My entry point for history was my own family. I grew up visiting graveyards regularly, whether it was planting flowers on relatives graves (some of whom I don’t remember exactly where they fit in the family tree) or trying to find other branches on the family tree generations back, so far back that the graves were often not visited anymore. I can still find baby Daisy because she’s buried so close to Author’s Ridge in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.
To put things into even further perspective was thinking about my great-aunt. Born at the beginning of 1900, she saw just about everything that happened in the 20th century. I remembered her earlier this week when an unattributed quote popped up on my Facebook feed:
Imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday. […] Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. […] On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. […] That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. And don’t try to catch your breath. On your 41st birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war. At 50, the Korean War starts. […] At 55 the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. […] On your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. […] When you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that?
Unknown. Posted by Rionne McAvoy, Facebook.
I’ve shortened the entirety of the quote because it’s more about perspective (and is very focused on death and disease) than it is about history. These are only the major war and plague events that occurred in her lifetime. There is so much more than just those events. When she was in her 20s, my great-aunt would have seen the fad of dance marathons. She would have traced the path of the Zeppelins as the various models attempted new feats in air travel. She would have seen the changes in technology from telegraph to telephone to internet and mobile phones. (My great-aunt died in 2006.)
I sometimes think about the fact that she was also five years older than Cornelius Crane, nine years older than Florence – two of the individuals I regularly research and talk about in my work. And then I think about just how much she outlived them by. (Both Florence and Cornelius died in the 1960s.)
While both cemeteries and my great-aunt are excellent starts, my interest goes even further back. My parents are amateur genealogists, and I have (over the last few years) taken up the banner of family researcher. I’ve been working hard to add my husband’s family into the tree, meanwhile discovering distant marital connections to other Mayflower descendants, such as Mercy Otis Warren. (No blood unfortunately, but I was a little taken aback when a search into her great-uncle’s wife pulled up a familiar family name.)
Suffice it to say, I’ve been taken to hither and yon, just to track down our family roots.
History is a bit more real when you make it personal – something that you can witness watching episodes of Finding Your Root with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. More than one episode has involved a famous or semi-famous personality getting emotional over their ancestors for a variety of reasons. I know I personally went through a faze in elementary school where I was reading every age appropriate historical fiction book about the Mayflower and Plimoth as I could get my hands on.
I have always thought it was important to make sure we tell the histories of our places and I think the histories of our families are just as important. One day I would love to write down as many stories from my family as I can. But this also reminds me that today is tomorrow’s history. We are currently living through a momentus moment and we need to remember that and record it to the best of our abilities.
I personally try not to record too much of my own isolated experience on this blog because, to be frank, I’m exhausted. And I know many of us are exhausted. If I’m going to read someone’s blog right now, I don’t necessarily want to be reading about what their life in the face of coronavirus is like. But I am trying to make an effort to record what it is like. Because honestly – who knows what tomorrow will bring.