Day 74: Faith of our Fathers

For one of her classes this fall, A has to bring in pre-1970 family photos, which turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. It's great to look through old photos and laugh, reflect, sometimes cry. Memory Lane is one of my favorite trips. But our photos are totally disorganized; they're scattered all over the house, stuffed in paper bags and boxes and strewn in drawers. Few of them are in albums. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

My digital photos are no better. They’re not organized in named and dated computer files, which, as I understand it, is the point. They’re just loose in one big file. I have duplicates and even triplicates of many of them since I usually fail to erase a memory card once I’ve downloaded it and then I can’t remember whether I’ve downloaded it or not, so I do it again…

J and I went on a college trip this past spring to central New York, which is where I went to college and where my mother's Palatine ancestors settled in the 1700s. Her hometown, Little Falls, is quite near my alma mater, but I'd never been there. My trip with J was the perfect opportunity to visit my mom's childhood haunts.

We quickly found the home that my mom’s parents built for their brood of seven, with my great-grandparents’ house right behind. My mom’s home was empty and for sale, so we peeked in the windows and tiptoed around the yard. We gazed at the staircase that she walked down in her beautiful ivory silk wedding gown, the fireplace in front of which the formal family photos were taken. The house is now a bit run-down, but no matter. I was very, very glad to be there.

J and I found the cemetery where my grandparents and great-grandparents are buried. Their gravestones are pushed up against a weedy chain link fence which separates the cemetery from the cracked driveway of the vinyl-clad house next door. I’m sure it was a beautiful and peaceful location when my great-grandparents chose it -- probably early in the last century -- but not so anymore. We picked a few little wildflowers and placed them on top of the four stones. I wandered around a bit longer and then turned back to take one last look at the graves. There was J, carefully putting back the flowers which had been blown to the ground. Neither he nor I ever knew any of those people, but their stories are often told in our family and I’ve always felt a close connection. To see that my 17-year-old son also feels that tug left me in tears.

We then drove to St. Johnsville in search of the now-defunct Little Falls Felt Shoe Company, the business my great-grandfather started. Unable to find the factory, we were eventually escorted to the location by a swaggering young cop who repeatedly warned us that we’d be committing a felony if we stepped foot on the land. He then sped off, siren blaring, to investigate some other villain in that sleepy little burg. Not daring to peek in those windows, we looked at the factory from the safety of our car and then drove on to our final destination.

A few miles out of town, heading east on Route 167, we crested a hill and there, laid out before us, was a breathtaking view of the Mohawk Valley, patchwork green farm land, silos, barns, cows. And the crowning glory on a distant hill, glowing in the sun, was a beautiful white church.

The original Snells Bush Church, built by my ancestors, was burned during the Revolutionary War. The current church, number three, was built in 1850, saved from the bulldozer in 1938 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. No longer an active church, it’s now used solely for weddings and other special occasions and was therefore locked. We’ll go in another time.

Instead, J and I wandered through the churchyard cemetery, lovingly tended by the distant relatives who still work the surrounding farms. The names on the gravestones -- Snell, Zimmerman, Timmerman, Markell, Loucks, Simpson -- were those of Revolutionary War soldiers, farmers, school teachers and of my aunt and uncle. It was a perfect spring afternoon, made even more so by the experience of walking around the churchyard with my son, looking at the graves of our forefathers, and thanking them for their journeys, the ones that ultimately brought us there.

I've sometimes wondered where my ashes will be buried. I don't think I want to be scattered somewhere. I'd like a final resting place. That day in May I may have found it, if they'll have me. In the hopefully very long meantime, there are many more memories to be made and photos to be taken. Let’s just hope I can get them organized.