Walter Shirlaw: Toning the Bell (1874)

I Couldn't Possibly Be Any Different
The seasons shifted and I find myself already past Easter, past Passover, and screaming toward summer. The distress the receding winter visited upon me was unremarkable in retrospect, though it seemed anything but unremarkable as it was passing. Retrospection rarely carries any existential dread. It sugarcoats experiences and unavoidably misrepresents. As I create these Fambly histories, I remain almost painfully aware of all I cannot capture in them. I might curse the incompleteness I encounter in the surviving records while acknowledging that I am choosing not to mention some details. I attempt to capture essences without knowing what might comprise them. Merriweather Lewis believed dread to be an unforgivable sin. He insisted that he should move forward without much concern about the immediate future. That will sort itself out without anticipation. I might productively progress into indifference, too, interested in how my story unfolds and confident that I'm capable of coping with whatever unfolds. The historian seeks to know what happened next but dares not dwell too much on precisely where he's propelling himself. Not one of my forebears ever once knew how their stories would turn out. I might accept that I couldn't possibly be any different.

—

Weekly Writing Summary

This Fambly Story describes how my fifth great-grandfather, Flower Swift, rose to Prominence following the Revolutionary War and how he lost his authority when his son was accused of impropriety.

Unknown Artist:
Lee's cavalry skirmishing at the Battle of Guilford.
(Print Issued 1789 - 1880)
"He left his Prominence behind."
—
This Fambly Story follows one of my forebears into an Odd End, another in a series of OddEnds every family's history features.

George W. Boynton, Engraver,
T. G. Bradford, Publisher: Maryland (1838)
"The story could have been irretrievably lost in any generation."
—
This Fambly Story migrates away from my fifth great-grandfather Flower Swift's world in post-Revolutionary War Virginia to start the family's eventual migration westward, MigratingHomeward from my perspective.

Jozef Israëls: Homewards (not dated)
"I am the product of apparently inexorable attraction, destinies manifest."
—
This Fambly Story, *Spokes, steps aside from the storytelling to peer down and into this undertaking in reflection. I navigate by means of occasional idling. This story proved to be the most popular this period.

Lee Russell:
Blacksmith with wagon wheel hub and spokes.
Depew, Oklahoma (1940)
"Silences must frame meaning."
—
This Fambly Story follows another Spoke in my mother's family's long history, the Sewards, first Pilgrims, then pioneers.

John Bunyan: The pilgrim's progress, frontispiece (1684)
"Time exclusively moves in both tiny and enormous increments."
—
This Fambly Story introduces another spoke in my mother's family history, the Kenastons and her great-grandfather's Trouble.

Alonzo Trembel Kenaston 1843 – 1886
My 2X Great-Grandfather
"History seems to happen exclusively by accident on purpose."
—

Ordinarily, when I create my Weekly Writing Summary, I discover some unintended self-portrait lurking within the summary. With this Fambly series, the self-portraits carry an eerieness since I still see some of myself, but the image has smeared across generations of ancestors. I can't help but wonder if I have been continuing stories they started without being aware that I was channeling their style. I could be projecting, taking this sacred work too seriously, finding my meaning where none naturally lies. I suspect that doesn't matter and couldn't. I know what it means to leave Prominence behind. All of us are dutifully marching into irrelevance, perhaps heading into another of those OddEnds. I sense myself MigratingHomeward even while already ensconced in my own Villa Vatta Schmaltz and my own Eden at the end of the Oregon Trail. I feel humbled to acknowledge that I represent a convergence point of all these stories, that I'm part Seward and also part Kenaston. Thank you for following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Fambly, #PureSchmaltz