What are you so proud of...
I live in a small city in Indiana that is world famous for her architecture. I can trace my maternal history in the same county for 4 generations. I live in a cookie cutter sub-division, privacy fence and all. That being said, I am what is commonly referred to in my family as a "hill-jack".
My Father's mother's people are from the hills of Tennessee, his father's people immigrated from Holland and the little I know about his family history is sordid at best. Suffice it to say that my grandfather joined the Navy at 15 after forging his own birth certificate to escape a broken home; and became a golden glove boxer, before returning home after his mother's murder to try and put his broken back together; marrying my grandmother in the process. Sadly, the pieces continued to sever, but in the process my father was born and eventually met my mother, the daughter of proud Kentuckian from a town so small it's not on a map.
His father was a junk dealer, a moonshiner and womanizer until he died in that tiny town- in he late 60's, the two-room shack he shared with my great grandmother at the time- still without in-door plumbing. My grandfather met my grandmother on a bet he couldn't get a date with her.
A would be socialite- whose intelligence and drive were not enough to rescue her for her father's death and the poverty that ensued. She would work in the school cafeteria starting at age 12 to pay for her own lunches and continue working to put both of her older brothers through college, eventually being medically retired from the engine company that continues to fuel the local economy as I write.
Like their parents before them. neither my mother or father graduated from high-school, but both eventually went to technical school and became nurses. The cycle of dysfunction and poverty however are not so easily broken. My childhood home- if you chose to call it that, was condemned when I was 16, and turned into a fishing cabin. My father struggled with addiction his entire life, and my mother struggles with significant mental illness to this day.
So then the title of this post, " What are you so proud of" seems a fair question- because despite the picture I have just painted, I am fiercely proud. I am proud of the tenacity it took both my grandfathers to leave everything they had ever known to try and forge a better path. I am proud of that same tenacity my grandmother possessed as she worked on a factory line filled with men in the 1960's to makes sure her children didn't know poverty, the same tenacity that compelled my mother and father to fight for a better life despite years of trauma and abuse. I am proud, not because my heritage is "clean and shiny", but because it is rich with strength. I come from a long line of folks that always seemed to get the job done- with strong backs yes, but even stronger wills. Of everything the women and men in my family could have given me, amongst the many things I wish they could have given me, this strength of will is the most important. It is their legacy to me and the one I most hope to leave for my own children.
My Father's mother's people are from the hills of Tennessee, his father's people immigrated from Holland and the little I know about his family history is sordid at best. Suffice it to say that my grandfather joined the Navy at 15 after forging his own birth certificate to escape a broken home; and became a golden glove boxer, before returning home after his mother's murder to try and put his broken back together; marrying my grandmother in the process. Sadly, the pieces continued to sever, but in the process my father was born and eventually met my mother, the daughter of proud Kentuckian from a town so small it's not on a map.
His father was a junk dealer, a moonshiner and womanizer until he died in that tiny town- in he late 60's, the two-room shack he shared with my great grandmother at the time- still without in-door plumbing. My grandfather met my grandmother on a bet he couldn't get a date with her.
A would be socialite- whose intelligence and drive were not enough to rescue her for her father's death and the poverty that ensued. She would work in the school cafeteria starting at age 12 to pay for her own lunches and continue working to put both of her older brothers through college, eventually being medically retired from the engine company that continues to fuel the local economy as I write.
Like their parents before them. neither my mother or father graduated from high-school, but both eventually went to technical school and became nurses. The cycle of dysfunction and poverty however are not so easily broken. My childhood home- if you chose to call it that, was condemned when I was 16, and turned into a fishing cabin. My father struggled with addiction his entire life, and my mother struggles with significant mental illness to this day.
So then the title of this post, " What are you so proud of" seems a fair question- because despite the picture I have just painted, I am fiercely proud. I am proud of the tenacity it took both my grandfathers to leave everything they had ever known to try and forge a better path. I am proud of that same tenacity my grandmother possessed as she worked on a factory line filled with men in the 1960's to makes sure her children didn't know poverty, the same tenacity that compelled my mother and father to fight for a better life despite years of trauma and abuse. I am proud, not because my heritage is "clean and shiny", but because it is rich with strength. I come from a long line of folks that always seemed to get the job done- with strong backs yes, but even stronger wills. Of everything the women and men in my family could have given me, amongst the many things I wish they could have given me, this strength of will is the most important. It is their legacy to me and the one I most hope to leave for my own children.
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