[Note: Published in Orbit, a Literary Publication; Spring 1959; Barry College, Miami, Florida]
"I'm just a housewife from the Shores," was Mrs. Tyree's modest comment, "and I am enjoying my classes at Barry."
I stumbled upon the room of American History and Genealogy some years ago during a tour of the Library of Congress. Drawn in by the general welcome, I found the variety of types among its readers fascinating: about a dozen prosperous-looking middle-aged men whom I categorized as utilizing the last few hours of a business trip to gather some stray bits of personal history; aged people, many struggling with seeing aids and laboriously drawing their notes; several seemingly professional genealogists, very neat, efficient, and sure. A girl was sprawled across the work space nearest the door, using three books simultaneously; her purse, some distance down the continuous surface of desks, was open with a piece of paper sticking out; her gloves were on the floor; her coat, thrown back against her chair, had dropped askew down one side; her spot had a lived-in look. Behind me a bespectacled youth came through the entrance, pushing a loaded metal bookshelf on wheels. Perhaps in lieu of asking me to move he said, "The catalog file is to the right." As I obeyed his suggestion, he rolled his cart along the line of readers and unloaded several books before each one.
I hesitated before the card files and thought about a boring acquaintance who claimed repeatedly to be descended from the Tudor Kings. These files seemed more down-to-earth. I noticed one group of drawers marked "Counties of the United States by States." Well, Grandpa had lived in the God-forsaken northwestern corner of Tennessee. I hastily placed the county and filled out a request slip.
It is strange to sit in alien surroundings and read about things of home, little things that don't seem to belong in books at all but in some relegated spot of memory labeled "trivia." How enlightening it is to realize someone thought these things important enough to write down; that others felt them deserving of the care and preservation they obviously had in this place! I read how the first town and school in Grandpa's county came into existence, and I thought of the good-sized brick structure still standing on the land described. Among the few early land grantees I found my grandfather's surname and, eagerly reading the account of the property, recognized the land as a plot he had owned. But although the surname was the same, the given name was one I had never heard and the time was before Grandpa was born. The man must have been some family member long ago forgotten. There was an unrecognized description of the general area as being the last part of Tennessee to be settled, a hunters' paradise, and the haunt of David Crockett. My interest quickened. In the days of the coon hat fad, who wanted a Tudor King for an ancestor if he could have Davy?
Naive sampler that I was, I didn't know what had happened to me; but at that moment I had contracted a fever which persists until this day and from which I hope I never recover.
Many tours later, plus visits to supplementary sources, I have discovered that my whole conception of America has changed. My inheritance had been a multiple thing shared with my stereotyped compatriots. There had been a generality in "my country;" in its place there is a very personal "MY country." Should anyone mention the great Revolutionary victory of the Battle of King's Mountain, I recall that a great-great-great-grand-uncle, a second generation backwoodsman who had lost most of the refinements of civilization, fought there with the United States forces. The rebels made the victory absolute by killing even the surrendered losers. The Tory dead and dying were left on the mountain where they fell, to draw the wolves from a radius of several hundred miles. Even today this mountain is a good place for wolf hunting.
Personalizing history is slow learning. In obedience to the law of averages, most ancestors are little people about whom not much is written. When an occasional prominent figure is found, it is as though someone has turned up the light on the past. Facts, dates, and even friendships are given; known political opinions and religious beliefs are listed in detail; and the continued existence of thin mental ties is exposed. A philosophy I had preached to my children, and which I complacently thought to be original, was expounded in 1775 by a rather well-documented ancestor whose identity had not enjoyed the same staying power among his descendants. Before I accepted the suggested connection, I went one step further by inquiring into the thoughts of the contemporary relatives who share the ancestor. Yes, the voice of 1775 was re-echoed through them. Now I am ever conscious that many "inherited ideas" may be lurking in me under the guise of personal conclusions.
For years my family used to motor through West Virginia on the turnpike to avoid the tiresome, tedious trip on Highway 60, winding and twisting through the mountains. Today we know and love the mountain road as the great Kanawha Turnpike whose development was urged by George Washington. As the one-time only road in that longitude between the newly developed West and the populous areas of Virginia, it was lined with inns. Two ramshackle structures along the way were once busy watering places patronized by both the lowly and great. Ancestors of my husband were the innkeepers. Over these last years we have taken every opportunity to drive on Highway 60; we have visited the old inns; we have climbed to surrounding hills; we have met distant relatives who still live in the area. It is the latter contact that is one of the most rewarding results of an interest in genealogy. I correspond today with a host of newly-acquired and interesting kinfolk I once never knew I had.
And so the Room of American History and Genealogy is more than a reading room; it is a challenging room. Stale outlooks become vital interests; personal understanding develops greater depths; outward ties begin to multiply. One aimless way may lead into this room; but many definite, urgent ways beckon the reader who comes out -- to the same old world but OH how it has grown!
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