FAMILY STORIES ON PLACE-MEMORY
Place-Memory 1)
Interview with Kelly
Kelly discussed the energy of her ancestor’s possessions and not wanting interactions with the metaphysical. Kelly talks about her crazy dreams and the advice that she got from a friend’s uncle, who is psychic. Kelly explains that “He said to leave a Post-it note under my pillow that says: DO NOT DISTURB! And I swear it works! But that when the Post-it note falls, then I have a crazy dream”. She also discusses her family history and the relationship she has with land and her Chickasaw Ancestors.
“I feel very connected to being an American, despite all the problems and everything we face here. The land-based thing is, is real, and I’m excited to go because I’ve been to the reservation in Oklahoma but going to where they were forcibly moved. I’m excited to go to Mississippi where they were for thousands of years.”
Kelly talks about how she expects that her upcoming archaeology trip with the Chickasaw Nation will influence her relationship to her Ancestors. This audio was used in the video Pledge Allegiance. Including quote, “It kind of does feel like...loaded energy.” Kelly also discussed the ending of traditions in her family, “They assimilated like everyone else. I think it was about assimilation, more than anything else so. Everything is long gone I would say, centuries gone.” This evidence supports my research question about the link between water and other elements to act as Portals to our Ancestors and the Spirit World.
Place-Memory 2)
Ninety Years of Memories
Dwyer, Marian Jones. Ninety Years of Memories. Western Printing and Publishing, 1974.
This book, Ninety Years of Memories, Pioneer Living in Plumas County, California was compiled by my maternal Great-Grandmother, Marian Jones Dwyer. The book is dedicated to “Minnie L. Church on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday November 24, 1973” and it also notes in the foreword that, Minnie’s “birth was [being] forecast by Eilley Orrum Bowers, famed Comstock seer, who was a resident at the Twenty Mile House and was hired by some miners to read her crystal ball in hopes they could find the lost gold veins they were seeking.” This book compiles family stories and photos along with a wealth of poetry. The poems are written by Minnie Church, her husband, Theodore, as well as Lillian Langhorst. Place-Memory is present in the poem that Minnie wrote about her father.
My Father-G.A. Langhorst
Long ago and far away
In Bremen, Germany,
A man sailed west upon the sea
In search of liberty
He crossed the growing U.S.A.-
A great expanse of land-
And settled in a timbered spot
Where mining was at hand.
The Twenty-Mile-House, it was called,
A tract with space to spare,
Where stages stopped and freight trains too,
And work was everywhere.
He founded Cromberg post office,
In eighteen-eighty-one,
He pioneered a ranch and store,
No easy goals were won.
Rough miners brought their gold to him
And carried forth their food,
Their lives were filled with loneliness
Combined with fortitude.
My father was a steady man,
His character had bearing;
He spoke with truth and simple faith
Without a word of swearing.
These maxims he was wont to quote
That now are still worthwhile:
“Speak well of neighbors near and far,
Aim high, do not revile.”
He builded well his home and store
Through years of honest dealing;
His word and bond were ever true
And of his worth revealing.
His time he spent, his days he lived
In work and thoughts unchained,
For he could never cease to grow
While life and strength remained.
(June 2, 1952)
The poem invokes his original ancestry in Niedersachsen and his eventual emigration from Bremen. These are both places that I had the opportunity to visit in 2015 with my Great Aunt Megan. It was at the original Langhorst property where I had my first moment that I sensed I had been there before or at least seen the property in a dream. This book helped me answer my research question by providing a wealth of directs texts written by Ancestors while allowed me to view my research question through the lens of Place-Memory.