I often think about the people who paved the way in the past for my eventual introduction into this world. It is humbling to consider the thousands of years of history that took place in many different places before I uttered my first cries of life as a newborn. The ancestors that I have found are so much more than names on a register and yet I have so little information about how their lives unfolded. I have no photos or even paintings to visualize how they looked. They were simply members of a society of people who scratched out a living for a time on this earth and then became forgotten save for their names on registers that survived the centuries.
My paternal great grandparents came along at the time before the Civil War. Photographs of common folk were popular by then and so I have a picture of my great grandmother. Unfortunately nobody seems to have a likeness of my great grandfather even though he was a man of many important duties. He served as a lieutenant in the Union army during the Civil War. Later he joined the fraternal organization of the Grand Army of the Republic. He even became the Justice of Peace in Scott County Arkansas but there is no photo of him to be found. Surely he posed in front of a camera at one time or another but along the way any photo of him became lost.
My grandmother rescued the mustering papers that were his when he left the Union army. She urged me to care for them when I was still a child. My mother kept them safe until I was old enough to understand my responsibility to preserve them. I have since learned from a cousin that there is a big folder filled with information about my grandfather in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. I suppose that I need to plan a trip there perhaps with one of my daughters or a grandchild to see what we may find inside that paperwork that will surely unlock many of the mysteries of his life.
I think about him often and realize that he never got to see my father, Jack, his grandson who most decidedly would have made him proud. Descendants of John WS Smith have done well at least in the branch from his daughter Minnie Bell. There are engineers, doctors, teachers, musicians, mathematicians, accountants, firefighters, nurses and some working to be lawyers. I think he might have enjoyed knowing that the future of his family would turn out to be so productive but at the same time he appeared to be a very private and humble man who was not inclined to bring attention to himself.
I belong to a group of distant cousins and such who all descended from John WS Smith’s parents Austin Boley Smith and Biddy Anne Fitzsimmons. They had many children so there are an incredible number of people who share my DNA that I have never met. My father died young so I never got around to asking him or his mother about our extended family. I knew a few names like Aunt Katie and Aunt Clara. I even met some folks in California that were somehow related to my father. I was too young at the time to pay much attention to that sort of thing. The people are just fleeting memories of individuals who did not mean much to me at the time. I lost the link to them when my father died and his mother followed him only a few years later.
I once spent a pleasant afternoon with one of my paternal cousins named Vickie who lives in New Mexico. She has spent a lifetime tracking down information on the extended family but until she met me her search more or less ended with the death of my father. She had as many questions for me and as I had for her. She gave me photos of my grandmother when she was young and one of my great grandmother. She told me where my great grandparents were buried and revealed their connections to Texas and Arkansas.
The only family stories that my grandmother told me centered around health issues. She mentioned that members of her family often drank vinegar and pickle juice. She insisted that everyone in the family died from gut troubles. Given that she herself died from colon cancer I took her words to heart. When I made my first visit to a gastroenterologist I told him what she had said and he nodded with a smile. I eventually learned that a folk remedy for the heartburn that plagues me is vinegar or other acidic sources that somehow quell the GERD that plagues some folks like me.
I am the very image of my cousin from the Smith family and I see much of myself in my grandmother. As a matter of fact my mother often frowned at the idea that I more closely resembled Minnie Bell than her. I’ve learned that how I appear often depends on who is assessing me. I have a bit of both sides of the family but seem to lean a bit more toward those Smiths.
My Smith ancestors were common people who came to America from England before our revolution. They settled in Virginia and when the fight for independence began they offered their services to the patriots. While my ancestors seemed to land on the right side of history I know little more about them. Nobody was wealthy enough to own slaves as far as I can tell. They were generally simple people just striving to make it from one day to the next. It was not until my father’s generation that they became more educated but somehow it seems that John WS Smith had leadership skills that vaulted him into roles that foretold the success of his present day descendants.
My people came for opportunity and things certainly worked out well for my branch at least. I feel a sense of history and pride in my background that makes me understand my own responsibilities in keeping our nation moving forward and staying free. The Smiths were here 250 years ago and their legacy keeps those of us who are living in the present aware of our duty to assure that the United States continues to be a haven for those longing for the chance to create better lives. I honor the work of John WS Smith each time I speak for what I believe is right and just.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 