The Dash Between the Dates
The interest in our roots goes back to my mother telling about various family members and her having many mysterious pictures of people from long ago. As I grew older and had a family of my own the curiosity of where did my forebears come from remained, but the pressures of making a living and raising a family only allowed occasional inquiries. After my parent’s death, I garnered my great grandfather’s sea chest and filled it with photographs, newspaper clippings and various other things that I thought might someday be of interest and help in remembering those of the family that were no longer with us. Having reached 60 years of age, I have become cognizant of the quick dash between the dates and so started this interesting quest of chronicling the heritage on my mother and father’s sides of the family for the benefit of myself and those who come after.
I had no idea the amount of personal information that was available on individuals in official records and books. For many who glance through the following compilation there will be, at best, a passing acknowledging of listed information without considering that those who are descendants of these long ago family members exist because they once were. Our physical appearance, emotional makeup, temperament and other traits are those that are pretty much inherited from those from whom we descend. It is not too much of a flight of fancy to recognize that these printed names of people we have never met, live on to a degree, in us. We can recognize characteristics of ourselves and our spouses in our children and grandchildren, and so. should acknowledge our very real and permanent ties with our forebears.
Where there is a degree of information on a particular person’s life and times, a thoughtful musing on the life of a family member can evoke admiration for the trials endured, accomplishments achieved, hardships suffered, faith demonstrated, service done for family and government, and, ultimately, the careful thought that went into providing for those to be left behind in their wills.
Those who are in possession of this labor should be even mindful of the brevity of their own life and take a moment to update this family record so that it will continue to be meaningful to those that you leave behind and your own life becomes just the dash between the dates.
I suppose that this family genealogical history will be added to, refined and corrected by others, especially as new information is found or discovered. What I have found and been given in compiling this record has been a great education to me, not only as to my forebears, but also how the great engines of political and religious changes during the different errors resulted in my ancestors playing a part in events that at times seem only abstract facts from history books.
As I have found the final resting places of my family and stood before their stone remembrances, knowing that very little may remain after all these years, it is comforting and exciting to know that I will see them finally in the resurrection of the Lord at the last day, as the scripture teaches. If you, dear Reader, get nothing more from my labor herein, than the realization of the swiftness of time and the certainty of death and that there is not only the need for provision for self, spouse and family, in life and in internment, as well as for life everlasting in Heaven, then I have not labored in vain.
For we shall all indeed stand in the judgment for what we were in that swift dash between the dates of our birth and our death.
[Comment: half information, half sermon, and I edited only a couple of times to make a sentence read more clearly, so hopefully, Peter would not object.] And is Snow Peter's wife, Gloria's maiden name?