Genealogy - Tragedies Remembered

 

Great Flood of Marietta, OH 

March 1936

Families carry their tragedies quietly, often in letters, photographs, and half‑remembered stories.

In June, I told the story of an uncle, Cecil McCown, who died of typhoid when he was in his early twenties and full of hope and ambition.  The event clearly rocked the family at the time and resulted in family letters being preserved for over 130 years. I also told the story, The Club and the Ring, about a couple of traumatic childhood adventures of my own. 

Similarly, I have photographs that have survived scores of years to bear witness to a family tragedy.  The photo at the top of this blog is of my grandmother standing knee-deep in the flood waters of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers at 216 South 6th Street in Marietta, Ohio.  While I remember her and my grandfather talking about floods in a general way -- shoveling mud out of homes -- I never knew the times, places, or circumstances.  With this photo in hand, I discovered my grandmother's sister and brother-in-law were living in Marietta (apparently on 6th Street) at the time of the Great Flood of Marietta in 1936. No doubt her memories of cleaning out flooded homes were anchored, at least in part, to this tragedy.

Ecclesiastes states:  "Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all." So, we can expect to experience some tragedy. For the survivors of tragedies they become the seeds of the stories they get to tell. As Bilbo was able to write, "There and Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday" telling of his adventures encountering Gollum, discovering the Ring, and losing Thorin Oakenshield, Fíli and Kíli. 

In a few subsequent blogs, I'm going to stroll through preserved stories of ancestors and close cousins to tell the discovered stories of sadness, loss, and tragedy.