Universalist Unitarian Church Santa Paula, California

Voices in Our Blood
by June Hopkins

The title of this talk is "Voices in Our Blood." It is taken from the title of a book about researching family history by G.G. Vandergriff. I like this title because it in a real sense there are voices in our blood, voices that want to be heard, voices that want us to tell their stories. Let me tell you how I became involved in this search to learn more about the voices in my blood.

I never knew my grandparents. Perhaps that explains my fascination with genealogy and learning as much as possible about my ancestors. Three of my grandparents died before I was born. The fourth, my paternal grandfather died when I was nine years old. I never met him because he lived in Kansas and we lived in California. He died shortly after World War II ended when it was still difficult for private citizens to travel across the country. It wasn’t until I became a parent myself that I realized what I had missed. Grandparents often provide us with the connection to our ancestors. They have time to tell us the stories of how it was in the old days. Perhaps because I never met them, I am now very curious about who they were and how they lived their lives.

My mother’s parents were born in Finland. They lived in different parts of that country and met after they arrived in Montana. My grandfather, Abram Hietala, was a miner in Finland, and he came to Montana, to work in the coal mines. My grandmother, Hilma Sofia Lamsa, was the second oldest girl in a family of 12 children. I can only speculate why she left Finland. Perhaps it was to get away from the chore of taking care of the younger children, and perhaps it was for adventure. From my research I learned that many young women left Finland in the early 1900’s because of an increasing population and diminished opportunity for work. Many young women became impatient with their options in Finland and saw emigration to America as a solution. The Finnish playwright and feminist, Minna Canth described them as "daring" and the act of going to America as "moving forward."

My paternal grandparents were both born in Johnson Co., Kansas. An 1874 map of the farms in the area shows their families living in the same township. My grandfather, Herman Gottstein, was the son of German immigrant parents. My grandmother, Harriet Finley, was of Irish ancestry or so I thought as I started my research.

As I acquired more information about my ancestors from census records, cemetery records, death certificates, and other sources, I became increasingly curious about them and their lives. I started to ask questions. Why had they immigrated to this country? Why did they move about once they arrived? As I asked myself these questions, I started to read about the history of the areas, immigration patterns, and the conditions in their countries of origin.

I discovered that one of my ancestors, my great-great-grandmother, Mary Woodcock, was not a recent immigrant as I had assumed, but instead was descended from settlers to the American Colonies in the 17^th and early 18^th Centuries. I learned that one of her ancestors, Anthony Holland, was a Quaker who settled in Anne Arundel County of Maryland in the later half of the 17^th Century. I learned that the Woodcocks were also Quakers who fled first from England to Ireland to Philadelphia and finally to Delaware. Suddenly Colonial American history came alive as I tried to imagine my ancestors living in the Colonies.

In my genealogical research at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, I was fortunate to find an account of the journey taken by my great-great-grandfather, James McClaren. It was told by his sister, Jain McClaren, and recorded by one of her descendants. Here is Jain’s story:

The family, whose ancestors had come to Northern Ireland from Scotland in the 17^th Century, decided to immigrate to America in 1823. According to English law at that time, when the head of a family died, the property on which he lived must revert to the English Crown. Under this law, James McClaren, Sr., knew that he could never provide for the future of his family. Therefore, he set sail for America with his wife and three children, Mary (13), James Jr. (11), and Jain (8).

On May 19, 1823, the McClarens embarked at Belfast on the sailing brig Glentanner. The first day of their voyage, they were shipwrecked, and damage to their ship required that they put into the nearest port for repairs. Two weeks later, after repairs were completed, they continued on their journey.

The officers of the Glantanner proved to be indifferent seaman, for they allowed the brig to go off-course so badly that they finally found themselves fog-bound in a field of flow-ice and icebergs at about 62 degrees north latitude, roughly even with the southern tip of Greenland. The ship’s compass had somehow become faulty, and in backing away to prevent a collision with another brig, they lost their reckoning. In the face of all this, the crew lost confidence, panicked, and threatened mutiny. They even prepared to make the captain "walk the plank," but were dissuaded from this by the passengers, who cautioned them not to murder or mutiny.

By now the Glentanner was completely lost. It drifted aimlessly for days in a gray blanket of fog that obscured the sea and sky so completely that the ship’s sextant was useless. At last they encountered a small fishing vessel. The fisherman aided them in restoring their compass to its correct reckoning. Without further mishap, the Glentanner sailed to St. Johns, New Brunswick, ending a long and hazardous voyage.

At St. Johns, the family changed to the schooner Independence, which sailed first to Quebec before heading back to the Atlantic Ocean. They finally landed at Philadelphia on August 15, 1823, 83 days after leaving Belfast.

As quickly as they could manage, the McClarens left Philadelphia and traveled by wagon to Newville, Pennsylvania. There on October 16, 1823, two months after she had finally set foot in America, James’ mother died of typhoid fever.

The family lived in Pennsylvania for five years and then moved on to Ohio. My great-great-grandfather married Mary Woodcock in Ohio. In 1858 they moved to Johnson Co., Kansas, where they spent the rest of their lives.

Digging for my ancestors has been far more that simply collecting their names. It has taken me into strange places, and in the course of my excavations a considerable amount of history, geography, and social customs has been added to my store of knowledge. I learned that the immigrants to America were an extraordinarily varied lot. Some were gentry or professionals; others were skilled artisans or landowners with money gained from the sale of the land; many were fugitives from hunger. Motives for many their journey were therefore quire diverse: the desire for land or fortune, the search for adventure, the fear of punishment for a crime, religious persecution, and political dissent.

Much like a detective, I collect clues, pieces of evidence that are part of a grand puzzle. It has became an adventure much as solving a mystery. Just recently I found my great-grandmother, Augusta Rausch, on the manifest for the Bark Marco Polo that sailed from Bremen, Germany, and landed in New York in December of 1867. Augusta traveled with her mother and younger brothers and sisters. I learned that they traveled not in a cabin nor in steerage, but "between decks."

Why am I so fascinated by learning about my ancestors? My interest in family history may be my way of answering these eternal questions: Who am I and what am I doing here?

From the field of biology comes a possible answer. Dr. Lewis Thomas writing in Lives of a Cell revealed the astounding fact that, in a very real way, we carry pieces of our ancestors with us. Microorganisms called mitochondria have been with us since we were eggs in our mothers’ bodies. These same microorganisms lived in our grandmothers, our great-grandmothers, and all the grandmothers before them. As this egg was fertilized by sperm from our fathers carrying their own mitochondria, our identity was forged and we grew into human beings. These bacteria-like organisms stayed with us, performing the important function of helping our cells to breathe. Dr. Thomas goes on to say, "There is the whole question of my identity … I have not, in a real sense, descended (from my ancestors) at all. I have brought them all along with me, or perhaps they have brought me."

What does this mean? It means that part of me may have been in Finland during the 19^th century or in Maryland in the 1600’s. It means that part of me may have been in Kansas during the Civil War, when my great-grandfather was a member of the Kansas Red Legs. It means that part of me may have been on the Glentanner when my McClaren ancestors sailed from Ireland to America.

Or is our search for our roots because we feel cut off from the generations that have gone before.? According to Rollo May writing in The Cry for Myth our American culture is a mainly mythless society. When they emigrated to this country, our ancestors chose to leave their myths behind, congratulating themselves on being free and without roots. But as a result subsequent generations have suffered loneliness, restlessness, and a passion to make money, which May believes comes from the loss of myths.

Alex Haley set out to find his own myth and family history and documented the results in his book, Roots. Haley wrote that he had to find out who he was and to find the meaning in his life. His story of his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte, struck a chord in the American consciousness. More persons turned on their television sets to watch the drama of Roots than any other television program in history up to that time.

For several years now I have had the strong sense that I am living out the dreams of my ancestors. Here is what Carl Jung wrote on this subject while he was working on his tower at Bolligen, which was also a monument to his ancestors:

Jung goes on to say that:

When I get discouraged, I remember what my ancestors endured. I remember how the McClarens survived shipwreck, threatened mutiny and a lost course in their journey to America. Or I imagine living in Kansas at the time of the Civil War. The border raids were so fierce and bloody that the new state was called Bleeding Kansas. I remember how some of my ancestors left their homes in order that they might practice the religion of their choice. I remember how they endured illness with humor and good grace. I no longer feel alone. I feel supported and connected to this family tree that I have discovered. I can imagine myself standing in a line holding hands with the generations that reach back into the past and forward into the future. When I view my life in context of all that have gone before, it starts to make sense. And then I remember that one day I will be someone else’s ancestor.

I honor my ancestors by telling their stories. I could spend the rest of my researching their lives, and I would never be finished. Still, something compels me to continue to search in obscure places for clues to who they were. I believe that each one of these ancestors left a legacy for me, one that it is my responsibility to detect. Their voices are in my blood. They continue to live through me, and as I write their stores, they will live for future generations as well.

Epilogue:

And these thoughts lead me again to the words of Carl Jung. In the following passage he writes about the Tower of Bolligen, a place where he was most deeply himself:

June S. Hopkins

February 18, 2001