On being bold & queer, across generations
My 3x great Grandma, Nancy Lee, was born in 1828 in Franklin County, Indiana and while I still know very little about her, she is the ancestor who planted the seed for my interest in family history and the name of this space.
See, thanks to my maternal Grandma’s writing, I know that Nancy was a Quaker and very much a “woman of her time”. She was expected to do things a certain way and expected the same of her 13 children. Which is why, when Hannah came along and didn’t exactly fall in line, she began telling her how “bold and queer” she was for:
• Liking music
• Working the fields with her brothers
• Going into town often
• Acquiring useless trinkets at fairs
• Not preparing for marriage at the “appropriate age”
And although it seems Nancy worried about Hannah, maybe, just maybe, she also recognized a bit her beloved husband’s wild streak in her. After all, he did just up and change his last name after a falling out with his father.
But that’s a story for another day.
And, honestly, I do wonder if Nancy had a bit of wild streak in her as well…
I may never know, but my mind wanders and wonders on such details.
So, back to Nancy and Hannah.
Although it’s impossible to clearly look at the world through the lens of neither past nor present, I sometimes like to imagine how one ancestor might perceive the lives of those who came after them. I try to hold in my mind’s eye the energy of those who came before and fold that energy into present time, like a three dimensional tapestry. In this third space, we stand side by side as our pure selves, without the judgement centuries of changes and laws and perceived “goodness” (or “badness”, for that matter).
Yes, it’s a doozie of an imagining, but it can be fun none-the-less.
And so, when I think about Nancy and her love for her children and her longing for them to live their best possible lives, I imagine how proud she would be of:
Her daughter Hannah’s resilience and perseverance in the face of a neglectful and abusive husband and the loss of a very young son and a daughter, her ability to push up her sleeves and do what needed to be done to take care of her surviving four children, her entrepreneurship in providing sewing services to neighbors and starting a little store to bring in some coin, and her practicality and openness to changing times and ways…
Her grandson Dutch’s resourcefulness and passion for baking, his ability to think forward and prepare accordingly, his straightforward approach to life and doing the most with each hand dealt, his acceptance of all that was good and kind, and his willingness to actively fight against all that was not good or kind in his corner of the world through his boots on the ground anti-racism work…
Her great granddaughter Eve’s colorful and poetic mind, her willingness to take risks and try new things, her fearlessness as she moved back and forth across the country several times, or her entrepreneurship in recording and producing jazz music, co-owning a record shop, and becoming a multi-published author…
Her 2x great granddaughter Kerry’s creativity and tender spirit, her welcoming heart and tough skin, her ability to make everyone she knew feel seen and heard and accepted, her ability to pull and stretch each dollar to mold it into a tiny gift with big meaning, or her perpetual push back against any box anyone ever tried to put her in…
Her 3x great granddaughter Melissa’s (yep, that’s me) strong willed passion for community and the collective good, deep love of family and passion for honoring of the past while looking toward the future, loyalty towards those I love and curiosity towards all that is new and/or different, choice to work the land and grow our own food, and building of an entire website and merch offerings inspired by the words she spoke to Hannah 150 years ago and everything that happened in the moments in between.
The threads that bind us to one another run deep and long and while the differences between generations and experiences are vast and wide, each of us belongs to all the others, echoing pieces of each other we may (or may not have) honored in our own time.
And all of us, every single one of us, have been bold and queer in our own rights and in our own times.
And all of us have shared a deep love for the good things in life, including (especially) music and making things with our hands and hearts.
So I wonder, in those moments of folded time, where Nancy and I magically exist in a shared space, how alike we might actually be and how nice for us both to share a cuppa tea over which we’d discuss all the strengths we’ve shared and woven into the threads of our lineage.
To that table I’d bring that useless trinket Hannah bought at a faire in her youth (a clear, pressed glass hatchet) which passed to Eve when Hannah died. Eve then kept it safely tucked away for decades until she passed it to me. It’s an heirloom that now sits on my altar as a reminder of all who’ve come before and all who’ve yet to come…
A reminder that we can all carve our own way in this world and do so courageously and in our own unique ways…
A reminder that our ancestors pass down traumas, yes…
But they also pass down their strengths and resilience.
Onward,
Melis