Local View: Connections to past keep present full

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BY MARCY C. WOOD

A while back, there was an article in the Journal Star about the founder of Lincoln. I love history, so I usually read this section of the Sunday paper. On this particular Sunday, however, the history of Lincoln came much closer to home than I expected. It turns out that the founder of Lincoln was originally from Batavia, N.Y.!

What is so exciting about Batavia? Nothing, really, except that it is 20 miles from my tiny hometown of Medina, N.Y., and about 40 miles from the area that most of my ancestors settled many years ago. Is it possible that some of my ancestors knew him or knew someone who knew him? It seems highly possible.

Shortly after I read this article, my grandmother passed away. She was 91 years old and had lived a good and fulfilled life. It is always sad when loved ones pass away, but there is some comfort when you know the person lived a good, long life. She had a husband, four children, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren that she loved. She had a knack for making each and every one of them feel that they were the favorite one. That is quite a talent.

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Marcy Wood

Marcy Wood

My mother and her siblings had the sad job of cleaning out their childhood home and getting it ready for sale. This was the home that their father built more than 60 years ago — the home they grew up in and the home that all of us grandchildren remember from our childhoods. It is hard to let go of something like that.

In going through my grandmother’s things, we found many items that belonged to her parents and even her grandparents. Old pictures of people long since forgotten are mixed in with pictures of great-great-grandparents waiting to be recognized. Some of the items we found date back to the Civil War, and some even earlier. These were people that were alive during the settling of the West. Some of them had even gone west themselves.

Among my great-grandmother’s things was a postcard addressed to her and signed by an uncle of hers from a newly formed town in Nebraska. In it, he is asking her to come out to Nebraska. She never did, but the connection is there.

In the brief note on the back of this postcard, it is clear that the writer is excited by the newness of the Nebraska territory and all that it had to offer. He clearly wanted to share his excitement with everyone who would listen. That enthusiasm must have been part of what fueled the expansion west.

Back at my grandmother’s house, the deconstruction of a lifetime continued. Some things were sent to auction, some claimed by children or grandchildren, some thrown away. One of the items that went to the auction was my grandmother’s kitchen table. It was a small, Formica-topped, drop-leaf table that had been in the center of her kitchen for as long as I can remember. This is where most of our visiting took place, especially in the more recent years, as the number of people gathering there at any one time dwindled. This is where I picture her sitting, greeting me as I walk in the door, urging me to have something to eat.

So many things accumulated over a lifetime. There is no place for it all to be saved. It has to go. We have to let go of these things, these reminders of times past. We have to move into the future without them and without the people they remind us of.

And so it goes. Those pioneers let go of everything they knew and moved west for the prospects of a new future. They passed this spirit on through their children and grandchildren. The hidden connections of generations past bring us full-circle. Letting go is painful but maybe is made easier by knowledge of those connections.

I don’t know whether any of my ancestors knew the founder of Lincoln, and I may never know, but knowing that we are all connected, in the larger sense of things, is comforting. Our connection to the past remains, even as we move forward into the future. Our memories bring us full-circle.

Marcy C. Wood is a clinical psychologist and mother of two.