Faith Works 9-19-20
Jeff Gill
A special day, lasting lessons
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September 19 has been a day I always called my dad.
It's neither his birthday nor mine, but he was a history buff and passed that love along to his eldest.
In 1777, the first phase of the Battle of Saratoga was fought in the American Revolution, and in 1862, the Battle of Antietam in the Civil War. In our shared genealogical work for the Gill family in America, it appears that our first Gill ancestor to come here from Leeds, England departed the lines of the British Army on September 19, 1777 and joined the Continentals, was granted American citizenship in York, Pennsylvania a few weeks later and served as a soldier long enough to be granted land later on in central Pennsylvania.
From that land grant John Gill married a young Scots woman, and their grandson William enlisted in the 53rd Pennsylvania Infantry, serving in the Seven Days campaign before Richmond, and ending up in the center of the lines attacking the Sunken Road just west of Sharpsburg, Maryland above Antietam Creek, again on Sept. 19 in 1862.
So we usually talked on this day, and sorted out our mutual lines of inquiry in family history. It was a tradition of sorts. And as many of you know, I'll not be calling him this year, since six months and a week ago he died.
Truth be told, I've not spent much time in that half year working on genealogy. What I have done is sift and sort Dad's files (yes, paper files) and materials, and moved them from Texas where they wintered and where he died, and now from our family home of the last fifty-seven years in Indiana. There was an organization of sorts to the folders and binders and stacks, some of which I could figure out, and much of which I'll have to reconstruct as I unpack and process it all.
Meanwhile, I've inherited other strings which, when pulled, snarl into additional stacks of Kern and Walton and Newlin and other family histories. Diplomas and yearbooks and certificates and programs and memorabilia from a century and more; a 1922 football team with my maternal grandfather in the back row, World War I postcards from a great-uncle whose memorabilia came into Dad's hands, and now mine, along with a framed picture and doughboy helmet.
And my mother, who now lives with my sister, whose vision isn't what it was (and who repeats much, and is confused often), views carefully in her mind's eye all the furniture that cannot follow her, and checks on where each piece goes, because for her every pie safe and china cabinet is a genealogical document as important as Dad's paperwork, if not more so, or at least more substantial. (Trust me, that furniture is more substantial than even boxes of old paperwork.) There is a story to every item, and connections to her mother or father or their people back into farmsteads and locations across downstate Illinois.
People have asked me since early in this process what I've learning from it all, and what I would tell others who eye family homes warily, thinking about their own day of reckoning by way of packing and moving someone else's stuff. And there are probably a dozen constructive columns I could write on the subject, but I'm going to parcel this out in a few pieces, if somewhat compressed, over the next few weeks.
But it starts with these two observations. First, and this was a passion of Dad's for many, many years to family and friends and occasionally complete strangers – put names on pictures NOW. Don't wait until later. It's amazing how quickly you forget who that person in the back row is, how even blood kin names slip away. Digital images simply make this all the more imperative: find a way to attach names to pictures, and do so, immediately. September 19 might be a good day to declare "National Put Names on Pictures Day" and I do so declare it.
The other is to celebrate a similar practice, one which has brought me many happy tears. When in doubt, write a note and leave it behind. Because you never know, you know? There's a sermon or two on that, but I mean in terms of those you leave behind. I think Dad heard footsteps coming up behind him, because his 2019 notes have been found everywhere. Dates on masking tape, sticky notes on switchboxes, interspersed scrawls among printouts. And every one has been a gift, and an inheritance even to small things. When in doubt, write it out.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in Licking County; he's working on unpacking after much packing. Tell him how you sort out stuff at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
