My Dear Readers,

How I have enjoyed talking with you.  It has meant the world to me and I appreciate that you  listen when you can. 

Our exploration of Grandfather's Gift over the last 1 1/2 to 2 years has been enlightening, and deeply meaningful for me.  I hope it has for you, as well.  We needed to put our feelings into words and share with each other, and I am grateful for this journey of sharing our feelings of what it means to be part of the human race. It gives me such comfort and hope.

Happiest of holidays, to you my Grandfather's Gift family!  May you and your loved ones share the warmth of the season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Boxing Day,  even "Festivus for the rest of us," or celebrations of your own making. 

Our conversation will continue...

Love,
Nancy
​
To learn how the Christmas holiday celebration of today came about, see this fascinating History Channel Documentary, "The Origins of Christmas."

My great-great-grandmother, Nancy Kendall and her husband, Andrew had eight children. Only six of those children survived to adulthood. We have all read accounts of what it was like in earlier centuries for parents going through the child bearing years. Life spans were short, and losing a child to illness or a mishap was commonplace.

According to my grandfather, Nancy Kendall was a devoted and loving grandmother to all of her grandchildren. Her act of sharing a few stories about her involvement in The Underground Railroad was, for my grandfather as an eight-year-old boy, a precious gift he always cherished.

As a mother, I think of Nancy’s life - bearing and caring for a large family of children of her own, while at the same time doing what she could to help fugitive slaves. But Nancy, as a free woman, had something enslaved persons did not - freedom. She had a home. She knew she might lose a child. But, she also knew she would never have a child ripped from her arms and sold away from her. 

One of the worst tragedies a slave could experience was that of family separation. Many never saw their loved ones again. ​

Losing a child tears at the heart of every parent like no other pain. As with any parent, the fear of losing their children was greater for the enslaved than the physical pain of being whipped or beaten.

In recent times, parents and children experienced child separation at the southern border of our country. Approximately 5,500 families were ripped apart.  Hundreds of families have not been reunited. 

We do not have audio recordings of enslaved families being torn apart. We can, however, hear the haunting voices of children separated from their parents at the border. The language may be different, but the cries are the same.

 
​Next time:  More on the Tragedy of Family Separation​

Dear  Friends,
 
This is a Christmas the likes of which most of us have never seen before.  It is, of course, hard to find words for all we have been through. 
 
As I think about these difficult times, I find myself amazed by the helpers, heroes and caregivers who selflessly come to the fore.  
 
The help these angels give reminds me of a beautiful poem written by Jesuit priest, poet and activist, Daniel Berrigan. Originally published in Plowshare 8, the poem "Some" was written in memory of homeless advocate Mitchell Snyder.
 
I found a reading of the poem by historian Howard Zinn on YouTube, available to watch below.  As I listened, once again, I thought of the brave and tireless heroes, all, who have been out there caring for the rest of us. Their work and self-sacrifice is something we can all be grateful for as we celebrate the holidays and the coming new year in a different but perhaps more meaningful way. 

-- Nancy Jean
​

Some
by Daniel Berrigan

Some stood up once, and sat down.
Some walked a mile, and walked away.

Some stood up twice, then sat down.
“It’s too much,” they cried.

Some walked two miles, then walked away.
“I’ve had it,” they cried,

Some stood and stood and stood.
They were taken for fools,
they were taken for being taken in.

Some walked and walked and walked –
they walked the earth,
they walked the waters,
they walked the air.

“Why do you stand?” they were asked, and
“Why do you walk?”

“Because of the children,” they said, and
“Because of the heart, and
“Because of the bread,”

“Because the cause is
the heart’s beat, and
the children born, and
the risen bread.”

Coming soon on GrandfathersGift.net - The surprising similarities between the problems Abraham Lincoln faced and those President-elect Joe Biden will face when he takes office. And, in the coming year we will delve more into Nancy Kendall's story. 

Nancy Jones Kendall was about 17 years old when her father decided to flee Kentucky.  At the time, of course, helping slaves escape was against the law. The enslaved were considered property. As an abolitionist, Nancy's father published anti-slavery articles and felt increasingly threatened in Kentucky because of his views.
 
The family settled in Washington, Iowa, in 1840. The time between 1840 and 1863 was feverishly desperate for enslaved peoples. Nancy's father,  Edward Jones, was one of many who worked to help them to freedom. 
 
For many years, there was not an abundance of written documentation of the details of these desperate, terrified people.  Many of the first accounts came from Quakers, who were heavily involved. Some recognizable names, such as the Beecher family were active.
 
When Abraham Lincoln first met Harriet Beecher Stowe, so the story goes, he looked down at her small form from his great height and said, "So, you're the little woman who wrote the book that started the big war."  He referred, of course, to Harriet Beecher Stowe's groundbreaking story, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Flawed as it was, the book became influential in the abolitionist movement.
 
Harriet Beecher Stowe was not only a housewife but also a mother of six. Her work appeared as a series that ran in the abolitionist newspaper, The National Era. The series became so popular; the paper published it in book form in 1852. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" quickly became a bestseller.
 
Other famous names, such as Frederick Douglass, Cotton Mather, and, of course, Harriet Tubman are synonymous with the Underground Railroad and civil rights. But, we often don't know the stories of those like my great-great-grandmother and her husband, Andrew, who were only a small part of a wide-reaching, brave and dangerous effort to help enslaved people escape to the north.