By Jessica Spencer Castner.
For my father, serene weather Sunday afternoons were for bicycle rides. Modern streets designed in uniform grids flummoxed or wearied his navigation. His inner compass was more apt to follow the contours of hills, waterways, trees, and stone landmarks. He consistently selected routes where roads paved over a deeper heritage, allusions to an older story. In Berrien County, Michigan, we bicycled along West and East Snow Roads, Stevensville-Baroda Road, and Hills Road. Routes that were once pre-automobile footpaths hugged the natural curves of the place to connect streams, rivers, early villages, fishing camps, forts, berry patches, and hunting grounds. It was easy to imagine the first human footfall following game trails on these roads, and picture oneself traveling as an echo of these subsistence times.
An athlete, I loved the physical activity in the bike rides and the challenges of the elevation rise and fall predating the grading of current Interstate standards. While I initially responded with teenage angst and annoyance, I learned forbearance to one of Dad’s peculiar ritual traditions folded into these beautiful Sunday bike rides. He had to stop at the old burial grounds along the way. With an eye roll and exasperated sigh, I’d camp myself in the enticing shade of a majestic tree as he began to wander among the headstones, grateful for the opportunity to stretch my still growing muscles and hydrate. Over the years, I came to appreciate some of the most beautiful sculptures in America are in our old burial grounds, places made pleasant and welcoming for the Sunday picnic gatherings and family reunions of generations past. Despite age-appropriate rebellious impulses, it would take less than five minutes for boredom to set in. The magnetic draw to be within conversational distance of parental unconditional love compelled my reluctant footsteps in his direction. It was easy to be in comfortable silence in Dad’s presence. Words somehow had greater value in their very thoughtful and careful supply.
In these random burial grounds where we had no known kin, there were two things that Dad seemed to either find or seek. The first was the Dara Knot. For no reason he could articulate or recall, he felt a meaningful connection to the Celtic symbol of deep and intertwined roots shaped into the Christian cross. When he happened upon it, he would stop and take time to admire the artistry of this imprint on the granite and marble memorial art. Sometimes he would wordlessly trace his finger along the looping paths of infinity. The second thing, the one he seemed to be searching for, was evidence of the families they forgot to remember.
“Here, Jessie. Look!” He would invite me over to his vantage point. “Look at this family. Look at the death dates, all around the same time. Think about the ages of the children. Let’s see….” And he would point to Mother, Father, a possible aunt or uncle and then with a deeply earnest solemnity, the children. The infant. The toddler. The school-aged children and teens. He’d calculate and state their ages, shaking his head as if he was the funeral home greeter ushering the grief of the survivors in the present day. “Someone could be missing here. Someone could have survived and had a full life elsewhere. Hard to imagine what it would be like to survive and go on alone. Alone without your family.” He paused. A drawn-out silence followed to allow the mind to consider the possibilities of near unbearable grief in survival. Then, his eyes would refocus from a gaze into the far distant past to holding direct eye contact with me to punctuate the importance of his words. “The whole family, all at about the same time. They forget to remember what it used to be like back then. They forget how hard it must have been.” He’d infer their deaths were from an infectious disease, listing off smallpox, measles, and influenza. Occasionally, he’d mention the possibility of a housefire before smoke detectors and fire department first responders, but usually he’d infer we bore witness to the victims of epidemic. Then, with a gentle hand on my shoulder, he’d convey the intended lesson of his words. “We don’t forget how blessed we are today. What a blessing it is to have vaccines, so your kids have a chance to grow up.”
We knew Dad’s heritage and family culture was from one of the early families in North America, from subsistence times and long before industrialization. The family stayed relatively quiet about it. In very thoughtful and careful supply, these stories are told when they serve a meaningful and valuable purpose.
John Freeman was the name of both my 6th and my 7th Great-Grandfather. Theirs was the name of the farm site of the September 19, 1777, Battle of Saratoga. Refugees of violent conflict and displaced from their home and livelihood, an extended family migrated by footpath up Lake Champlain to where survivors found eventual safety near Montreal. Among these refugees was a Freeman family of mother Efellanah, father John Freeman, and an estimated eight or nine children. As today, displaced people of wartime violence are susceptible to other health and welfare problems. When smallpox ravaged the migrant camp, only three of the family’s children survived: Mary Francis at about age 14, Thomas at about age 13, and the youngest with a name meaning of “deer, doe, or gazelle” at about age 11. This youngest doe orphan was my lineal ancestor and later mother-in-law to Abraham Truax, another family name with meaning in Schenectady history.
The history curriculum and books for American school children frequently include the Battle of Saratoga as a crucial turning point and victory in the country’s independence. There, alongside with the stated names, National Park Service markers, and history retelling is the family they forgot to remember. There, hiding in plain sight and just below the surface is the young daughter refugee orphan of violent conflict and now vaccine-preventable epidemic. Imagine yourself as her, the namesake and metaphorical doe in the glaring headlights of history. At the tender age of 11, imagine having to face what must have been a frightening future. You are in a new and strange place having lost your community, your home, your grandparents, your parents, and the majority of your siblings. Politics and national loyalties may just barely be entering your understanding, but family love is a truth you’ve always known and now lost in sorrow and grief. Imagine the horror and aloneness of standing at the family burial ground as the youngest survivor.
As an emergency nurse scientist and public health expert, my teams see similar family horrors in vaccine-preventable illnesses even today. The telling of the story today serves a purpose and carries a meaning to inform how we value vaccines and take immunizations. In our family storytelling and rituals, we never forgot to remember. Today, we share for you to remember as well.