Learning from the Grandmothers - Nancy

Lessons on sustaining family well-being in times of multiple challenges

I love walking down the street and seeing a plant pushing up between the cracks in the cement. I’m not a fan of concrete. I am a fan of plants and soil. Despite all odds, the little plant thrives. The determination and hope demonstrated in that act of growth, is so big compared to the size of the plant.

Photo by Ted Balmer on Unsplash

Nancy, my great great great grandmother, reminds me of those sidewalk plants. She is one of my farming ancestors. Not out of choice, out of necessity. I suspect Nancy never expected an easy life. I suspect she expected to do hard things and to do them well enough to take care of all of her people. After all, this is the example she saw in her mother.

Nancy’s parents immigrated from Ireland, arriving in New Orleans on 20 Jan 1830.

A voyage from Belfast to New Orleans at this time would have taken roughly 6 to 8 weeks, depending on weather and sea conditions. Most likely they departed from Belfast sometime in late November or early December 1829. They traveled in steerage and brought with them: two chests, one bed, and three hampers of potatoes.

They traveled on a brig rigged ship.

https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca/research/sailing-ship-rigs

Brigs were smaller than full-rigged immigrant ships. Conditions were tight. The Brig Planter, was around 275 tons, which was relatively modest in size—making conditions particularly austere.

It is likely that Nancy’s mother, Letitia, was pregnant with her during this voyage. Nancy was the first of their children to be born in the USA in August 1830. The family had joined Letitia’s brother in Boligee, Greene County, Alabama, and that’s where Nancy was born.

While living in Greene County, Nancy’s father, Samuel, received a land patent for 159.70 acres in Newton County, Mississippi. He first appears in the Newton County record in 1838 when he purchased 1 steel guard for $.50, 2 bottles castor oil $.75, and 1/2 yard onasburg [cloth] $.19. Two months later he purchased 1 watch key for $.25.

The family appears in the 1840 Newton County census, where they remained for the rest of the century.

The beginning of Nancy’s challenges.

When Nancy was 24 years old she married an immigrant from Ireland, John Henry. He was age 29. John accumulated 126 acres of land over the next 6 years.

Challenge #1 Nancy and John were only married for 6 years. John died in 1860 at age 35. When he died, they had 4 children, ages: infant, 1, 3, 4. Nancy married John Bookheart shortly thereafter.

Challenge #2 In 1864, after only a couple years of marriage, and within four months of the battle at Fort Sumter and the official start of the U.S. Civil War, John died.

Challenge #3 Nancy spent the next 11 years, including all of the U.S. Civil War, as a single parent raising her kids and farming their land.

Challenge #4 During this time, Nancy would have been aware of, and impacted most directly by the battle of Jackson, about 80 miles away, and the battle of Newton's Station, about 20 miles away. (The Battle of Newton's Station was a part of the Vicksburg Campaign to to disrupt east-west communications and the railroad line between Vicksburg and Jackson.)

Map showing Jackson and Newton Station, from The Civil War by Shelby Foote

According to one account, during the battle of Newton’s Station the train depot, all that was in it, one or two store houses, and one hospital building were all burned. The account goes on to say that:

“When the Federal army approached a farm house at which they proposed to stay all night, the work of destruction commenced at a terrible rate. The commanding general would take the dwelling-house for his headquarters, and he would usually place guards at the door and the family would feel protected. As a general thing no insult would be offered and whatever was on the inside of the house was safe. But it was impossible to restrain the soldiers, nor did their chief officers care much the property they destroyed. If they wished to feed their teams they did not go in at the door of the crib. These cribs were usually of logs. They would knock off the roof, then throw off the logs until they reached the corn; from that position the corn would be taken, and the waste was about as great as the use. All kinds of fowls were indiscriminately killed. All the hogs they could find that were fat enough, would be killed, and a most wanton use of hams and the joints of the smoked meat, only the choice part be used, the other thrown away. A farmer had but little left after the army had gone. They used for fuel the rails around the fields and the palings around the yards and premises, and after the army removed the place looked like & cyclone had struck it” (pages 119-120).

A report from the Memphis Daily Appeal [Memphis, Tennessee], Friday Evening Edition, 24 April 1863 shares: “The reports last night that a force 800 strong, had passed through Decatur, Newton county, appear to have not been foundationless. It seems to be pretty well authenticated, as we go to press, that they succeeded in reaching the railroad this morning at Newton station, where the wires were cut and the station house burned. Two passenger cars are also reported to have been destroyed. What further damage was done, or whence the raiders progressed, no information has been received.”

A final account states, when the Union soliders had left Newton, they were “caught up in a wave of frightened citizens fleeing in wagons, in buggies, on foot. Some were carrying loads of bacon, flour, even household goods and valuables. From those overtaken the raiders seized such food stocks as they could carry in their haversacks” (Greirson’s Raid, page 141)

Nancy would have been well aware of all of this talk. Talk that was accurate, talk that was exaggeration. All of it. And, she would have had to find a way to navigate her family through the war, no matter how the war met her.

Challenge #5 Throughout the war the cost of goods was high for Nancy’s community. Salt was in short supply. One account explains that people resorted to digging wells in places where salt could be found. In some instances, “the floors of the smokehouses were dug up, the dirt leached and the water boiled down, thus obtaining some salt in this way for use in saving pork.” (History of Newton County, Mississippi from 1834 to 1894 p. 102).

The farmers in her area returned to raising grains. Lands that had been planted in cotton, were changed to “corn, wheat, rye, oats, tobacco, potatoes, sorghum cane - anything that would serve to feed stock and supply bread-stuffs.” (p. 102)

Although the younger women no longer knew how to make cloth, the older women in the community returned to the old ways. Women once again supplied clothes for their family. Cotton and wool cards were hard to get but spinning wheels and looms were once again in use. Plant material was gathered from the woods to make dye - bark of the walnut, chincapin (dwarf chestnut), oak; sumac berries; walnut hulls. (p. 103)

Nancy had to do it all - farm, tend to the children, and make cloth.

Challenge #6 Nancy and her children made it to the other side of the Civil War. The cost of groceries went down. The cost of dry goods went down. But, the cost of most crops and livestock products, the ones the family would have been growing, also went down. As did the value of their land.

From 1860 to 1870 the value of land in Newton County went from $6 per acre to $2 per acre (Labor in America). In the 1870 census value of Nancy’s real estate was $300 — about $7,323,64 today — and the value of personal estate was $410 — about $10,008.98 today. Lower than before the war, and higher than it would be in 1880.

The average value of farmland in Newton County doubled from 1870 to 1880. It is likely the value of Nancy’s real estate may well have been $600 or more if it had been recorded in the 1880 census (Farm real estate values in the United States by counties, 1850-1982). What was recorded in the 1880 census is that Nancy was identified as a farmer and all of the boys (ages 15, 19, and 20) are listed as working on the farm.

Nancy died one year after the 1880 census. She was 50 years old. She could neither read nor write. All of her children went on to live long lives well into the 20th century.

Nancy’s strength, I suspect, comes from the example of her mother.

As I mentioned above, I suspect Nancy never expected to have an easy life. Nancy’s strength I suspect comes from the example of her mother.

First, her mother survived the transatlantic voyage in steerage, while pregnant. The steerage section was the cheaper fares. Below deck, dark, stuffy, cramped, unhygienic. Minimal space and privacy. Only a bunk bed. It must have been horrible in an ocean storm. Being tossed around in the dark. People afraid and getting sea sick. I can’t even begin to imagine being in this situation in the early months of pregnancy.

After enduring that voyage and settling into their new world, Nancy’s father received his land patent for 159.70 acres and moved the family to Newton County, Mississippi, where they first appear in the 1840 Newton County census.

Then, her father died before the 1850 census.

Her mother was left to run the farm and raise eight children (ages 2 to 20), the two youngest of whom are listed in a later census as “idiotic.” I have to note at this point, that census enumerators were given a specific definition for the term "idiot." An idiot was "a person the development of whose mental faculties were arrested in infancy or childhood before coming to maturity" (History and Growth of the United States Census, page 201).

I need to acknowledge how deeply troubling this word is to me, as I sit here revisiting the census, and reliving the word as if for the first time. I have been doing genealogical research long enough to see the most hurtful and hateful words used in the historical record. It still takes my breath every time.

Today, there are known names for mental heath diagnoses and learning differences that would have fallen under this category in the 19th century. I wish I could find historical records that would release the two youngest from this demeaning and hurtful label. I have tried to find additional records but I have been unable to find them after 1870.

Back to our story. In the 1860 census, the value of Nancy’s mother’s real estate was $1200 — about $46,236.00 today — and the value of personal estate was $600 — about $23,118.00 today.

Her mother died sometime between the 1860 census and the 1870 census, between age 56 and age 65. She, too lived for at least 10 years as a single parent, raising her children on her own, and farming. She may have also done so during the U.S. Civil War.

Upon their mother’s death, Nancy’s sister Jane, age 23, moved into their mother’s role. Jane took over the farm and the care of her brother (age 20) and sister (age 34). The value of the real estate was $200 — about $4,882.43 today — and the value of personal estate was $600 — about $14,647.28 today. As discussed above, from 1860 to 1870 the value of land in Newton County went from $6 per acre to $2 per acre (Labor in America) and it hit this family hard.

We all face a unique set of challenges in our lives.

I’d like to think that along the way we discover who we really are. Under the masks we put on, the hats we wear, the history of where we come from and what we’ve done. Getting under all of it provides us with an opportunity for growth and insight.

Nancy had to do just that. She had to put aside the mask, hats, and history associated with being a wife in order to move forward. She was no longer a wife. She was a single, 34 year old, mother of four children. She was a farmer of 100+ acres. She was living through a war and economic instability.

Nancy chose to do the hard things. She may not have made an affirmative choice. In fact, she may have felt that she did not have a choice. But it was still a choice. She just had to do it. If she had chosen to not face the challenges that confronted her, her family would not have survived.

How did she face all of those challenges? I don’t actually know anything about how she felt. I have no insight into how she actually did it.

What I do know is that she sustained her family. All of her children grew to adulthood and had families of their own. The value of her farm increased over time.

Underneath it all, Nancy was resilient. What does that really mean?

Growing up I managed to avoid hard things that rise to the level off what Nancy and her mother contended with. I did things that I knew I could do, that I knew I’d be successful doing. Don’t get me wrong. Along the way, I learned strength. I learned how to withstand the uncomfortable. I learned how to persevere.

Eventually, I realized that I had not learned resiliency. Resiliency was something I didn’t see in my skill set, much less did I have a rich understanding of it.

A quick search of “what is resilience” on the internet brings back 22 pages of results. On Substack there are so many posts about what resilience is, how to develop it, why it’s needed. Its a word that is used freely. And, it’s a word that is used academically. Sometimes the two align, sometimes they don’t.

To better understand resilience, I started where I start — the Oxford English Dictionary. There were two definitions that caught my attention: a now obsolete one, and a more modern one. The obsolete definition is “the action or an act of rebounding or springing back; rebound, recoil” and the more modern definition is “the quality or fact of being able to recover quickly or easily from, or resist being affected by, a misfortune, shock, illness, etc.; robustness; adaptability.” These definitions align with how I commonly hear “resilience” used by people around me. The focus is on a state of being, an outcome.

• rebound

• recovery

• resistance

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as ‘‘the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” This focus is on traits and processes.

• adaptability

• flexibility

• adjustment

Pietrzak & Southwick, 2011 suggest that, while tempting, its limiting to think of resilience as a concrete trait that is present or absent, “in reality, resilience more likely exists on a continuum that may be present to differing degrees across multiple domains of life.”

The idea of a resilience continuum rather than a precise trait works for me. Some situations call for different levels of response, thus different points on a resilience continuum. What is at the ends? Low and high? Effective and Ineffective? Those seem too limiting as well.

The definition I finally settled upon is from Panter-Brick & Leckman, 2013 :“Resilience is the process of harnessing biological, psychosocial, structural, and cultural resources to sustain well-being.”

Reflecting on Nancy’s experience through the lens of this definition is a bit tricky. There are a lot of unknowns. It’s hard for me to imagine her response to the challenges that began with the death of her husband, my great great great grandfather in 1860. I don’t know what cultural resources she had access to. I don’t know what traits she carried in her genetics that inform her resilience. I’d love to have a diary or letters to a relative to read, but I don’t. I’d love to sit down with her and talk about how she felt, what she relied upon, and what gave her hope.

I suspect her resilience came from watching how her mother navigated similar challenges such as her husband’s death, single parenting, farming, war time, economic fluctuations. I suspect it also came from watching how her community navigated the war. And, from connecting with community members and her church community.

Nancy didn’t just demonstrate:

• rebound

• recovery

• resistance

• adaptability

• flexibility

• adjustment

She must have harnessed all of the resources available to her to sustain the well-being of her family and ensure that they all had a good life. She simply had to.

What have I learned from Nancy about building resilience?

Resilience is more than just surviving in tough times. It’s more than just managing stress. Resilience is about using all of the resources available - elders, family, community, ecological, biological, cultural - to ensure a good life. In the good moments. In the tough moments. In the moments in between.

Here’s the thing. The stressors in Nancy’s time really aren’t that different than the stressors nowadays.

• Protecting family.

• Ensuring the well-being of self and loved ones.

• Ensuring financial well-being during economic disruptions and recessions.

• Staying stable in the face of uncertainty, war, unrest, catastrophe.

When I unlocked that understanding, I discovered there was a lot I could learn from Nancy. These are the five lessons I carry with me:

1. Know your purpose, your goal, your values. Hold these close, in your center. It’s your compass. Stay true to it and you will find your way.

2. Get under the masks, hats, and histories. Focus on the most important things. For me, it’s family and their well-being. (I have a very broad definition of family).

3. Accept that change is inevitable. Bad things will happen. Good things will happen, too. It’s a cycle, a turning.

4. Look for the upside of the situation to find the next step.

5. Look for the purpose and meaning in the situation and in yourself.

The one that I would add based upon my own experiences: Have a repertoire of healthy coping strategies. For me, it’s yoga, meditation, breath exercises, mantra, movement, self-talk, journaling, music, cooking, working with fiber, etc.

One last final reminder from Nancy: Choose the hard thing. You’re stronger than you think you are. You have to be.

5 Notes

Five final notes on what I’m doing, listening to, reading, reflecting on, and practicing in yoga.

• Doing: I’m getting outside. Just the act of being out in the wild sustains my well-being. Exploring new trails. Discovering new places to swim off-shore. I am very conscious of being out on my own and needing to be safe. Besides all of the precautions I take, I have a Garmin inReach Mini 2 which provides global 2-way communication, tracking, and interactive SOS capabilities. I can even share my location with those back home.
  

• Listening to: I just have to share. I have a radio station, I have loved it for years. Yup, a radio station. KEXP in Seattle, Washington. I visited the old studio near the pink elephant carwash, and the new studio in the Seattle Center. I would stream it at work. I stream it at home. I stream it in the car. It’s my go-to station. I didn’t think it could get much better but it did!

  KEXP just released a new app and the livestreaming is so much better. There are podcasts in the app. I can select certain shows to listen to. I can find shows by the DJ. I can save favorites. Playing in the car is so much better. It use to drive me crazy that I would play KEXP in the car, then turn off the car, and when I came back I’d have to reload it. No longer. It’s still there when I turn the car back on. I know, it’s not a big deal to reload it, but now I don’t have to, and I really appreciate that.

• Reading: Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly. From the publisher: “New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline’s world is forever changed when Hitler’s army invades Poland in September 1939—and then sets its sights on France. An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement. In a tense atmosphere of watchful eyes and suspecting neighbors, one false move can have dire consequences. For the ambitious young German doctor, Herta Oberheuser, an ad for a government medical position seems her ticket out of a desolate life. Once hired, though, she finds herself trapped in a male-dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power.
  
  The lives of these three women are set on a collision course when the unthinkable happens and Kasia is sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.”

• Reflecting on: This is an excerpt of “Pilgrim” by Britt B. Steele

This is who I am.
Beneath masks and hats and history. 
I am whole. Holy. 
Enough as is. 
And when this voice from deep within comes forth and speaks of
Truth, There is a knowing that bubbles, rises, and reveals each day, 
Each moment as choice, not chore.
This revelation is laced with potential, possibility. 
Illuminating me as Pilgrim. Pilgrim of light.
Shedding rays of curiosity and willingness to see
through the darkness, 
to see into the likes of confusion, loss or sideway emotion. 
To gracefully, softly, hold myself in sacred conversation. 
And so I journey. 
I journey inward, past the right and wrong of it, past the
illusion of limitation.
I know, in this limited body that I am not that.
For I am That.
All THAT.

• Yoga: We’ve just had a powerful full moon on Monday that coincided with May Day/Bealtaine. There’s just so much energy! Energy of transition. Energy of transformation. Energy of growth. All coupled with the peak energy of the moon cycle. A lot of that energy is still lingering with me. This lingering has me craving release and grounding. So, that’s what I’m focusing on right now - releasing and grounding. My practice right now, looks like this: