Hudson River Valley, 1851
Credit: Robert Havell. "Hudson River North to Croton Point". Public domain. The area in the picture is 30 or 40 miles from where Rudolph and Phoebe built their homestead.
The New World and the Old World met in the Hudson River Valley when my great-great-great grandmother Phoebe married my great-great-great grandfather, Rudolph. Phoebe was descended from the colonial Privateer Thomas Baxter, and Rudolph was an immigrant farmer from Germany. That must have been quite a romance.
There surely were objections from Phoebe's family. She boasted a lineage that reached back to the foundation of the nation. How did Phoebe's family regard the immigrant farmer who spoke with a thick Swabian accent?
He had crossed the sea to make a new life, and he charmed my great-great-great grandmother. It was a powerful charm, for their union produced a long line of descendants. A hundred years later, one of those descendants would reenact their love story.
New World met Old World, once again, when my father married my mother.
He, my father, had a sense of self deeply rooted in history. He was proud of his pioneer ancestry. And yet, he was attracted to a young woman whose parents had arrived from Sicily just three years before her birth.
RMS Republic
Credit: Whitestar Line. 1909. Public domain My mother's parents immigrated from Sicily in 1906 in steerage on the RMS Republic. The ship sank three years later in a mishap, but 1500 passengers on board were saved.
Was an affinity for the unfamiliar in my father's blood, passed down from Phoebe? And my mother--what drew her to a wholly American, farm-bred lad? For she was as proud of her language and her culture as he was of his legacy.
My mother was Catholic. He, Protestant. She had refined taste. He learned about taste from books. He lived all his life on the farm and was sent to law school to be the family lawyer. She had grown up in the city, and had attended parties at the Waldorf Astoria.
Small Ballroom, Waldorf Astoria, 1903
Credit: George Boldt. Public domain. This picture was taken probably twenty-five years before my mother attended parties at the Waldorf.
Whatever mysterious force drew my parents to each other, it was not, in the end, enough to hold them together.
I think back on my great-great-great grandparents. Did Rudolph's ardor for Phoebe wane over time? Did the day-to-day of domesticity erode his passion?
It did for my father. This dissipation of affection occurred long before I, the fifth of six children, was born.
There is no way for me to know what caused my father to leave. He did it slowly, bit by bit. Absences grew longer until it was the custom for him not to be home. Then I didn't have a father at all.
I wonder about Phoebe and Rudolph. They are buried together in the very community where they nurtured their children. Genealogical records do not tell me more than that. Did Rudolph drink? Was Phoebe a disinterested wife? All I see in the record is date of birth, date of death, and record of marriage.
What will the record show of my parents, a hundred years down the road? What will a curious descendant discover from the bare facts? Dates of birth and death, record of marriage but separate burials. She with her child, and he with his grandfather. Will that be enough to inform the curious that she lived with her children and he did not?
All the graveyards and crematoriums, all the memorials. They tell us next to nothing. We cannot resurrect the lives, the loves, the animosities. We may only etch a bare outline and fill in the blanks as oral history or our imagination allows.
I see in Rudolph and Phoebe a great love. I see a long life together, building a homestead and raising children. I see them filling their part in a legacy that began hundreds of years before them and that continues until today.
There may be discordancy in that legacy, small craters left by those who fell short of expectations. But over time, the edges of those craters will smooth. Future heirs of Phoebe and Rudolph's union will sketch an outline of our family history and they will fill in the gaps. As they do so, they will tell a story that is as true or untrue as the story I have told here.
The Inkwell prompt for this week was heritage. There may be time to write for this prompt. There is a nice 5 Hive prize (for which I am not eligible) for the winner of our weekly contest. Next week we start another round and offer another chance to win prizes. Check it out. Join us. Writing is a wonderful way to explore your creative self.
The flower illustration is credited to @muelli. The image was borrowed from the LMAC Image Library, LIL.
The plant illustration is credited to @yaziris. The image was borrowed from the LMAC Image Library, LIL.
Wow, this is so interesting, I kind of think the same way sometimes, imagining the lives people of people who essentially have barely any records left from the time they were alive. Without records, all there is to go by is the results of their lives, their descendants and passed down misremembered tales and storys.
My mum was working out the family tree and got back as far as my great, great grand parents. Most of the records of all families were lost during the rising here in Ireland. Interesting to wonder though.
My grand parents on my dads side were mixed religion too like your parents, his mum was a Catholic and his dad a prodestant, it was pretty unheard of here. It got dangerous for them during the troubles in Belfast so the whole family had to up and move into the republic when my dad was a kid.
I really like geneology, I done one of those 23 and me tests and messaged some distance reletives through the app, just chatting really, nothing too serious, pretty cool though.
You're so right, all the graves are silent, and sadly the dead can't speak, but we can let minds speak as we get lost in our thoughts.
!PIZZA
Hello @killerwot,
That is a fascinating comment. You could have written a wonderful blog about this family history. My husband's parents were Irish immigrants, from the Republic, and my kids are interested in that heritage. My mother-in-law was from Roscommon and father-in-law from Cork.
Where our family comes from--it seems to matter to us. Maybe because we are a mobile society and people need roots? I don't know. But it's fun finding out.
Thanks so much for reading my blog and for your interesting comment. Happy hunting as you fill in the rest of your family story.
And thank you for the Pizza!
Good thinking actually, maybe I'll try and work something out and do a more detailed blog of the history I know from my family, some really interesting stories to be honest. I've been to Roscommon, it's a really nice county, also, it's kind of known as bandit country haha there's not a lot up there, but the people are all really nice, I played a gig there before.
Cork is a really cool city and the people are all really friendly, I've been there a few times, I'm going down there on the 18th of February for the night to film a music video for a band. I'm looking forward to being down there again, it's known as the rebel county haha, and also, it's known as the true capital of Ireland. It's a really cool place, they have a wildlife park called Fota, which is amazing, and well worth visiting if you're ever over here.
Me and my partner went down there back in 2019 for her birthday, it was great fun, on the last night we met a couple from Reno and hung out with them all night drinking and we still keep in contact. It came to closing time and they were going to drive up to Dublin, me and my partner just laughed, they thought it was legal, but drunk driving is a big no-no over here, you can't even have 1 and drive, they said they would just sleep in the car if that was the case, but we had a spare bed in our hotel room so let them crash there for the night. Really nice people.
You are good at bringing scenes and feelings to life. I love reading your comments. A born writer (maybe because you are creative).
A lovely story @agmoore , it really leaves me wanting more😍.
The pure bullheaded passion of love, sometimes swift and hard, sometimes gentle and long, although your parents didn't last long together, the heritage they gave you did and would continue to last 🙂✨💝
Thank you, @seki1
Yes. Where passion takes us in our youth may not be the road we travel as we age. And yet, in a marriage, with children, there are consequences. Will they pay for faded passion, or will we?
I appreciate your comment. Thanks for stopping by and reading.
I think the fact that the Passion is fading is payment on it's own terms nut meh.... What do I know about love😂😂😂
It's always a pleasure reading your posts, no need for the thanks 😂😂
I was smiling while reading (except the part about your father, which is saddening) There's quite a bit of similarities between what I have gathered about my family's history and what you mentioned.
Those old love stories that happened despite all the differences are always fun to read. Sadly, not all of them have very happy endings.
I think I'm a bit lucky that I managed to save a very old "book" written by my great-great-great-grandfather which detailed the lineage to a very distant past (over 1600 years back).
Other scriptures (theological, sociological, and historical) written by his father are somehow locked in Oxford's library (I have no idea how/why they got there), and only 2 of them were available to the public to order an e-copy of, for a hefty price last I checked >.<
So yeah, my curiosity ended right there. 😂
But it's fun to dig into those things sometimes!
Thank you for sharing that part of your history @agmoore ❤
I think you could negotiate with these people because you have a priceless resource in your grandfather's book. I bet the scholars at Oxford would love to get a look at that. That's a primary source. You are fortunate. Let them look, but not borrow :)) I don't trust them.
Thank you for reading. I love your comment. It's interesting how the search for roots is almost universal. In the past there were oral traditions that handed down culture from generation to generation. You are lucky to have that book. What a treasure. Most of us have to peck around at unreliable public records.
Contact Oxford. I think you might get something there. Good luck!
The one I have is family related though, highly doubt they'd be interested. (Pretty sure whoever smuggled all the rest wouldn't have left this one behind if it was of any importance to them).
But yeah, I might get digging some more some time and try to contact them. Hopefully nothing too bad happens. 😆
This is precious. Family related or not, it is an invaluable resource. You know I'm a history buff. My undergraduate degree is in history. That sort of document is so precious. Don't let them get their hands on it. Just look at it in your presence. The sort of thing that will disappear. Has cultural, historic and monetary value.
I'm impressed :)
I'll see what I can do, I'm not even sure why I should bring it up to them. I'd rather just buy a copy of what they have available when/if I get curious enough to read it. 😁
Oh, my @agmoore, how terribly sad for you and your family. Unfortunately, there are many selfish people in this world who fail to understand the nature of love. In the end, heartless people always suffer the most, because nobody can love them. Your story speaks of a great love and as you know, history likes to repeat itself - perhaps it has in you! ❤️💕❤️💕❤️💕❤️🥰🥰🥰💕❤️❤️💕🥰💕❤️🤗
Thank you my friend. It was sad, but it's not anymore for me. Life has been extraordinarily kind. I hope it is the same for my children and grandchild.
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting.
❤️💕❤️💕💕🥰
This is beautiful and a great read, @agmoore. I love ancestry and creating those lines between ancestors and descendants, and imagining what their lives were like. All we can do in many cases is fill in the blanks with our imaginations, when few records exist. I've been working to connect many dots in my own lineage through ancestry.com. It's a delightful and addictive pastime, as so many interesting facts emerge. Other people provide details, insights and old photos for the same shared lineage and it's so eye opening! (I also just submitted my ancestry DNA test. That will be interesting!)
Thanks for sharing this trip into your past. I hope you had fun discovering and writing!
Hello @jayna,
Thank you for reading my blog and for your kind comment. People in the U.S seem to be particularly interested in genealogy. I've read that Australians also actively explore their roots. Maybe it's because we are immigrant nations. Anyway, you're right--it's fun. My kids, nieces and nephews want me to share what I find.
I did an Ancestry.com search for my niece about our Italian forbears. She actually wants to pursue dual citizenship. Why not?
Good luck on following the thread of your search it will be fun and your kids will love to learn about it, I'm sure.
I did have fun writing. What a great prompt.
This is well written and insightful.
When you can relate known obscurities from members of your own family to the thought of
It really opens up a lot of different lines of thinking. Historical family records are often sparse and missing a lot of details.
My family has done a bit of research and digging and we've found some pretty cool stuff, photos of a couple or few generations back, some names and dates of birth records but that was pretty much it lol.
Your thoughts here also take mine to a place of thinking how little certain family issues may actually be in the long scheme of things. In the end it usually obscures or disappears as a matter of importance in the lives of others, and all that's left might be a few photos and some old family stories that might only be half accurate at best.
What better reason for families to let go of old feuds or animosities that don't affect current life.
Thanks for sharing your heritage write up with us!
Holding onto hurt and animosity--family or otherwise--what good does it do? No good for the other person, and certainly no good for us.
Thank you so much for reading. What I like about this post is that people seem to relate. We all have a past. Do we let the past weigh us down, or enrich us? Let go of the bad stuff and move forward.
Hope you turn up a pirate (as I did in my search) or some such thing in your family history. Always nice to have a little drama 😇
(I was trying to find a Dick Gregory story to share with you. It was about a man who had a grudge and wouldn't let it go. Couldn't find it)
What a wonderful historical vignette. It's wonderful you know so much about the history of your ancestors. Have you tried a DNA test? This can open a whole new can of worms (including lost siblings), but for anyone who's curious (and not worried about their clone being sold in a future black market), it's a treasure trove. Thank you for sharing this intimate portrait of your genealogical roots. 🌳
Hello my friend, @litguru.
No, I don't trust those services that collect DNA. 😄
Looking back is fun. It's not real, because so much of what we learn from the records comes from what someone else discovered. The information is only as reliable as their methodology. Still, it seems Thomas Baxter was probably my distant ancestor. When someone is notorious, as he was, there seem to be more resources.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting🌞
What you wrote about nobody knowing exactly what their lives were like reminds me of an old saying about people die and become memories, memories become legends when everyone who knew you in real life dies, and legends become myths, meaning nobody knows the truth and there are many versions of the story forever on. That is actually one way in which traditional ferry tales originate, because true stories change little by little as they get told, until you end up with something that doesn't even resemble what actually happened.
I used to teach social studies. In my first lesson I would tell my students not to trust what I say. I told them that no matter how honest I was, I was going to be mistaken, sometimes at least. Take nothing at face value, I warned them. Question everything. It was probably the best piece of advice I gave in my career :)
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