Roots and Branches: Road Trip Reflections
The Importance of Passing On Family Legacy and Lore to Those Behind Us
There is a Biblical precedence for placing “stones of remembrance” to briefly mark the legacy of a person or an event.
And those twelve stones, which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal.And he spake unto the children of Israel, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? Joshua 4:20-21
And that is what a headstone is - a stone of remembrance. A marker that someone actually existed and had a life which is usually all but forgotten beyond the first ensuing generation.
Until just a few decades ago, many families had generational historians, so to speak. This person would take it upon themselves to document the previous generation and preserve what had already been written of the preceding generations. In our family, that person was my mother. She carefully collected documents and books that recorded the histories of those that came before us. She would instill in us the importance of knowing “where we came from”.
As I grew older, I was struck by the depth of the preserved generational reach-back. Or maybe it was that I started caring about it. It became fascinating.
Today, even though many get distracted by all the shiny objects bombarding our senses, there is a silver lining in the development of online research. Particularly in the area of Genealogy. When the now inexpensive DNA testing entered the genealogical research realm, a whole new world opened up to discovery. Along with the DNA results, sites like Ancestry and others provide tools to research, record our roots, and reach out to living relatives.
Extensive family trees can now be built out, sometimes going back many generations. A whole host of other research tools have been spawned, such as Find a Grave, Geni, and similar type sites. These tools are interactive, where users can update and edit information about their ancestors.
Stemming from my mother’s efforts to preserve our family history, I have built out an extensive tree and uncovered some fascinating stories of my own ancestry.
Lately, however, we have been delving into my wife’s family history and have discovered some equally intriguing stories. In future posts on The Talking Pen, I will be writing the stories of some of our ancestors.
In this post, my goal is to emphasize the importance of preserving and passing on family legacies and lore to the next generations.
Recently, Susan and I embarked on an almost 2300 mile, ten state roadtrip from our home in South Carolina out to Wichita Falls, Texas for our grandson’s 5th birthday. We drove out via I= 20 through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Northern Texas. Our goal at first was to get there, so we didn’t do a lot of site-seeing until we got to Paris, TX.
A landmark of Paris, TX, which I wanted to see, is a 65 ft. replica of the Eiffel Tower topped with a large red cowboy hat. As we drove up to snap a photo, we discovered the Red River Valley Veteran’s Memorial Park, which honors the service and sacrifice of veterans from the Red River Valley.
One of the displays was the story of the Choctaw Code Talkers and the crucial role they played during World War I. Most have heard of the Navajo Code Talkers of WW2, made famous in the movie, Windtalkers, starring Nicolas Cage. But, like me, not many had heard of the Choctaw Code Talkers. Another display was the “War Dog” monument honoring DOGS FOR DEFENSE, which told the story of the development of the use of dogs and handlers in combat and rescue situaltions. Today, we take things like this forgranted, but there was a beginning. It’s a fascinating story.
Part of the inscription reads:
AT THE START OF WORLD WAR I, AMERICA DID NOT HAVE A PROGRAM FOR TRAINING DOGS, OR FOR USING DOGS IN ANY CAPACITY.
ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS GROUPS WAS “DOGS FOR DEFENSE,” LED BY A GROUP OF PROFESSIONAL BREEDERS WHO CAME INTO BEING IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR. BY JULY 1943, OVER 11,000 DOGS HAD BEEN PROCURED, WITH MOST OF THEM COMING FROM DOGS FOR DEFENSE. THE FIRST WAR DOG RECEPTION AND TRAINING CENTER WAS ESTABLISHED AT FRONT ROYAL, VIRGINIA IN AUGUST OF 1942.
DURING WORLD WAR II, A TOTAL OF SEVEN MARINE WAR DOG PLATOONS NICKNAMED “DEVIL DOGS” WERE TRAINED AT CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA. ALL OF THE DOG PLATOONS SERVED IN THE PACIFIC IN THE WAR AGAINST JAPAN. NOT ONE UNIT PROTECTED BY ONE OF THE DOGS WAS EVER AMBUSHED BY THE JAPANESE NOR WAS THERE EVER A CASE OF ENEMY INFILTRATION.
Today, dogs and handlers are common throughout war zones.
As mentioned earlier, Susan and I have begun researching some of her ancestral roots. So, the returned trip took us meandering through rural Southern and Southeast Oklahoma to Ada and Stonewall. We wanted to find the grave sites of her great and 2x great grandparents. Although we had heard a few stories, Susan was not that familiar with these ancestors and had never visited their burial sites.
We think we know so much, but in reality, the vastness of what we don’t know about our own past is staggering.
This is where online research excels. Through the interactive nature of sites like Find A Grave and Google Maps, we were able to locate the cemeteries and see photos of the headstones that others had posted. These came in very handy as the cemeteries were overgrown and one was in a remote location, sandwiched between acres of farmland.
So, we were able to pull up the photos and compare them to what we could see above the unkempt vegetation enveloping most of the plots. Thankfully we were successful in finding each of the ones we set out to find and take photos.
It was during this time that I realized how important it was to pass on family history to the next generations. On the one hand, we had just left our daughter and her family (new branches on the ever widening family tree). On the other, we were pursuing past generations (the deep roots of the family tree), of which we were just begin to explore and they knew nothing about.
Our children and grandchildren should know their history. They need to understand where they came from. They ought to be aware of the life and times that shaped who their ancestors were and why they pursued the path that they did.
I understand that not all, but most of us can have pride in the stock that preceded us, the genes that have an impact on our own path and legacy.
Even if there is not really a knowable ancestry or maybe shame in generations past, we can begin again, start anew and create a path of which the next generations of our family can be proud. We have the key to an extraordinary family legacy.
Susan and I have five grown children and now have eleven grandchildren with #12 due imminently. I realized on this trip that not even my own kids, much less my grandkids, know much about their family history.
So, my goal, in addition to making sure they know of the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ, is that they know their heritage and the stories of their ancestors.
Over the next weeks and months, I will take a few trips into the historical archives by writing and sharing some of those those stories on The Talking Pen. I hope you will join me for the ride.
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