I made enlargements of an old black and white photo of my daughter's great great grandparents and sent each of them a copy. They seem to feel ashamed of these people.

In the photo, their great great granny poses severe and unsmiling. She is wearing a threadbare cotton dress. Her hands are gnarly from a lifetime of hard work; the hardships she endured are plain to see. Her husband next to her has a mischievious grin. He was known as a jokester. He has wispy white hair and a thin white beard. One arm is held next to his side in an odd position and the hand is curled up from a stroke or an old injury. His clothes are worn out. I felt so sorry for them, these people caught in one moment of a camera click, so long ago.

I went to bed thinking of them after looking at the photo. They were born sometimes around the Civil War. Things were hard enough for poor white people before the war, but afterward it was survival mode. They had to live on what they could hunt in the woods, fish from the rivers and grow on the parcels of land hacked out of the wilderness.

There were no luxuries, just the basics of survival. They used
"yarbs" (herbs) to treat illnesses, and mustard plasters and tar plasters and castor oil for cures. They fed the ailing "pap" (boiled cornmeal mush) when they couldn't swallow anything else. You either survived or you didn't.
I wish so much I could go back in time to them and help them out. It hurts me knowing they needed so much and had so little.

My kids irritate me by not wanting to acknowledge them. I am proud of them--they survived sicknesses, childbirths, deprivation, accidents and the vagaries of life and stayed alive just by sheer hard work and ornery-ness. I tell the kids, part of their DNA is part of yours, you can't deny them.