Making history personal

I have always had an interest in American History, primarily to discern the difference between myth and reality. I had been told that we were a special country, founded by people who wanted to improve upon the class-based feudal system of old Europe. As a kid growing up in the mid-Atlantic region of the country, school field trips included visits to places like Fort McHenry, Harper’s Ferry, and just about every tourist trap imaginable in Washington DC. At every stop, we were indoctrinated on what is now called “American exceptionalism,” a belief that our form of government is one based on liberty, individualism, and unprecedented freedom.

The reality on the ground said otherwise. During my young lifetime, political and civil rights leaders were assassinated, we were mired in an unpopular war, and we learned that the highest levels of our government were corrupt. Our evening news was a mix of riots, Vietnam body counts, and Watergate, all under the cloud of a cold war with people who thought they had a better system of government than ours. There were many issues for a young mind to sort out, and I have always looked to an independent study of history as a way to objectively answer those questions for myself.

As I have grown older, those questions have only become more complex and I’m still looking for answers, but at the same time, I’m noticing that I can recall details of personal experiences that took place 50 years ago as though they were yesterday. That realization is having a profound impact on my perspective. If we look at history in 50-year intervals, it doesn’t take very many to link us to the birth of our young country, and it has caused me to veer off my search for those larger truths and indulge in more personal interests.

Earlier this week, I made a fun discovery. I can now trace my lineage, through paternal grandfathers alone, straight back to a person who served in the American Revolution. Friends who know me will understand that the American Revolution makes me as giddy as a schoolgirl anyway, and knowing that I am a direct descendent of a soldier in that event has been the subject of both disappointment and elation.

The disappointment, albeit minor, was that my direct ancestor, Jeremiah O’Dell was born in 1761 and relatively young when the war broke out. Pension records show that he didn’t enlist until 1779 and only attained the rank of “private.” I was hoping for at least a Colonel, but the discovered truth has not been so kind.

The silver lining on that cloud is that those records associate him with the “Virginia Line.” While I have yet to discover a more granular view of his regiment and specific movements, the engagements of the Virginia Line during the years of his enlistment include both the battle of Guilford Courthouse and the victory that arguably changed the world at Yorktown.

It will take a significant amount of work for me to definitively place him in those engagements if I can at all. I should probably brace myself for disappointment, yet another larger truth becomes indisputable. Just as my generation lived through the civil rights movement and the tumult of an unpopular war, my grandfather Jeremiah was a witness to events that define our history and are still studied today.

My Grandfather didn’t have Huntley and Brinkley, or Cronkite piped into his home via foil-wrapped antennae, but let’s look at his timeline. The stamp act was passed when he was only four years old. The Boston Massacre took place when he was eight or nine. By the time the tea party took place, he was about twelve, and independence was declared when he was fifteen. The news must have reached him by printing press or spoken word because, at eighteen, he jumped into the middle of it and became a Continental. He may even have been involved in militia actions before that, but that would be even harder to trace. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but comparing his younger life to mine, I already feel like I might know the guy.

I realize that this is an exercise in self-indulgence. We all have family stories similar to mine, whether we know them or not. Many of our European ancestors, including the Dutch, English, Scottish, French, German, and Eastern Europeans arrived before the American Revolution, but many came later. Most of the “small d” Odells came in the 19th century during the potato famine, much like the Russian Germans who settled in and around Nebraska in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

There were, of course, already people here in the Americas. It would be an understatement to say that they view our history very differently from those of us who ride the coattails of the European diaspora. We also shouldn’t forget the Asians who came to the west coast in the mid-19th century as well as those who were brought here against their will. They all contribute to the American melting pot or as the Canadians prefer to describe it, a “mosaic.” I might be with the Canadians on that issue. Assimilation is important, but all of our family stories are varied and distinct.

There is a phrase often misquoted as a Chinese curse that says, “May you live in interesting times.” I know that I have. My 18th-century grandfather did, and so did yours. These stories are all a part of us. They are very real, often dramatic, and we all have great histories. To that extent, we are all very, very interesting.