Unruly saints and questionable angels

 A group of residents here in the retirement community share an interest in family genealogies. They have the technology and resources for their investigations, and they encourage each other along.

We all want to know more about our ancestors. The Old Testament teaches that we receive generational blessings and/or curses through our family lines. Both life and death. The holy and the void. 

Russian poet Yevtushenko writes about visiting an orthodox church in a village: 

I am inside the church of Koshueti:
on a wall without dogmatic loyalty
unruly saints and questionable angels
tower upwards in front of me.

He’s describing the old portraits of the church’s “ancestors” adorning the walls of the sanctuary. Having been in similar Latin American Catholic churches, I can picture the old faces solemnly looking down.

In the temple of my imagination, I can see the portraits of my ancestors in a long line. As I learn more about them, I recognize among them several unruly saints and questionable angels. I hail from some very interesting characters. Thankfully, I have relatives on both sides of the family (my father’s people and my mother’s) who have taken the time and trouble to do genealogical research and write it down. There are many holes in the history, many things I wish I knew, but much is available to me and I lap it up like a hungry puppy.

Let me start by telling you about a famous person in my background. I hope this impresses you. My Grandma Nichols’ great uncle was no other than—are you ready?—the great Charlie Post, inventor of Post Grape-Nuts! Uncle Charlie developed a cereal industry that supplied the breakfast tables of middle-class Americans for decades. Think Post-Toasties, Honey Bunches o’ Oats, and Pebbles.

[Interesting side-note: I married a man whose grandmother’s maiden name was Kellogg. As anyone knowledgeable in American history knows, the Post and Kellogg families were arch rivals in the cereal world. I think the Kelloggs finally won out over the Posts, with Corn Flakes sitting on the throne of the breakfast cereal empire. It’s amazing that Hal and I get along as well as we do.]

Since I obviously can’t detail my whole family story (and you obviously wouldn’t want me to), let me give a few snippets that fascinate me

--On my mother’s side, my Great-Great-Grandpa James Mott Van Wagner was a Congregational minister who supported his family as a phrenologist (one who counseled people based on the size and shape of their skull). More importantly, his home was a station on the underground railway. My Great Aunt Edna wrote that her grandpa “was very outspoken and more broad in his religion than most folks in those days. He would not stand for any dissentions in the church. As soon as they took place, he would leave and go to another pastorate. Consequently, they lived in many places.”

--My great grandmother Gertrude Gleason was born on a farm in Vermont that had been “purchased from the Indians for a gallon of whiskey.” Another of the Gleason relatives had a family of 17 children. The last one was named “Mercy!”

--My Grandpa Nichols was an alcoholic and compulsive gambler which, during the Great Depression, made things hard on the family. He experienced a turn-around through Alcoholics Anonymous and spent the last 13 years of his life sober. Good for you, Grandpa!

On my father’s side of the family, my cousin David spent several years doing extensive genealogical research. At the time he lived in Salt Lake City which is the genealogical capital of the country, so he had ample resources at hand. He put his findings in large binders and gave copies to all us cousins.

David discovered that the earliest known Forsythe ancestors came from Aquitaine in France and migrated to England, then up to Scotland, and eventually to Ireland and back to England. Got that? In Scotland the Forsyths were an important clan with a coat of arms—four griffins on a plaid background with an inscription that translates, “Restorers of the Ruins.” Very impressive.

But David’s book of ancestor stories digs before the Forsythe line and stretches back to 300 AD with one Flavius Afranius Syagruis of France, my 43rd Great Grandfather. (43rd means this man was my Great Great Great Great—repeat 43 times!—Grandfather.) The math of ancestry becomes astronomical, considering I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16 great-greats, and so on. (All this before marrying Hal and doubling the count for our kids.) So I can’t really take too much pride in descending from Flavius Afranius Syagruis because millions of other people can say the same.

But Cousin David went ahead and listed some of my more illustrious ancestors. They include Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, my 32nd Great Grandfather; William the Conqueror, my 24th Great Grandfather; Louis the Fat, King of France, my 23rd Great Grandfather (1100s). My favorite is Eva McMurrough or “Red Eva,” my almost mythical Irish 22nd Great Grandmother who is said to have been over eight feet tall, had blazing red hair, and waged continuous war. She killed the enemy with her hair, braiding chunks of iron into the coils, then whacking away.

David’s list goes on, eventually narrowing down to my actual grandparents. David writes in his introduction, “At some point, if it were not for familial inter-marriages, our ancestors would theoretically equal the population of the world. But hindsight shows that our ancestors were an incestuous lot, and a brief look at the charts is enough to make one wonder why we’re not all insane.”

It would be insane for me to go any further with this, in spite of all the stories I’ve left out. I ask myself, “Who am I the proudest to be descended from—the minister/phenologist who captained the underground railroad or Red Eva?” Eva, I think.

Well, now that you know my claim to fame (Charlemagne and Charlie Post), I hope you will give me the respect I am due.

Who are your illustrious ancestors? Any unruly saints or questionable angels?