ancestors

Art by Jan Oliver Schultz-Trail of the Ancestors


They are still with us; they care about us. I know, I have seen them.

Some of the most exciting years of my life were spent tracking down those elusive people who came before me. Looking for headstones in an old Vermont cemetery which required hoisting my sister over a chain linked fence and crawling up and over myself. Hunting headstones with precious dates. Finding the burial spot of Prindle Rising,  a Union soldier mentioned in a letter from my Civil War great grandfather dated 1863. Hooray.

There is something spiritual about trying to connect with these long dead folks.I felt that deeply as I worked. It started with the death certificate of my grandmother with the names and dates of her parents and where they had been born.It was like pulling a colorful thread that slowly unwinds, gifting precious knowledge.

I am sure of this: their grit stiffens by backbone.Try to imagine coming to Plymouth in the winter of 1638 with a husband and 4 children under the age of ten.You did that Abigail, oh woman of courage.The colony there was barely settled, a few homes carved out of the wilderness.You left everything behind."Oh, beautiful for spacious skies," it called you.

Amanda, my great aunt, I have your picture, in tight bonnet and long skirt.You moved from Vermont and raised a family in Minnesota. In the 1880's a tornado blew through Duluth and a baby was ripped from your arms.She was never found and yet, you lived.You went on. I have proof , a letter you wrote in 1900 telling of hearing William Jennings Bryan speak.You kept in touch with your family back east in Vermont.We will meet some day.

Catherine,  how did you leave beautiful Ireland with four teen-agers in 1848 and arrive here with nothing ?You were tenant farmers and when the only crop, the sorrowful potato, got blight, your life was over.The English government would have fed you if you gave up your faith.Not you,Catherine, you sailed to an unknown place where signs appeared in shop windows that said :"Irish need not apply".You lived and your children became Americans. I am one of yours.

Johnann, my Scottish grandmother, had a third grade education and never drove a car. Always a sweet smile on your face, such busy hands knitting and tatting.Your life was limited to travel to from NY to New Jersey, and no vacations that I ever heard about.I never appreciated how limited your life was. I am telling you that I am sorry.

Strong women, were you all in that vision of six years ago?

I was on a bench in the woods behind our house when I saw you. My eyes were closed as I prayed for my unborn granddaughter.There was bleeding and a safe delivery was not guaranteed. In the quiet, I saw two lines of ancestors on either side of my beautiful, pregnant daughter-in-law. Each person would stop, place a hand on her womb and pass on.The lines were long and from many different parts of this earth; all with one desire, that Maddie be born. It was all so clear, their intention and concern.Then a bell softly rang and they were gone.

She is here, Catherine, Amanda, Johnann, Mary, Abigail,.At the age of five, you will be happy to know,  she loves to pray.My love for her is beyond telling.Thank you.