern person such as myself to fully understand or embrace why we would have marked ourselves with the Walker name. That too is another question and story for another day. For today, let me just say that I continue to wonder if I am onto something with this connection to Walker.

I didn't say earlier, but before traveling by train to Charlottesville, I had been in New Haven, Connecticut studying at Yale slave narratives. I stayed for a few days on campus then took a cheap hotel in West Haven for a night. I was assigned Room 213. I am not superstitious, but I did think twice about the room number before taking the key. I had a good night's sleep, however, followed by a pleasant trip to Charlottesville. There, I stayed at another cheap hotel though the surrounding area was nice enough. I was a little tired when I got there, so I'm amazed at how patient I was standing behind a young man at the check-in desk who was having a fit that he was being assigned a smoking room. I know he argued with the clerk a full 20 minutes. After he finally gave up on getting any justice from the low-cost hotel staff, it was my turn, and my business proceeded pretty quickly. I was glad to be such an easy guest after the clerk had suffered the young man's complaint, but then just as I was patting myself on the back for being so patient, something told me that my own situation was about to go awry. I knew it! I just knew that I was about to receive a room assignment that I too was not going to like. And wouldn't you know it? "Hey," I blurted out, "Please tell me you're not putting me in Room 213." Expressionless, the clerk looked at the key envelope, "Yes, Ma'm. You're in Room 213." She didn't ask me if the assignment was a problem, and I didn't want to explain. My mind comforted me. "You're not superstitious. You're not superstitious," it said. But then again I thought; this is just too much. I survived one night in Room 213; I should not be expected to survive another.

Too embarrassed and shy to make a fuss, I took the key and headed up to my room. I put all worries out of my mind and focused my energy elsewhere. And as I've said, this too was a productive trip. When I was back home, I told a few people of my reoccurring room assignment, and all were agreed that 213 was simply an affirmation that I was/am in the right place, searching the right trail. Of course, this is not scientific evidence that Thomas Walker is indeed the Walker I am looking for, but in doing genealogy I have learned that scientific evidence and mystical experiences go hand in hand.

Running with a Lion

Night before last, I had one of the most memorable dreams I've ever had. It has been a stressful week, so I partly attribute the dream to this fact. When I am stressed, I am very aware that my quality of sleep is different, and usually this encourages more fantastical dreams than I usually have.

I dreamed of a lion in a home that I shared with my mother, sister, and brother. The lion looked just like...well...a lion. He was a male and huge, but tame. In fact, he was in most of the dream sprawled out on the floor of our "den" acting like one of the family. The others rubbed his belly, and he was just eating up the attention. As for me, I really didn't want much to do with him since I was thinking--the lion's got to go. He doesn't belong. But, not yet ready to ruin everyone else's fun, I decided to leave, or I should say I tried to leave. However, every time I headed for the door, no matter how gingerly I stepped, the lion would see me, bolt for the door, and, like dogs always do, beat me there. At the door, he showed me much affection, jumping up on me. It's a wonder he didn't kill me with his weight. I had no choice but to return to my earlier act, waiting in vain for a chance to leave without his noticing.

I told a few people about this dream because it was such a strong one, its image staying with me after waking and even today. Everyone said the lion should be seen as an image of power. "So you like power, eh?" was the question I was asked. No, just the opposite. I tend to shy away from power as I do not like the responsibility or accountability. I'm always more than happy to let others have that.

Today, I decided to write about the dream in my journal since a few days of meditating on its meaning have been useful. I also reflected upon a book I've been reading, Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung, et al. Jung has this, among other things, to say about our dreams: (1) they are as real as anything else, (2) they communicate needed messages to our conscious selves, and (3) they help us achieve equilibrium. As a result of reading Jung, I definitely have been paying closer attention to my dreams, and not only that, but I have also slowly been attempting to embrace the idea that what is beyond the natural, or beyond our consciousnesses is nevertheless real. I have been more observant, more open, and more introspective. And, in this way, I am feeling refreshed.

But back to the lion dream. Well, in fact, there was an earlier portion of the dream in which there was another animal, and I should say up front that I very, very seldom dream of animals. Jung says that animals are religious. I know little of animal symbolism, but certainly I am aware that the lion is an ancient symbol used by many different faiths and cultures. Universally, this animal at the top of the food chain seems to symbolize power. In my  other dream, however, I saw a skinned calf lying on the floor. It may already have been dead, but I knew that it was in fact going to be butchered, so I left the place where it was, turning my back to it, refusing to  witness the "sacrifice."

Jung wrote that we are capable of having dreams that contain ancient symbols. Even children have such dreams, and this fact seems to be proof for Jung just how deep our psyches, our souls or roots are. In my present life, however, it is very easy for me to see how the two parts of the dream communicate a message about turning away or escaping. In the first case, I wanted to escape watching a sacrifice and in the second the companionship of an animal who seemed out of place. Both dreams suggest rejection and fear, in the first case, fear of sacrifice, and in the second fear of power.

According to Jung, humans need balance. The conscious needs to be in balance with the unconscious. I can see how the two parts of my dream are a balance for each other, and I am open to the message that accepting power is in fact my required sacrifice. The tasks that the universe has set before me I must act upon. And, not only is the lion with me; we are aligned. His power is always available to me if I will just call upon him.

I never write about religion, not in my blogging anyway, and this is not intended as a religious message though I am Christian. Being open to other ways of thinking about our existence in the universe, I have read a bit on the place of animals in Native American cosmology. A few years ago, I went as far as to create for myself a medicine wheel. It's a beautiful object, which adorns the wall of one of my bedrooms. I haven't thought much about it since making and hanging it, so I definitely cannot say that I have felt the power of any of the animals I placed on it. It has become simply decoration. But, after dreaming of the lion, I thought of my medicine wheel, and, more generally, I thought of the whole concept of animal medicine, and I am embracing the idea that the lion, like other animals, has something to teach me.

Anyone who has owned a dog knows that it is wonderful to have them greet you at the door even when they jump on you. As I said earlier, the lion raced and beat me to the door and threw itself upon me. I have made much of this, but one idea that I wish to communicate here is that this dream of the lion teaches me that my (our) sense of time and movement is not superior to that of most animals. A dog will beat us running every time as will a lion. So, there's no point in trying to beat such animals; instead, we should submit to their power, what they have to teach us, and what they offer us. Even though the lion was faster than I was, what he really achieved was synchronicity. He met me at the door every time I attempted to get by him. He synchronized his power with mine. I understand this to mean not simply that I should accept his sense of time but that my life is ensconced by this larger time to which the lion belongs. In short, my life is attached to a larger order, and I am not on this journey alone.

When the Ancestors Call

In the last year, I have invited my students to join me in family history research. Some have tried it and, for whatever the reason, moved on at least for the time being. But, two students truly have caught the bug, or whatever it is that makes genealogists nearly obsessed with finding their ancestors, other people's ancestors, and with making sense of the past. The two students have written really fantastic papers on two slave owners from Holly Springs, Mississippi, and they presented their papers last month (October) at an undergraduate research conference. As one of the students talked about his work, he explained that he continued to be motivated by the family of his subject. It is as if, he said, "they" are pushing me to continue. Perhaps needless to say, that particular statement got no response from the audience, and I felt a little embarrassed for my student, whom I did not forewarn that academics do not tend to give credit for their work or even their inspiration to the dead. At the same time, the student's naivete was refreshing, and I was reminded by it that those of us who have learned what statements are acceptable and what statements are not acceptable should lose some of our inhibitions.

I have done so in the last two weeks, and I do so now in this post. I feel that I must, for there is simply no denying that at this point something really strange and wonderful is occurring in my research.

It began very unintentionally on my part. I was trying to decide where to go next in the research--what exactly I wanted to assign my students to do this semester. A colleague had given me a yearbook from 1966, and I had brought it home on a Friday. At some point on Saturday, my gut led me to look through the yearbook, and as I did so I was attuned to names that rang a bell from The Register of Freedmen, which I have been "studying" for three years. Pretty quickly, I came across the surname Gatewood. A gentleman by the name of Lafayette Gatewood had graduated from the college in 1964. The name was recognizable to me, so I checked The Register, and indeed I found two freedpeople with the last name and their former owner--Thomas Gatewood. Next, I decided to go online to see if I could find anyone researching this family, and there was. In 2008, as it turned out, the sister-in-law of Lafayette Gatewood had made a query on Rootsweb. She already had done some research herself, and her query was answered by two people who had been studying Gatewoods from Holly Springs and Memphis. A few days later, I took my class on a tour of the town (Holly Springs), and when I found us standing in front of the Gatewood-Boling House, I snapped a picture of the sign in the front yard bearing the name and sent it to Lafayette Gatewood's sister-in-law, who lives clear cross the country.

Days later, I was flipping through some notes and came across a few words that I had jotted down from a friend who has organized with me a discussion group on the topic of slavery. The words--"The Gatewood sisters are stalwarts..." Immediately, I sent an email to my friend telling him of the number of coincidences I had been noticing, and he said that he was interested in inviting one of the sisters to our next meeting.

This week, some of my students began researching their own families. I was so pleased with their work, delighted in fact to see them learning about their ancestors, reviving names that they haven't known and haven't realized they even desire to know. One young man, whose mother--by phone--gave him the names of two generations of family members--grands and great-grands, came up to my desk to ask what he should do with the names. I looked down at his notepad, and as I read the names he'd recorded I slowly began to recognize them. "Those names are awfully familiar," I said. Then, I noticed also that he had written next to "Katie Gatewood" the town "Slayden" located in Marshall County. "Oh my," I said to the student, "Those are my husband's relatives!" And in fact they were. Katie Gatewood is my husband's maternal great-grandmother, after whom his mother--my mother-in-law- Katie, is named.

Wow!

How do I make sense of this, that is, the fact that my eyes went to Lafayette Gatewood's name in the yearbook, all of the other coincidences that either led or caused me to recognize the name in other places, and finally my realization that my husband and therefore my own children are in fact Gatewoods? Here's the way I understand it. I am attuned to something, to what exactly I'm not sure. Energy? Messages that exist in the universe and that require a messenger, a channel, someone whose mind, body, and soul are prepared to receive them?

About a year and a half ago, I decided I would every day tweet one name from The Register. Honestly, I didn't have any other goal in mind. I just wanted to do this; maybe as a memorial. I realize now, however, that by tweeting the names I was allowing them to enter my long-term memory. Eventually, I gave up the project because I got really busy at one point and couldn't remember where I had left off. I know, however, that I never made it go Gatewood. I didn't get past the Cs. Yet, in the months I spent transcribing the record I already had committed so many names to memory, which explains how I became attuned to Gatewood and therefore heard "them" when they came a callin'. No other name from The Register has yet made itself so heard, and if that is the only other surname--besides those of the five blood ancestors I have on The Register--directly connected to me, then maybe this makes sense.

I have in fact been obsessed with The Register since finding it, and I offer no apologies for that. Maybe I've even been a little territorial. At the same time, I have tried to invite others to work with it, and I have been disappointed when my excitement over the implications of the record are not matched by the same level of excitement in others. I have reasoned that people do not get excited by the 150 year old record because they do not feel attached to it. So, maybe this is yet another reason why the Gatewoods called me up. By doing so, they let me know that not only I am connected to this record but my husband is as well. And what were the chances of that? How instructive! If two people--my husband and I--who are not from the same hometown but instead grew up hundreds of miles apart both are connected to this record, then how many more living descendants are as well?

How many slaves were architects?

I don't know the answer to the question, but I sure was proud to learn that slaves had built the beautiful Immanuel (Episcopal) Church in LaGrange, Tennessee.

Writer Amy Tan on Creativity

"What is chance, what is luck, what are things

that you get from the universe that you can't really explain?"

Amy Tan, TED Lecture, Feb. 2008

Tan sets the perception of randomness against her mother's sense that everything has an explanation, yet she states that ambiguity, a lack of clarity (like her mother's or even greater), is part of her writing process as it should be. Still, she finds herself being pointed in directions, and she wonders how things happen, why they happen, and how she herself makes them happen. She has observed that the more she notices strange occurrences the more they happen. Creative people, she suggests, are "multi-dimensional." Her resolve: "I have to develop a cosmology of my own universe as the creator of that universe."

Perhaps what Tan is saying is two-fold: one, creative people don't exist in multiple dimensions or as multiply-dimensional without willful engagement of other dimensions or realms and, two, that their sense of what is real is partly influenced by their own involvement in creation of their universe. Accordingly, my cosmology would be I think both what exists and what I see (or otherwise sense) and acknowledge.

Deep stuff. Listen to Tan's lecture here.

Stuck Betwixt and Between

I've been writing elsewhere, but I miss writing here. Here's where I risk putting strange ideas out into the universe. Here's where it's okay to suggest that all of my work in genealogy is being assisted. I'm glad to be back!

In a blog post from 2008, I wrote about how a ninety six-year-old woman I interviewed turned the tables on me (or "depthed" me, her word) during the hour I spent with her. It was the first time we'd ever met, yet she seemed to know me. She in fact had a message for me: "You're well equipped."

How could she know that I doubt myself all of the time, that I put stuff out there into the universe and then want very much to pull it back before anyone sees it?

I'm not sure if my once ninety six-year-old--who would be more like a hundred mark by now--is still alive, but I thought of her this week as I sought funding advice for an important project I'm working on, a genealogical project which potentially touches hundreds of thousands of families. I was advised to pull into my work leading scholars from prestigious research institutions, leaders in slavery research. Sitting in an office chair across from my grant advisor I began to sink as he spoke of budgets and boards.

The next day, I scheduled lunch with a friend just so that I could vent, so that I could admit to someone that my passion for genealogy is working at the ground level--sorting through old records, getting their residue on my hands, being enveloped into the aura of a different time. It is there where I have experienced the most wonderfully strange things.

Yet my lunch date reminds me that without money my work will only take longer; I will only grow poorer as I continue funding my own research, and she is right of course, well, at least partly right. I nod my head for her, knowing all the while that I am not buying what she is saying. I am stubborn, and my ninety six-year-old's message to me also is not assuring me that I can administer a grant-funded genealogical-turned-Civil War historical project complete, I suppose, with articles, books, and conferences. And, I'm almost certain that I do not want to take things to that "next" level.

I am stuck then betwixt and between the place where the universe delivered important information to me--placed it right into my lap--and institutionalizing the information before it even has a chance to breathe its old life.

What would the ancestors say about my hesitation? Well, I suppose that they have already spoken. So, I must take my own advice (see blog post of July 7, 2010) and keep moving. If they can travel with me on trains, planes, and automobiles, they can move with me also through the various machinations of higher education, through funding agencies, book publishers, etc. Equipped? Okay. Equipped.