The Story Tellers . . .
We are the chosen. 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.
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 my 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 I am, and why 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 and how they contributed to what we are today. It goes
to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up,
and their
resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought, and some died, to make and keep us
a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing
it for us.
It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth.
Without
them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach, 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 they, and they are the sum of who we are.
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 my place in the long line
of family storytellers.
Written by: Della Maxine Cummings Wright (1922 - 2001)
Rewritten by her granddaughter: Della Joann McGinnis Johnson
Edited and reworded in 1943 by: Tom Dunn
