Category: History

The Importance of Stuff

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

antiques-booth-1My eyes used to glaze over whenever my mother-in-law began recounting her family history. She had worked quite hard to unravel the mysteries of her ancestry. Her quest for answers paid off with a great deal of information that she excitedly related to us in the hopes that we would remember. At the time I suspect that I was a bit too young to truly care about the names and the tales of which she spoke. Now I am duly fascinated by learning not only of her kin but my own. In some ways my husband and I have become the family historians, the keepers of the the tales and artifacts that bring long dead relatives back to life. I now see such responsibility as an honor and I am belatedly scurrying to preserve the information that I know lest it evaporates when I am gone.

I have rooms of my home filled with furniture and objects that once graced the homes of the people from whom my husband and I descended. I treasure them not so much for their value as for the lives of the people that they represent. I try to tell my children and grandchildren who they belonged to and what they meant to those individuals. I’m not certain that they truly understand. Sadly they are still mostly in the state of mind that I had when my dear mother-in-law tried so hard to get me interested. I suppose that something must have stuck in spite of my lack of enthusiasm, because now I am quite driven to learn even more lest we forget. In fact one of my girls recently laughed at me and called me “Granny” the name that she had for my mother-in-law because I was so insistent that she pay attention to the information that I was conveying.

The world is changing rapidly, sometimes far too quickly for my taste, which is a definite sign of age. I recently read that today’s young people view the antiques and collectibles of their parents and grandparents as junk. They prefer more modern furnishings and tend to donate any old things that they inherit to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. They have big estate sales to get rid of the unwanted items. It makes me a bit sad and worried that so much of what presently resides in my home may one day just become a nuisance to those who are left when I am gone. I would like to believe that in between my two daughters and seven grandchildren surely there will be someone who will step up to be the next keeper of the family flame. My treasures are important to me because they represent real people and are part of the hopes and dreams of their lives.

I have a very old pitcher from my great grandmother, Christina. It doesn’t look like much but it feels magical to know that she once held it in her hands. From my great grandfather, John William Seth Smith, I have discharge papers from the Union army at the end of the Civil War. They hold his signature, the only image of him that I have. That scroll across the paper makes him very much alive in my mind. My grandmother Minnie gave me these things when I was still a very young girl and urged me to care for them always, which I have even when I still did not understand their significance.

There is far more from my mother-in-law. We have beautiful furniture that belonged to her mother, aunt and grandmothers. It is truly quite lovely and enhances our home with style and intersting stories of the people who once owned the pieces. I have to admit to being quite happy that my mother-in-law worked so hard to preserve those memories for us. They link us to both our past and our present and are physical signs of the lives of their owners.

I have dishes, linens, and tableware. Sadly there are books about which I worry because the pages are becoming weak and will one day fall apart, which I suppose is the natural way of things. My favorite is a child’s book that once belonged to my father. It may well have been the first thing that he ever read. Perhaps it even began his love affair with reading. I enjoy looking through the pages but I have to be careful because it has become quite delicate. It must be getting close to being one hundred years old.

I can only hope that there will one day be another who cherishes the humble offerings from the past. Perhaps both of my daughters will truly appreciate the photos and stories that I have saved. They loved their grandmothers so and I suspect that they will want to keep their memories alive at least for the time being. It will be interesting to see who among my grandchildren has a bent for sentimentality.

I try to visit the grave sites of my parents and grandparents and those of my husband’s kin as well. We regularly make a day of bringing flowers and spending time remembering the people who were so much a part of our lives. I sense that we are the only ones in our families who do this anymore because there are no signs that anyone else has visited. It makes me a bit sad to think that the time will come when nobody remembers them or goes to honor them.

I know that many people today think that cremation is the best way to handle death. It is not particularly expensive and it is environmentally friendly. They see little reason to set aside land for eternity just to keep the dust of those who died long ago. They may have a point but there is still something a bit reassuring in those everlasting memorials wherever they may be. I was greatly touched by finding the grave site of my great grandmother Christina. I felt a thrill in being beside her ashes or whatever is left of her. I wanted her to know how things had turned out for at least one of her twelve children and their descendants. I stood in a lonely field with the wind blowing across my face. It was deadly silent save for the chirping of nearby birds. I felt a communion with her that I might otherwise never have had. It was a truly moving moment in which I sensed her life and that of all the women before her. I am but a single link in a chain that will hopefully continue infinitely.

Perhaps I am becoming a bit silly as I grow older. I find myself appreciating things that my mother and mother-in-law did and said far more than I once did. I like thinking about the stories that they told and feeling close to them just from recalling those tidbits about their lives. I like visiting with them in the places where they are buried on sunny afternoons and leaving posies to brighten the places where they now rest. I really do hope that the very young come around in their thinking about the artifacts that were left behind by their ancestors just as I finally did. Things are not so important but the people that they represent are the stuff of who we are.

The Honor of Work

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Mexican_Fruit_Pickers_(7618119180).jpgWhen I work in my yard I go all in. I usually end up with dirt smeared on my face and caked under my fingernails. Sweat runs downs my neck and my hair sticks up in all directions. There is nothing pretty about me in those times. The work is hard and often leaves my muscles aching and my back shouting at me in pain. The truth is that I overlook all of those things because I love being a weekend gardner so much. I can feel bursts of serotonin taking me to a happy place in my brain. Still, I think of my grandparents who themselves worked on farms day after back breaking day. I imagine how difficult it must have been for them to rise early and routinely toil in the sun. For me the labor is a hobby, one that I have the power to ignore anytime that I tire of the effort. For them it was the means of earning money to pay for a place to live and food on the table.

My grandparents’ descendants have done well. We generally have professional occupations that allow us to work in air conditioned buildings and bring home salaries good enough to pay others to do most of the back breaking work that we require if we so wish. We purchase our fruits and vegetables from Sprouts and have enough income for luxuries that they never even dreamed of owning. I feel their spirits when I am on my hands and knees caring for my plants while the sun beats down on my head. I frequently stop to savor a cold drink when I grow weary. I survey land that is my own, not the property of someone else. I remember and appreciate all of the things that they did so that one day all of us who came from their blood, sweat and tears would have a far better existence than they had.

I see beauty in the tomatoes, oranges and other produce that lines the bins at HEB. I don’t take such delights for granted because I understand the drudgery that people endured to bring those items to the markets where I shop. There were individuals who picked the fruits and vegetables hour after hour, day after day as long as the sun was shining. They were paid little and only received monetary rewards for full bushel baskets and bins. Their work was routine and tough on both body and soul. They are the nameless men and women whose plight has almost always been ignored throughout history. At one time they may have been slaves or indentured servants. In other eras they were the poor like my grandparents. Today they are mostly immigrants who toil from farm to farm, season to season in search of jobs that few of us would want.

I once traveled to a small town school to work with teachers who were struggling with the Hispanic children in their classrooms. They complained that the sons and daughters of migrant workers were skewing the test scores used to appraise their effectiveness as educators. They referred to the parents “the tree cutters” and insisted that these uneducated people didn’t care enough about their kids to realize the importance of schooling. It didn’t seem to occur to the baffled teachers that the mothers and fathers who worked so hard were in fact incredibly dedicated to their children, so much so that they were willing to do even the dirtiest of jobs. I was saddened by the ignorance of people who should have known better than to treat a significant portion of their student body as stereotypes. Even after my partner and I had shown them how to reach their charges they appeared to be as adamant as ever that the children of these hard working people were an inconvenience that would have preferred to simply wish away.

Most of us who live in the United States of America enjoy a level of plenty that might have made our ancestors feel wealthy. We are provided educational opportunities that were not afforded them. It was not uncommon in my grandparents’ day for youngsters to rarely attend school after the third or fourth grade. Sadly in many parts of the world even today people struggle to meet their most basic needs and even to feel safe. They are chronically hungry and suffer from health problems that are rarely addressed. We on the other hand are a nation that has mostly forgotten what it is like to live the way so many of our grandparents and great grandparents actually did. The conditions under which they labored are now mostly deemed illegal. 

I watched a group of students perform in the one act play, Gut Girls, not long ago. It addressed the working poor at the beginning of the twentieth century. It featured young women who worked in meat packing plants where the conditions were deplorable. I found myself imagining my grandfather who did a similar job for all of his working days. His legs became riddled with varicose veins and more often than not he was in pain but he never missed a single day of work. He boasted to his children that he had managed to feed them all the way through the Great Depression and keep a roof over their heads when others became homeless. He was proud to have regular work no matter how difficult it may have been and his children do not recall a single time when he complained. He endured his aches stoically.

There is great honor in hard work. We should celebrate anyone who is willing to devote time and effort to making an honest living. The person who collects our garbage is important just as the clerk behind the counter of a fast food restaurant is. The janitor is as indispensable as the manager, maybe even more so. We need our engineers and our electricians, our professors and our plumbers. The yard man who sculpts my lawn each weekend is always reliable and willing to do whatever is needed to make my home a lovely place to be. I truly don’t know what I would do without him. 

After a day of manicuring my plants, my hands are shouting at me with the sting of cuts and scrapes and bruises. They remind me to be thankful for what I have. They tell me to appreciate all good people everywhere. They urge me to be more generous and kind. But for the grace of God I might just as well have been born in another place or time that would have demanded more of me than I have ever had to expend.

Murder and Adventure

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

140812163037-blood-countess-slovakia-castle-horizontal-large-galleryMy grandson Jack is quite active in theater arts in high school, so much so that his senior superlative award deemed him the most likely to win an Academy Award. Ironically his life plan is to become a computer specialist and his intent is to put his acting days to rest while attending Texas A&M University, so the probability that he will fulfill the prediction regarding his thespian abilities appears to be slim to none, unless he uses his computer skills at Pixar one day.

Jack’s final role will be in an original one act play written by his teacher about a Slovakian, Countess Elizabeth Bathory, believed to have been one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In a twist of irony she lived in the very town, Cachtice Slovakia, where my grandfather, Pavel Uhrik, was born. As was common in that part of the world well into the twentieth century, the ruling class held sway over the peasants to such an extent that the common folk lived in dire want and virtual obscurity. If a woman living in a castle hired one of them to work for her and then that laborer disappeared few would have thought much of the incident, especially in medieval days. Life for the vast majority of Slovakians was a dreary affair with the quest for work and food always the main concern well into the twentieth century. Little wonder that my grandfather Pavel Uhrik ultimately chose to immigrate to America just before the outbreak of World War I.

When I study the history of Slovakia I begin to better understand Pavel and why he chose to live his life the way he did. He came from a highly stratified political culture in which landowners held sway over the majority of the population. While the wealthy owned vast areas of land, their workers were tenants subject to the whims of their masters who all but owned them. They often lived in small cramped huts without running water or electricity. Hunger stalked them like a marauder. Few had the time or the means to pursue education beyond the fifth grade so among them there was an exceedingly high rate of illiteracy. The very conditions that made their lives so miserable also made them targets of prejudice. Without opportunities for change they either resigned themselves to the hopelessness of their lives, or found a way to leave their dreary situations behind by becoming immigrants to places like the United States.

I never met my grandfather but I heard countless conflicting stories about him. He was proud to be Slovakian but even prouder to be an American. His children knew little about his past life because he tended to be secretive which is true of many immigrants. In retrospect it seems likely that his former life had been so harsh that he found little to boast about. He was a practical man who believed in moving forward rather than looking back. He would have had little reason to speak of a time when he lived in miserable and perhaps even humiliating conditions.

Pavel was also an exceedingly stoic man. He worked hard everyday to provide for his family and almost furiously rejected even acts of charity. Perhaps accepting gifts or money that he had not earned made him feel too much like owing something to another and he fiercely insisted on maintaining the freedom that he had secured in his new country. He paid cash for every item that he purchased and carefully saved from his small salary so that he might build a home for his family. He purchased land and livestock and boasted that in America he was a man of substance, something that might have been impossible to achieve in his old country.   

He filled his home with books, a grand luxury and sign of his personal success. He insisted that his children take full advantage of the educational opportunities that were afforded them. On Sundays he often read to them from the many volumes that he collected. He insisted that their futures were to be found in learning and hard work. He noted that he was the master of his own destiny as they were as well, and that nobody makes it anywhere without effort.

He was not always treated well by his fellow Americans nor were his children. They endured taunts and were victimized by misunderstandings caused by their cultural and physical differences. He counseled his children to ignore the slights and to prove themselves with positive accomplishments. There would be no whining or self pity allowed in his home. They were to hold their heads high and be satisfied that they had a safe, if very small home, and food on the table every single day. While he never alluded to want in his native land, there was an understanding among his children that they were quite fortunate in the grand scheme of things.

All of the aspects of having made it that most probably had been missing in Pavel’s early life were found in his great adventure in America. He was eternally grateful to the country that had made his existence and that of his children so much better, even when its treatment of him lacked hospitality. He knew all too well how horrible the alternative would have been and so he counted his blessings rather than focusing on the imperfections. His children would follow his lead in this regard, urging all of us from the third generation of Americans to appreciate our good fortune and to abstain from comparing ourselves to others.

Our own children and grandchildren are now so distant from the realities of Pavel Uhrik that they are hardly able to imagine their great great grandparent’s worldview. The extended family has become so successful and so Americanized that few would think that a little over a hundred years ago the founder had sailed away from a life without prospects to one with ill defined but exciting promise. He had moved from a town in which a wealthy woman was free to murder almost six hundred innocent souls simply because nobody had enough energy to check on the nameless peasants whose lives had so little value that they easily faded into obscurity.

Now Pavel’s great great grandson Jack will play the part of a man determined to change the fate of the unwashed souls who were being so horrifically tossed aside in his ancestor’s old land, someone who stood up to a system that was so unfair. Because Pavel took a courageous risk, Jack is well on his way to fulfilling his own dreams. He has both benefited from and taken advantage of the opportunities that were a gift handed down through the generations from Pavel. In a twist of fate the circle of life begun so long ago has returned to it’s beginning and provided an opportunity for all the sons and daughters of Pavel to give thanks that we are exactly where he might have dreamed that we would one day be.

Finding Marion

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

shamrocksThere is a theory that most people will be completely forgotten within three generations. After that time nobody still living will have heard the sound of their voices or felt the impact of their personalities. They may leave behind photographs or documents attesting to their presence on this earth but essentially they are defined not by memories but by images. Of course the modern era is rectifying this with digital footprints that might include recordings and moving pictures. Such used to be the purview of only the wealthy but now even common folk have access to technology. This is not the case for most of those who came before us and so they are slowly but surely being forgotten.

I have a great grandmother who is a mystery. I think that her name was Marion Rourke but of that I am not certain. She was the mother of my grandfather, William Mack Little. He told us that she died three days after he was born. There is no record of any of this. In spite of my relentless searches, Marion remains a cipher, as though she never even existed.

Of course there has to have been such a person because William was not just found in a cabbage patch. He had a father named James Mack who took him to live with a woman that he called his grandmother known as Sarah Reynolds. Sadly I have been unable to find any records for these individuals. They walked on this earth as though they were ghosts, phantoms of my grandfather’s imagination.

William never knew Marion but he thought enough of her to name his first born daughter after her. It was his touching way of honoring her. I suspect that he always wondered who Marion was and what she was like, just as I do. It saddens me to think that she died at what should have been one of the happiest moments of her life. She had a good strong son who would ironically live to be one hundred eight years old. He was a very kind and intelligent man who treated women with the highest regard. He no doubt would have been a dutiful son to the woman who brought him into the world.

Marion’s last name indicates a connection of some kind with Ireland. My grandfather always claimed to be half Scottish and half Irish and I have verified such roots with a DNA test that I once took. I wonder if she was born in the Emerald Isle or if she was a descendent of someone who originally came from there. She had a beautiful name and was someone’s daughter, but who might that have been? She was obviously quite poor according to what little my grandfather knew of her. He was her first child and I wonder what happened that made her so ill that she died.

When I had my first daughter my labor was long and hard. There were complications and my doctor later told me that in the old days I might have lost the baby or even died myself. I wonder if I somehow inherited the same genetic disposition for difficult birthing that Marion had. Do I have an idea of what she might have endured? Was she alone and frightened as things went awry? Did she realize that she would not live long enough to see her son grow into a man? Such thoughts haunt me as I attempt to remember her without any facts to steer me in the right direction.

I try not to forget Marion. Someone has to think of her. Each St. Patrick’s Day I celebrate the Irish in me and attempt to imagine my great grandmother. I cook corned beef and cabbage and celebrate my own life that would not exist were it not for the sacrifice of her own. I so want to know her and probably never really will.

My grandfather is not quite sure where he was born nor where he spent his childhood. It was somewhere in Virginia where he was able to see hills in the distance. By the age of thirteen he was orphaned again when his grandmother died and he became a ward of the state. He chose John Little as his guardian because he was an honorable man, a graduate of West Point. Grandpa took “Little” as his last name in honor of the individual who helped him to complete his journey into adulthood. Sadly John Little died of typhus when he was in his early thirties leaving my grandfather all alone again. Grandpa had to fight hard to find reasons to to stay alive, and somehow he always did. He had an optimism that was inspiring. I wonder if he inherited that trait from Marion? Would she have been proud to see him overcoming one challenge after another?

I feel a kinship with Marion both as a woman and as her great granddaughter. I know that she lives somewhere in me. I would love to know where she was born, what she did as a child, how she met James and where she was finally buried. It has been a kind of holy grail for me to find out who she really was and I am not yet ready to give up even though I have spent years searching for someone who seems not to have even existed. She deserves to be known and loved and treasured.

On St. Patrick’s Day I will once again prepare my traditional meal and think of her. It is possible that I will be the last person to do so. She will one day become forgotten just as the countless individuals who came before her. I am determined to tell her story even if I have to fill in the blanks to describe the details. I know from the scant information regarding her untimely death that she had been loved enough by James to bring forth a child and that hers was a difficult existence devoid of the medical help that might have insured her survival.  I know that her son was a strong, bright and healthy man who would have been a joy to her. I know enough about genetics to realize that she must have been an intelligent woman. Her DNA has helped to produce some quite outstanding descendants.

Marion is a name said to have derived from the Hebrew “Miryam” which means “sea of sorrow.” I hope that this is not an accurate description of hurt and pain that my great grandmother may have endured. I would like to believe that she found peace and that somehow she knows how well things turned out for her son and his son and finally for me.

Howdy

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

1d230bcc4636998c02292d3ef09b2982I’ll never forget the feeling of disappointment that Texans felt when Alaska became a state. The home of the Alamo known as the Lone Star state had reigned as the largest in the nation, a distinction that it not so secretly enjoyed, only to be toppled by a faraway newcomer. Suddenly our second place status stole some of our bragging rights and mostly silenced our boasts about the enormity of our home. Still, anyone who has ever travelled from El Paso to Orange not only understands the daunting distance of such a drive but has seen the dramatic changes in the landscape that lie along the highway. Texas is a place of incredible diversity and describing it in a few words is almost impossible.

I’ve been as far west and as far east as one might go in Texas. I’ve seen the plains of the north and the deserts of the south. I’ve observed the people in both small towns and large cities. I’ve come to realize that there is no one size fits all representation of the diversity of my state which in some ways is a microcosm of the world at large. I would be hard pressed to choose one place or area that might serve as the essence of all that is Texan.

The hill country around San Antonio and Austin certainly might be the heart of Texas. Those cities after all are fairly close to being at the center of the state and as the home of the Alamo and the capitol they can lay claim to historical and political importance. Both places also lie a rather lovely area of the state with majestic vistas and an old west feel. They are in the part of the state that most closely complies with the imagery of Texas and Texans that most outsiders have when they conjure thoughts of this far more complex place. Certainly the progressives, intellectuals and artisans of Austin are a great deal different from the refinery workers of the blue collar town of Port Arthur, but they both call themselves Texans. 

I suspect that if I were to ask citizens in all of the other forty nine states to name one Texas city, they most often would mention Dallas. If I were to require them to describe Dallas they might speak of wealthy cattle and oil barons living on ranches with names like South Fork. Television has a way of fixing ideas in our mind that often wander far from actual reality. The real Dallas is a modern metropolitan wonder with congested freeways, skyscrapers and malls filled with everyday people who look and act little differently than their counterparts in Los Angeles.

The Gulf Coast of Texas is yet another area unlike the stereotypical visions of the state. It is a place of worldwide commerce, meandering bayous, rapidly changing weather and an amalgam of cultures and cuisine. It is a magnet for beach bums and innovators alike. It has evolved over time from a strange mix of ideas that created a kind of crazy quilt that can’t be easily defined. It is friendly and welcoming and generally nonjudgemental, a place where it seems possible to accomplish the impossible and where rocket scientists dream big alongside welders.

Then there is the far west of Texas that is home to miles and miles of farms and ranches that stretch so far into the distance that they appear to be endless. It is a lonely place of wide open spaces, an area where one might find solace in getting away from the rat race of the modern world. It is wild and requires toughness to withstand. Out west humans compete with the harshness of nature under a sky perennially filled with stars. It is one of the last outposts of a way of life that pioneered the expansion of the United States. It is mankind in competition with the elements and in tune with the wonders of the earth. It is a place of both harmony and dissonance, verdant farms and drought ridden ghost towns. It is a place of peacefulness and one that requires toughness and determination to survive. 

Texas is a grand state of unimaginable size and diversity and each March with the regularity of the clock it bursts alive with the colors of wildflowers, most notably the bluebonnets. Near Chappell Hill and Brenham the lovely indigo colored blooms create beautiful carpets in fields and along the sides of the roads. The people of Houston drive from the business of the city to enjoy the sight of the lovely buds that seem to embody all that is best about Texas. I wonder if there is any other state in which its citizens are so taken by the annual flowering of the countryside. For those of us in Texas venturing forth to observe the bluebonnets in all of their glory is a pilgrimage that must not be missed in the spring.

The small towns that host the visitors fire up their pits and roast briskets and sausages that have a distinctly Texas flavor. They offer blueberry pies and fruit kolaches for the hungry travelers, made from recipes handed down from one generation of Texans to another. In a beloved creamery there is ice cream unlike any that is made in other parts of the world. It melts sweetly on the tongue and says, “I am in Texas,” in a sensory way that must be experienced to understand. There are crafts and antiques to view along with Mother Nature’s finery. It is a festival of Texas culture that warms the heart and brings out smiles on even the grumpiest faces. It is a not to be missed tradition.

I’m a Texan through and through, but I am only one variety of the remarkable citizens of our state. Our ancestors came here from the world over, all hoping for an opportunity to live better lives than in the places from whence they came. Many dreams have been realized here and even today Texas is growing in population by leaps and bounds simply because even the commonest person has a chance to succeed with just a bit of imagination and a willingness to work hard.

Texas still has relatively inexpensive land and a variety of jobs. It lives up to its name as a welcoming place. Its monicker comes from the Spanish word “tejas” which means “friend.” We do our best to be an inviting host and we don’t mind at all if someone decides that they would like to tarry long enough to make our state a home. My husband’s kin came from Georgia and England. Mine were from Virginia, Kentucky and Slovakia. We embrace neighbors from Mexico, South America, Vietnam, Germany, Russia, Nigeria, and all across the globe. Texas is a regular United Nations  with a distinctly open and friendly nature. It is a one of a kind creation of many minds and ways of living. It is a place quick to shout, “Howdy!” It is my home.