Whose History?

When I was a child, I sometimes wondered if the Civil War had ended not long before I was born. In my more rational moments, I knew that it was, in fact, World War II, that nearly abutted my birth and actually facilitated my existence. However, there were enough references to the War Between the States, as it was known in my locale, for some confusion to exist. I could walk around town and see a statue dedicated to the Confederate fallen. If I were visiting the city cemetery, and I was there almost every week, I'd see metal standards proclaiming the deceased as a member of some Confederate unit. Adjacent to the public burying ground was a National Cemetery which served as a final resting place for quite a few Union soldiers. Men who fought each other so fiercely lie eternally in close proximity.

My daddy was born in 1910. During his childhood, many former slaves were still alive. Even more numerous were the children of former slaves. Most likely he encountered individuals with the same surname, acquired through ownership not parentage. For him, the Civil War and its aftermath had a very real presence.

I recall vividly an evening when Daddy, my brother and I went to the home of a man who occasionally worked on our farm. The man's name was Tom Clark and he had a wife named Rosie. As we entered the living room, Daddy turned to his two children and said, "Be very quiet. There's an old woman in the next room and she is very sick." Then he added, "She was born a slave." Why he shared this fact, I do not know. Maybe he was telling me that history is transitory, brief, and that we are all part of the past as much as the present. I've never forgotten his words, though nearly six decades have passed since they were spoken.

Recently, my husband was watching excerpts from vintage television shows on YouTube. I sat with him as episodes from "What's My Line?" were revitalized in all their black and white glory. Among the celebrity guests were Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart. After I left the room, he began sampling various segments from "I've Got A Secret." Both of these television shows were immensely popular in the 1950's and '60's. He and I recall watching them faithfully when they were first broadcast.

Later in the evening, Henry joined me as I was watching present day television. He said that he was especially intrigued by one particular guest on a 1956 "I've Got A Secret" clip. The gentleman, a very coherent 96 year old, was not able to stump the panel. His incredible secret was that he was in the audience at Ford's Theater the night that Lincoln was shot in April, 1865. Astonishing!!!!

Though somewhat enfeebled by age, the guest spoke eloquently about seeing a man jump from the balcony and fall as he reached the stage. As a five year-old, he did not realize what had happened and all of his concern centered on the man (John Wilkes Booth) who appeared hurt. When this accidental witness of a major historic event was telling his story on television, I was ten years old. The fact that he and I were alive at the same time is incredible.

My daughter's heard stories all her life. Some of these tales must seem fanciful to her for the world she knows differs vastly from that her mom experienced. When I casually remark that girls weren't allowed to attend Ivy League colleges and universities when I graduated from high school, she is aghast. Even more startling and compelling are my accounts of attending segregated schools, shopping at stores that were segregated in their services, sitting in a doctor's office where patients were separated by race, and riding buses with rigidly drawn color lines. She listens patiently as I reminisce about our kitchen stove that was neither gas nor electric, but rather powered by wood. I invoke a quasi-pioneer spirit when mentioning our primitive bathroom in a small clapboard building behind the chicken house. While these vignettes form part of my personal history, not hers, they emanate from a time not so long ago.

Perhaps we are all part of an unfathomable continuum that swishes history through our lives and on to the next generations.