"Legends and Legacies"

My very favorite episode of "Little House on the Prairie" is from its eighth season (January of 1982), and is entitled "The Legacy". It is very different than other episodes of the long-running series since it shows - albeit briefly - a modern scene (in a "flash-forward"). A couple has just purchased an antique table, branded with the initials "CI" on its underside. They wonder about its history and its maker, and if memory serves, were saddened that they would never know either. Then in "flash-back", we see how Charles Ingalls - "Pa" - came to make this piece of furniture. "Pa" took a chance at making a legacy for his family and tried to become a successful, famous furniture maker in "the big city". But, instead, he finds himself and his talents taken advantage of by the shady boss and leaves his employ. Resigned and dejected, "Pa" returns to his home and his family. But by show's end, he realizes that his legacy is his family. But I can't help but think that the table he built was a pretty neat legacy to have left behind… especially if it stayed in the family.

On a recent trip to the Henry Ford Museum, we spent the day looking at other peoples' stuff. There were Edgar Allen Poe's and Mark Twain's actual desks from whence they wrote, perhaps some of their more famous works. The actual "Rosa Park Bus" was part of a moving exhibit on Civil Rights. There was the actual limousine in which JFK was riding in when he was shot. And, perhaps the most awe-filling display, there just inches away behind glass, sits the actual rocking chair that Lincoln was seated in, at Ford's Theater, when he was shot. I marveled, not in the gruesome thought that this stain was his blood and brain matter (although that bit of reflection is unavoidable), but that his fingers drummed the arms while sat and watched the play. He - the great man - had actually touched this furniture; stretched and rested his weary and lanky frame in it! How Lincoln, with the long War now finally over, undoubtedly felt the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders. How he leaned over and smiled at Mary. And thought of his future, perhaps - like most politicians - of his legacy.

There was one of the few pieces of non-anonymous furniture, which we gravitated to and pondered greatly over. It was a very interesting and unusual press cupboard from early 18th century New England. And it had its original owner's name painted, quite decoratively, on the front. A wedding chest, it had "Hannah Barnard"… oddly, her maiden name. With some quick research it was found that Hannah, sadly, died a short time later after giving birth to her first child. And really, not much more is known about Hannah. Few traces remain as reminders of her life; but this chest and her gravestone.

Certainly, seeing the aforementioned more "famous" exhibits - and note that I used the word "actual" in each case as emphasis - can cause a feeling of awe and stir our emotions. But after seeing Hannah's press cupboard, I looked differently at the remaining - even those mundane and common place - pieces and exhibits at the Henry Ford. Each one (unless they went directly from factory to museum) had an actual owner (or several) who actually used that chair, this tool, drove this car… touching each one. I would well suppose that all of these owners never imagined that their plow, bookcase, or train engine would ever end up in a museum, centuries in the future, being stared at by strangers!

The stuff that fills museums - and antique stores, flea markets and garage sales - all have history! A personal history. Would that they could speak! Would that we might know their stories!

I doubt greatly, even the most arrogant of those whom we portray; Civil War Era Americans - soldiers or civilians, North or South - ever gave a thought that almost a hundred and fifty years later, they and their lives would serve as a hobby and be a fascination to a people such as us! Did they ever think someone - anyone - who didn't know them would spend money and weekends to "reenact" their daily lives and battles? Did the Yankee soldier who lost his canteen think that it would be sold for some exorbitant price in an auction on eBay? Did the young girl, born in 1850, who had received a tortoise shell hair comb as a gift from a beau off to war ever think that after she died, a great grandchild she would never meet, would sell it in a consignment shop? When a young Michigan couple gave a new Carte de Visite of themselves to a family member in Pennsylvania, that is would someday, end up in a state that didn't then exist, in a stranger's rec room next to his beer can collection? Did any of them think that someone, someday, would excavate the site of their privy as a form of archeology?

The repeated and obvious answer is "no". Any more than we, today, can imagine that our stuff will someday end up in a museum, in an antique shop or as decorations in some sort of twenty-third century "Max & Erma's" restaurant. Who besides us, would want our stuff - and most of us don't even want it, at least not for a long period of time. We have regular garage and yard sales to rotate out our old stuff and make room for new stuff (ironically often bought at someone else's garage sale). But to have our iPods or our BlackBerrys or our high school pictures or copy of the "Thick as a Brick" album or our Tiger's caps or our SUVs, all being stared at in a virtual museum, studied by fascinated historians and yawned at by bored school kids on a "field trip"? Please! Sure, we might reminisce about the "Good Ol' Days" (and that differs for all of us, even those the same age)… and we - CW reenactors - have a special attraction for that era of American history as well. For other reenactors, it is the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812 or World War I or II. But certainly, I cannot imagine someone, from the year 2158, say, being "reenactors" of our time period.

We cannot picture any of that, I believe, because as reenactors we are much better at imagining the past - and as people with pressures of modern life struggle with the here and now - more than imagining a hundred or two hundred years in The Future (most Science Fiction that I've read, deals with The Future in an "amazing" - and/or "horrific" -predilection and prediction, rather than simple daily, normal lives). For most of us, we simple have too many worries in the present and have too much fun in the past, to think too far forward into The Future. For most of us, it is more than enough for us to think to our retirement or perhaps, with a Life Insurance policy and a Will in hand, to A Day With-out Us Around. I doubt that a Yankee soldier on the battlefield was thinking to a day their great great grandchildren would be alive… a hundred and fifty years into the future. They were thinking would they live to go home the farm and get married to their sweethearts… or to go back home to their wives and children and make more babies with them? They really didn't have the luxury of projecting much beyond the immediate, did they?

But think about it, we are living in the present, and yet, living in someone's future - and someone's past!!! I doubt, for most of us, that we've thought much beyond our grandchildren (actual or prospective) - or at best, our great grandchildren. Well, alright, I have. But then, as my mom wrote about me in her diary when I wasn't yet fifteen months old: "…something's screwy someplace." I've gone into some detail in previous columns of how I got into genealogy and into history. But I'd like to take a different angle here (and, likely - hopefully - end-up making the same broad nib point). As a kid, I've mentioned, I was "into" history… and so my grandfather gave me some of his stuff (for instance his grandfather's portrait), rather than my older brother or any of our older cousins. He gave me his Columbia Graphanola Phonograph. It was the first thing he and his new bride bought "on credit" from the Fowler's Department Store in Binghamton, NY when they were first married in 1915. Another is a drop-lid Secretary Desk. Both of these I can see years later in photographs taken and his and Grandma's 50th Wedding Anniversary party. The point I want to make here, is this - at one time, they weren't "antiques".

He also gave me, then fourteen and in junior high school, a bunch of old books. Not as impressive or as useful as furniture, they stayed in the box for years. Then finally they were brought out because they looked good on the mantle in our Victorian home in German Village, when we got married, in Columbus, OH. Initially, I was primarily interested in the Gillett line of my ancestry and stayed pretty focused on just that/them. Eventually, I literally, "branched out" in include other lines. A how-to-book on genealogy book, that I had read, suggested that you check out old photographs or old books for any and all clues in your family history searchings.

So on a rainy day, I finally did just that, and so flipped through my library of "antique" books. One old and fragile book had written inside the cover "Mary Ann Reynolds" along with "George" and "John". The last name sounded familiar… I knew that my 4th great grandmother Lydia Gillett had been a Reynolds. It turned out that there was no connection there. However as I later dug through my notes (long before I had everything easily cataloged and quickly referenced on Family Tree Maker 2005), I happened to come across some notes that reminded me that there was another Reynolds line - on my Grandmother Gillett's side.

With some investigating I found that this Mary Ann Reynolds was my great great grandmother…and George and John her brothers. And this book was her American History schoolbook when she was a girl! Her copy of "The History of the United States from their First Settlement as Colonies to the Close of the War with Great Britain in 1815" ---- from 1846! Now some 162 years old, this was, at that time, brand-new!

Like "Pa" Ingalls with his table, my great great grandmother - then a child - had absolutely no idea that this book would be held in gently awe by her great great grandson. And I doubt Mary Ann thought it then or at any time before she passed away in 1900. I don't know what this woman looked like. I have no photograph of her. I know nothing of her personally or of her personality. I don't have a description of her or any other of her possessions. I've heard no stories. My grandmother (who passed when I was nine) - her granddaughter - to my recollection never spoke of her to me. I doubt Grandma had many memories of her grandmother. She would have been just seven when Mary Ann died. But somehow, she was given - and for some reason kept - this schoolbook. My grandfather kept it… solely because it had been his wife's or, perhaps, she told him who it had originally belonged to? And she was a young, married woman, with small children during the Civil War. Maybe her husband fought. Perhaps her brothers and cousins enlisted. I don’t know. I do know she had a nephew killed at Spotsylvania Courthouse. So what did she think of the "Confederate prisoner of war" camp ("The Death Camp of the North") in Elmira - just thirty miles away?

In my research I however know that her name was Mary Ann Reynolds, born Tuesday, 14 Nov 1837 in Nichols, Tioga Co., NY and that she died Thursday, 06 May 1900 on Reynolds Hill, in Nichols, aged 62 years, 5 months and 19 days… and was buried three days later - on Sunday - in Dunham's Field ("Old Riverside Cemetery") there in Nichols. She was the daughter of Joseph Reynolds and Sarah Babcock, one of eight children born them. She married Schuyler Bixby in Nichols, on Monday, 22 Dec 1856, his second wife. They had four children. A daughter who died at twelve days old and a son who died who died twenty-one days old. Her only living son never married. Her only living daughter would someday become my great grandmother, Stella Amanda Bixby Bixby, and who would give Mary Ann her only grandchildren. I can only find Mary Ann listed in the 1880 census for Nichols. Husband Schuyler Bixby is transcribed as Schaylin Bixley. Her father, Joseph, is living with Mary Ann and Schuyler… along with daughter Stella… I am not sure where son George was… that is pretty much it… all I know and can tell. No one is alive who knew her. Or knows anyone who knew her.

I have however visited her grave in an almost forgotten, old and overgrown cemetery on the banks of the Susquehanna River and have taken pictures of her gravestone in the family plot. A small plain stone, its inscription simply reads, "Mother", with her name and dates of birth and death. In a photograph that I took, I can see a small, dried flower on the top of the stone. Has someone remembered her?

I have however found her obituary - two versions actually. This from May 10, 1900 (Owego Gazette), "Mrs. Mary Ann Bixby, widow of Schuyler Bixby, died very suddenly at home on Reynolds Hill, Thursday afternoon, after an illness of a few hours of rheumatism of the heart, aged 62 years. A large assembly of sympathizing neighbors and mourning friends and relatives gathered at her late home Sunday, May 6 at 12m, to pay their last tribute of love and respect to her, of whom nothing but good was ever reported. None knew her but to love her. Rev. Moore, of Nichols, preached a very feeling sermon and spoke words of comfort to the sorrowing friends and her remains were laid at rest in the Dunham cemetery. She leaves the morning of a loving mother [- ? - her mother died some thirty years previous, however, her father was still living], one son George, at home and one daughter, Mrs. Orin Bixby, of this place, and four grandchildren [my grandmother, her sister and two brothers], besides a large circle of other relatives and friends." And this from some other local paper, dated May 7, 1900; "Mrs. Schuyler Bixby died suddenly Thursday of neuralgia [is this different than rheumatism?] of the heart, at her home on Reynolds Hill. She leaves two sons, George and Orin [actually, Orin Bixby was her son-in-law… as well as her nephew. This likely didn't bother Mary Ann in the least - for her parents were also first cousins and her husband's mother was a Reynolds as well and so Mary Ann and he, at best, were second cousins]; and a brother John S. Reynolds. The funeral was held from the residence yesterday, Prof. Moore officiating. Internment was in the public cemetery above Nichols."

As I spent time in this cemetery, I couldn’t help but think that this ground was actually walked upon by generations of my family. Time and time again they came for visits and burials - ultimately their own. There are few other places or few other things that I could say this with any kind of certainty, but like the Lincoln rocking chair, this I know this with great confidence: I know Mary Ann has walked in this cemetery…. I know that Mary Ann touched this book. I know my grandmother touched this book. As many of us go on a pilgrimage to Gettysburg (for some, twice this year!) and as you walk Pickett's Charge, visit Little Round Top or Devil's Den… walk the streets… tour the homes… you can know, without doubt, that actual people lived, worked, fought, bled and died there. That is both a legend and a legacy.

We Civil War Nuts and History Junkies live for those all too rare moments… the gooseflesh raised on our arms, the hair raised on the backs of our necks… when we realize - feel - that this was the spot, the place. We can hear, feel and smell the history - our ancestors - around us. There is a holiness about it.

Let's not cheat our "descendants" out of that same sweet experience. A "flash-backs", for them, is contingent upon "flash-forwards" for us. We talk about leaving a "global footprint" - usually in terms of ecology. But as historians we need to be sure we leave a foot print as well for the future. On a larger - and very important scale - there's the Civil War Preservation Trust's (CWPT) good work to be sure the history is there in the future. But individually, we can "preserve" our story - so it becomes history for someone. Take pictures (and label them). Video family members - interview them! Document and chronicle. Keep a journal or a diary or a blog. Write letters and save letters. Cell phone calls, emails and texting and IMing, though fast and convenient, unfortunately leave no record (well, except for the Mayor of Detroit - but you know what I mean!) for our kids or grandkids. I have love letters sent between my grandfather and grandmother before they were married, nearly 95 years ago. I have love letters sent between Karen and me before we were married almost thirty years ago (and throughout our marriage). I found letter recently that I wrote home when I went away to college. And letters from my mom from then and up to the time she passed. As I mentioned, I have my mom's diary from 1959 - and from several other years as well.

If there is a family heirloom (or something you want to become a family heirloom), tell your family or friends. Write it down. Include it in your will. Tell the story about it and write it down (even attaching it to the item). "This lamp was my Grandmother Wachter's wedding present from Grandpa". Don't let anybody have to guess. Or worse yet, think it isn't anything and have it in a garage sale or in the trash, after you go.

Write your biography. Karen's very quiet dad wrote a sort of memoir of his life - especially his childhood, for his kids and grandchildren. Karen didn't know most of that stuff about him until she read it. My Uncle Neil, at my prompting, has done the same. While I am as much a Genealogy Nut as I am a Civil War Nut (I know Ken Giorlando, J.R. Schroeder and Bill Jones and others are all as well), this isn't to push anyone into family history. But, really, most people couldn't tell you who the name of their great great grandfather or anything about them - and that is sad. Shouldn't we make sure we've left evidence of our lives? Shouldn't we make sure our descendents… 150 or 200 years into the future remember and know about us? Even just fifty! It won't take very long at all to be forgotten. I would be doing a disservice - as a Christian as well as your chaplain - if I didn't quote Matthew 6:19-21 here: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And I wouldn't presume to minimize that Truth. But we can with purpose leave treasures of a sort for those who come after us. Like so many of those who came before us did inadvertently!