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Documenting History, Personally

/ jadorgan / 5 Comments

When I was a little girl in the early 1970s, I picked up a diary one day while at the bookstore with my mom. I chose that particular one because the cover had pink, fluffy fur, and it came with the requisite lock and accompanying key. After all, by the age of ten, I had deep inner thoughts that I needed to safeguard from my teenage brothers and, most importantly, my mother.

Sitting cross-legged on my canopy bed, I ended each day by pouring my profound musings onto those pre-lined pages. Mainly, I liked to gossip. I recorded all of the happenings at school and of the neighborhood kids. I kept running observations of who said what about whom, which boy I thought was cute, who started the fight on the playground and who won. As I got older, each day’s entry got longer as life became more complicated. I needed to comment on Lori’s new shade of eyeshadow or Lynn’s cool hip-hugger jeans or that Tammy played her new 45 “Beach Baby” a gazillion times or that Jackie stayed overnight at my house. These seemingly trite happenings were big to a young girl.

I’ve long since lost that diary, but even over forty years later, I remember what an essential part of my daily life it was. When my children were in elementary school, journaling was woven into the culture of their Quaker education. They learned to be still with their inner thoughts and record what was on their minds, even during extracurricular outings. I grew to understand the importance that the act of journaling provides for the individual. It allows reflection of the day’s happenings and the opportunity to put those thoughts in order. It is meditative — a time to force quiet into a busy world. And, it has the potential someday to be a glimpse into a way of life that expands past the historical name/date/place recorded in textbooks.

When my mother passed away in 2005, I was in charge of cleaning out her house. After I’d weeded through the usual piles of clothes, shoes, jewelry, and collectibles, I began to uncover the real valuables. Seemingly countless photos from every branch, limb, and twig on my family tree. Earnest correspondences from mothers to sons, daughters to fathers. Ardent love letters chronicling the courtship of my maternal great-grandparents. Deeds, documents, and journals. These were what interested me. These were irreplaceable. I had a veritable trove of history – specific to my family, yes, but also a view of society through the generations, dating back to the Civil War.

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John Pell Corsa, my 3rd great-grandfather, was born in 1830 in New York. His daughter, Jeanettie, was seven months old when he enlisted in the army and was sent to Fort Pulaski in Georgia. John would never see her again as he perished of an illness that spread through the encampment. After his death, he might have been reduced to name/date/place (John Pell Corsa/b. 1830, New York/d. 1862, Georgia) by this point in the 21st century, except that John wrote home regularly to his young wife while he was in the war. I have every one of those letters. They were filled with details of daily chores, military exercises, and the new friends he had made in his unit. More importantly, they narrated his state of mind. Early letters were filled with hope — “when I come home” and “give the baby a kiss for me.” As the months passed, his tone became more resigned as he reported on the death of yet another friend.

With those letters, I also have the only surviving portrait of my great-great-great-grandfather. Hand drawn with charcoal and pencil, it captured a serious young man with light eyes and a goatee, slicked-back dark hair, and a formal three-piece suit. The picture and letters from this man born nearly two hundred years ago were stored carefully in a leather folio that protected them through the decades so, by the time they made their way into my possession, they remained in near pristine condition. The heartfelt words and detailed portrait have immortalized John Pell Corsa/b. 1830, New York/d. 1862, Georgia as a three-dimensional, flesh and blood husband, father, and Civil War soldier.

As I sifted through the treasures that had remained buried in my parents’ home for fifty years, I found the most meaningful of all. Written in his recognizable handwriting were stacks of journals that my father had kept from his teenage years through his service in the army. I poured over them, riveted by words that came from his innermost soul. I learned that his lifelong passion for baseball began with the birth of Little League Baseball in his hometown of Williamsport, PA. Every statistic of every game was meticulously recorded, including every major league game he could tune in on his family radio. I learned about his parents and brother as viewed through his boyhood lens. I felt his frustration in wanting to leave behind the industrial town in which he grew up in search of higher education. From a poor, working-class family, his only route would be military service then college on the GI Bill. I read how he joined the army, his excitement of being stationed in Panama, and the camaraderie with his unit. I was scandalized to learn about the 19-year-old boy, who would later become my father, flirting with and dating the local girls.

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Dad passed away in 1989 and, although he will be alive as long as my brothers and I are, he could quickly fade into name/date/place when we’re gone. Those journals, though, will be passed to my children and niece who may have never known the man while he was alive but will cherish the words of the boy who became their grandfather.

Throughout my life, I’ve intuitively turned to writing as a means of expressing myself. In recent years, I’ve learned how valuable that expression is in reflecting and recording the humanity behind basic facts. As I write this piece, the world is in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. No one knows what to expect when we come out on the other side of it. History will record the name/date/place of it all, but what about the human story? The comparison to this being like a world war isn’t lost on me, and I am reminded of how Anne Frank’s detailed and stark writing while in hiding from the Nazis brought a singular personal perspective to the Holocaust. Movies have been made, stories have been written, but it is her diary that remains the centerpiece of the Jewish experience from 1942 to 1944. With this in mind, I started my own journal for the first time since that pink fuzzy diary I had in 1970. It is a place for me to talk about my daily life – from the routine and ordinary to my worries and fears. My children are living in the epicenter of the crisis – New York City. What if they get sick? My husband’s business is mostly shut down – what will this mean to his employees and us financially? My cousin’s husband suspects he has the virus, but no tests are available to know for sure. He’ll likely be okay, but will others I know be affected? A week from now; a month from now. These are the types of questions that keep me up at night. Multiply this by millions of people, and we are all living through this frightening time with similar concerns.

Other friends have joined me in writing down their thoughts. I know poets who are putting their feelings into verse. An artist friend is releasing her anxiety through her paintings. On the internet, creativity is exploding through videos. Worldwide, drones are photographing empty streets in the most popular tourist destinations. Undoubtedly, people across the country and around the world are keeping personal records of their own experiences. My journal is just one tiny piece in this collective effort to record the history we are now living. Our ordeals will live more richly than merely the names/dates/places that will be relegated to the textbooks, because this is how those who came before us did it, too.

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The Image Stuck In My Mind

/ jadorgan / Leave a comment

 

My great-grandfather, John C., passed away when I was eight years old. Throughout my life, I’ve seen pictures of him as a child, as a schoolboy, as a young husband and father, as a middle-aged professional. But, when I think of him, the only image seared in my memory is that of a frail, ninety-year-old man in his nursing home bed. This freezing of someone in time in one’s head is common. Friends that I’ve reconnected with after over thirty years have the benefit of The Picture of Dorian Gray phenomenon – they’re forever adolescent in my mind. A person stuck in time this way is “foto stecken,” derived from the German meaning “stuck picture.” (Okay, I just made that up, but I’m copyrighting it.)

After my mother died, I found a collection of family history records that she’d been gathering to pass along to my brothers and me, and I spent the next two years completing the genealogical project she’d begun. She’d scanned photographs, put together birth/marriage/death certificates, land deeds, and military enlistment records. Included in it were her own stories and childhood recollections as well as several written by John C. in 1961. The memories about his young uncles particularly captivated me because those rapscallions were wild and raised hell at every chance. Had we been contemporaries, I imagine we’d have been friends.

John’s first solid memory of his uncles was when they set him on fire at his grandfather’s farm. They didn’t mean to set him on fire. They were just engaging in a little tomfoolery. They wanted to scare their five-year-old nephew while he was seated in the yard, so sneaked up behind him and lit a string of firecrackers. The child screamed and leaped to his feet but, Webster, fourteen, and George, thirteen, were paralyzed as they watched his shorts smolder and flame. They argued – while John continued screaming – about whether to dip him head- or bottom-first into the rain barrel. Grabbing him, they were about to hoist him in when their older sister Charlotte raced from the house and patted out the fire. No permanent scarring resulted, John recounted in his memoir, except for his lifelong revulsion of July 4 celebrations.

That little firecracker mishap might have scared straight those of lesser fortitude, but Webster and George thrived on a symbiotic competitive relationship. As with many teenagers, the fascination with explosives drove them to devise bigger, better, and more exciting ways to blow things up. They needed a cannon. Somewhere, they found an old piece of a gun barrel and managed to attach it to a wood block and plug up one end. Next, they put a hole in the barrel for a fuse. They had a powder horn full of gunpowder. They were set. Each took turns ramming shrapnel into their weapon to see who could create a bigger eruption. Wadded paper produced nothing more than a sizzle. Pulverized brick and small stones were more satisfying but still too tame. Webster was delighted to remember where he’d seen some ball cartridges and soon lead balls were flying out into the fields. George wanted a target to see how good their marksmanship was, so they chose the newly installed outhouse. This was no ordinary outhouse. At that time, the Chick Sales House was the Cadillac of outdoor toilets, decorated with fancy stars and half-moons. And, it was a two-seater! My great-grandfather recalled that for as long as they owned that farm, one could take a jackknife and pick out lead balls from the side of the outhouse.

In late 1800s New England, Sundays were devoted to church: preparations for service, attendance, then a large family meal or community picnic would follow. A full day of solemnity was too much to expect of the young scallywags. When they weren’t pestering the younger children seated in the pew in front of them, Webster and George would surreptitiously disrupt the worship by making noises or using a piece of glass to reflect the sun into the pastor’s eyes. It seemed God had a little light-hearted retribution the Sunday afternoon the boys went swimming in the grove behind the church picnic area. While all the congregants, including some comely young ladies, were lunching, George hobbled yelling from the water with a crab attached to a toe.

Another favorite pastime of Webster and George was damming up the nearby streams. What began with leaves and sticks morphed into boulders and fallen trees. The goal was to create ponds to play with the marine life trapped there. This sport created an additional perk for the boys. Early one fall morning, after several days of heavy rain, the banks of the streams overflowed. Their father went to the cellar – accessible solely by an outdoor ramp – to fetch an armload of firewood only to find himself waist-high in water. When word got out, Webster and George were jubilant. They grabbed a skiff and launched it down the ramp into the pool where they paddled happily collecting floating wood and any other trinkets they could reach.

My favorite story about Webster and George took place the day their older sister, John C.’s mother, was getting married for the second time. Her first marriage, to John’s father, ended in an acrimonious divorce and the family was thrilled when she found happiness the second time around with Matthew. Described as a bit of a dandy, Matthew was particular about his wedding outfit as he prepared for the ceremony at the local Unitarian church. His frustration mounted when he couldn’t find his newly purchased bowler hat and ascot. Finally, he had to settle for an old hat and necktie as he set out to meet his bride. A wedding luncheon for fourteen was spread for the newlyweds and their family. Upon returning home from the service, the groom was greeted by the family dog, nattily dressed for the occasion with a black bowler hat affixed to his head with a striped ascot. Conspicuously missing from the welcome party were the bride’s young brothers, Webster and George.

 

Even though I’ve read the humorous tales of my great-grandfather’s childhood and am aware of his celebrated career as a city planner, in my mind, I picture a bedridden elderly man. Sort of like when I show up at high school reunions, and I can’t reconcile the reality of my middle-aged peers with the teenage classmates of my memories. Webster and George lived to be men in their late sixties/early seventies. My own family tree search has traced them through decades of censuses and, while Webster never had children, many of George’s descendants still live in the New England area. Even with that knowledge, Webster and George will forever be foto stecken as impish young teenagers who relished leading their young nephew astray.