What inspired me
You never know when something will inspire you, it can come from a completely unexpected place.
We had a large locker in our basement and our building decided to double the monthly fee for it. My husband was NOT happy about this and decided that we could do with a locker half the size. So one afternoon he took it upon himself to swap them. He spent all afternoon throwing out unnecessary stuff so that we could fit what was left in a smaller locker.
I was out that day and was on my way home when he calls me and tells me to hurry home and come straight to the basement. He sounded shocked and breathless but he would not tell me what was the matter over the phone.
When I finally get to the basement, he is standing in front of the larger locker with an old book in his hand.
He points to one of the pages, and I see his name and his birth date.
It was a book that a distant cousin of his had written and published in the 60´s that his mother had kept and left with us, but we had never looked at it. It is a genealogy book of sorts that chronicles the life of a distant relative of my husband´s and then in the end it lists all his descendants. My husband´s birth in 1969 was the last entry.
Confused I look as he shows me the first pages with a black and white photo of an old man with a white long beard. The book goes on to describe his life and the church community he belonged to. Then it shows the inventory list of his property that had been auctioned off when he he died.
The list had all all kinds of things, tools, pottery, plows... and people.
Six people.
Men and women and two small children. It listed who bought them and how a six year old boy was sold away alone separated from his mother.
I cannot tell you how shocked I was. It is one thing to know that this happened in the past, but to find out that you have family members. Real family members from the past who owned slaves. It had a profound affect on both of us. This was something that I could never have expected from my husband´s liberal open minded and socially conscious family.
We had a large locker in our basement and our building decided to double the monthly fee for it. My husband was NOT happy about this and decided that we could do with a locker half the size. So one afternoon he took it upon himself to swap them. He spent all afternoon throwing out unnecessary stuff so that we could fit what was left in a smaller locker.
I was out that day and was on my way home when he calls me and tells me to hurry home and come straight to the basement. He sounded shocked and breathless but he would not tell me what was the matter over the phone.
When I finally get to the basement, he is standing in front of the larger locker with an old book in his hand.
He points to one of the pages, and I see his name and his birth date.
It was a book that a distant cousin of his had written and published in the 60´s that his mother had kept and left with us, but we had never looked at it. It is a genealogy book of sorts that chronicles the life of a distant relative of my husband´s and then in the end it lists all his descendants. My husband´s birth in 1969 was the last entry.
Confused I look as he shows me the first pages with a black and white photo of an old man with a white long beard. The book goes on to describe his life and the church community he belonged to. Then it shows the inventory list of his property that had been auctioned off when he he died.
The list had all all kinds of things, tools, pottery, plows... and people.
Six people.
Men and women and two small children. It listed who bought them and how a six year old boy was sold away alone separated from his mother.
I cannot tell you how shocked I was. It is one thing to know that this happened in the past, but to find out that you have family members. Real family members from the past who owned slaves. It had a profound affect on both of us. This was something that I could never have expected from my husband´s liberal open minded and socially conscious family.
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