|
TALES from the FRONT PORCH
Ringgold County's Oral Legend & Memories Project
THE STORY TELLERS . . . WE ARE THE CHOSEN
or Why I Am So Fascinated ("Obsessed") With Genealogy
YOUNG CEMETERY, Decatur County, Iowa, photograph by Sharon R. Becker, 2009
My feelings are in each family there is one who seems
called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones
and make them live again, to tell the family story and to
feel that somehow they know and approve.
To me doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but,
instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are
the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been
called as it were by our genes. Those who have gone before
cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves
have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many
times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family you
would be proud of us?
How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there
was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I
and why do I do the things I do?
It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to
weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen.
The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
It goes to doing something about it.
It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to
accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today.
It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their
never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on
and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us
a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that
they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are.
That we might remember them. So we do.
With love and caring and scribing each fact of their
existence, because we are them and they are us.
So, as a scribe called I tell the story of my family. It is
up to that one called in the next generation to answer the
call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.
That, is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what
calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.
Author Unknown
Submitted by Sherry Hatfield, August of 2009
| 
