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A Grandfather's Gift:
​From the Underground Railroad to Thoughts on Race


Map: Compiled from "The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom" by Willbur H. Siebert Wilbur H. Siebert, The Macmillan Company, 1898.[1], Public Domain.
If you are new to this site, please click here to read the story behind A Grandfather's Gift.

Message to Grandfather's Gift Readers

10/26/2021

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Dear Readers,

In July 2020, when I began telling Nancy Kendall's story in a blog on Grandfather's Gift, I had no idea what lay ahead. Her story, while important, seemed easily told. I couldn't see the blog lasting more than a few months at most.

Imagine my surprise to still be publishing posts on Grandfather's Gift a year and a half later. What I didn't realize then was how so many of the topics in her journal still resound today.

People of color are still fighting for a level playing field. Jim Crow attitudes are still alive and well. Politicians still try to push through voting laws that keep people of color, the poor, and others from having a say in their own futures.

When Nancy Kendall wrote down some of her memories from the Underground Railroad days, I think she knew it was a memorable period in history. She wanted her stories told, so she shared them with my grandfather, who then shared them with me.

Nancy Kendall's journal is a gift from which we can learn from our past, and work toward a more equitable future. It is a gift I treasure, and that I'm honored to share.

Thank you all for coming along on this journey with me.

~ Nancy Jean
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"When you have an elephant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run"*

10/14/2021

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Few of us look at a photo or drawing of Abraham Lincoln without seeing the sorrow and sadness in his eyes. I've often thought you could drown in those eyes. 

In historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's TED Talk, "Lessons from Past Presidents," Goodwin points out that so many years after his presidency and the turmoil of the Civil War, we think of Lincoln as a deeply wounded, melancholy man who suffered unimaginable loss. 

I think most of us have experienced a type of grief, and even guilt for feeling happy when so much suffering goes on in the world. I know I have.

Sometimes, grief and sorrow become the catalyst for action. My great-great-grandmother, Nancy Kendall, used her sorrow over slavery to help fugitive slaves escape. Most of us don't fall into a hole and hide when we're sad. Not for long, anyway. That sorrow is not our complete essence, but a part of who we are as people. And, it wasn't Abraham Lincoln's complete essence, either. 

Often forgotten when we look into those eyes, is the humor, affability and wit that was Abraham Lincoln. He was a storyteller. And, he was a great one.

“Miss Todd, I should like to dance with you the worst way.”
​The young woman accepted the inevitable, and hobbled around the room with him.
When she returned to her seat, one of her companions asked mischievously:

“Well, Mary, did he dance with you the worst way?”
“Yes,” she answered, “the very worst.”
​
--Abraham Lincoln on dancing with his future wife, Mary Todd, in Springfield, IL
​
Undoubtedly, much of the charm is lost in simply reading Lincoln's yarns. What's missing is the way he told them. He was animated and laughed as he told his tales. Listeners were captivated.
Not a storyteller in the traditional sense, Lincoln wasn't apt to just sit and "tell a story." Instead, says Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln '"Lincoln’s form of storytelling demonstrated his “extraordinary ability to convey practical wisdom in the form of humorous tales his listeners could remember and repeat.”' 
​
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The Gutenberg Project's "Lincoln's Yarns and Stories," by Alexander K. McClure, is available free online. It's a vast collection of stories, witticisms, humor, and illustrations that give us a different side of the sad, sorrowful man we think we know. 

​Perhaps it's time to look at Lincoln's eyes and see beyond the sorrow. 

* From the story, Getting Rid of an Elephant, related by Charles A. Dana, 1819-1897, Assistant Secretary of War.
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Soldiers of a Different Kind

5/28/2021

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Nancy Kendall’s parents died of typhoid in two short days. They left a family of young children behind. Over the centuries, plagues like typhoid, yellow fever, smallpox, cholera and many other scourges literally wiped out entire masses of people, leaving devastation in their wake.
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In an earlier post, We Heard the Bells, I mentioned Dr. Johan Hultin and his incredible journey to discover and research the virus strain responsible for the deaths of millions during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. It took decades of persistence for Dr. Hultin to finally succeed in capturing and studying live virus tissue. 

Of course, he is not alone in his mission to protect the human race from deadly disease. It’s because of people like Dr. Hultin, Dr. Fauci and other dedicated scientists that many of mankind’s deadliest diseases are now nearly eradicated - all because we have vaccines that came out of their meticulous research. 

The CDC lists 14 Diseases You Almost Forgot About due to vaccine development. The list includes polio, tetanus, mumps and chicken pox. The complete U.S. vaccine list includes vaccines against cholera, diphtheria, small pox, tuberculosis, yellow fever and typhoid, the disease that killed Nancy Kendall’s parents.

Some advancements in the science of health and prevention take years of scientific detective work. Others, like Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, are accidents.
 

After coming home from a holiday with his family, Fleming, who was studying staphylococcus, a bacterium that causes boils, abscesses and sore throats, was surprised to discover a blob of mold in one of the petri dishes. What’s more, the area around the mold was completely clear of bacterium. He dubbed his discovery “mold juice.” This accidental discovery saved, and continues to save the lives of millions.

I recently listened to an Audible podcast narrated by Alan Alda entitled, “Soldiers of Science.” 

Synopsis:
“It’s the height of the Vietnam War when a new generation of doctors, including a young Dr. Anthony Fauci, arrive at the National Institutes of Health as part of the doctor’s draft. What happens next is a hidden history of American medicine that could not be more revelatory or prescient.”
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Audible subscribers can listen here. If you’re a non-subscriber, listen free with a trial subscription. It’s a fascinating story. 
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The Price of Courage

3/15/2021

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As I follow the life of my great-great-grandmother, Nancy Kendall and her husband, Andrew, I am profoundly affected by the dangers that the work of a single dissident, or a group of dissidents faces. That kind of courageous behavior takes great strength of character and a deep love of fellow human beings.

The penalties for helping the enslaved were very real for freedom seekers and helpers alike. To take a stand for an issue which causes pain and hardship to other humans, even if the tide of society may be part of that condition is difficult, and frightening.


Nancy's parents raised her to act when she saw injustice. The Jones family and, after Nancy and Andrew married, the Kendall family were often "on the run" during the years when enslaving persons was in full swing. Slavery was a key factor in the country's growth in the 1800s and long before. The Jones and Kendall families were but a few of the thousands who abhorred slavery and assisted the enslaved as they sought freedom. 
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Mstislav Rostropovich with wife Galina Vishnevskaya, 1965. Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file no. LC-USZ62-115062)
A friend in my local poetry society recently mentioned a painting of Mstislav Rostropovich, (1921-2007), which hangs on her living room wall. Not only was he one of the greatest cellists who ever lived, he was known for his activism in Russia, much to his peril. When the Berlin Wall went down, Rostropovich took a chair and his cellos, sat amid the rubble and played Bach. I love that.

And, I will never forget my experience of studying under David Dellinger of the Chicago 7 in 1975. A new film called "The Trial of the Chicago 7" about the group's activism during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and subsequent trial tells the story. I recommend it. 
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The Trial of the Chicago 7
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We Heard the Bells

2/26/2021

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Both of Nancy Kendall’s parents died of illness shortly after moving to Iowa. They left six children behind. Nancy, the oldest, was scarcely 17 years old. It is a story we often read about in historical writings and diaries of those days long ago. Life was brutal.  

Scores of disease events, both bacterial and viral, have been around from the beginning. Each scourge, epidemic and pandemic is unique. Leprosy, the Black Plague, TB, polio, small pox, typhoid and thousands of other afflictions decimated populations. Our native people, immigrants from other countries, indigenous people around the world suffered, and entire cultures were sometimes wiped out.

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Depiction of Aztec victims of a 16th century epidemic
Most of us experienced the ravages of disease in our own lifetimes. For me, the polio epidemic, and then later HIV, were the most frightening because they were so puzzling. Many of us felt we would never gain control of our world again. A pandemic is the place we never want to reach. 

“We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918” is a film that describes what living through that deadly epidemic was like and its effects on the world.  The "Bells" in the title refers to church bells that chimed when victims died. The sound was a terrifying reminder for the living. 

Each time I watch my heart swells as I listen to the interviews. The 1918 influenza was a mystery to doctors of the time. It hit young people the hardest. No one knew where it came from. As many as 100 million people died in two years. Why so deadly? 

Drs. Anthony Fauci and Johan Hultin are among the experts interviewed in the film. Dr. Hultin was so intent on finding out what made the 1918 virus lethal that he traveled to Alaska in the 1950s and again in the 1990s, to retrieve preserved tissue from flu victims buried in the tundra.

Dr. Hultin made discovering what made this virus so deadly the focus of his life's work. His 1951 expedition to Alaska where he gained permission from Native elders, resulted in virus tissues, but Hultin was unable to replicate the virus back in the lab. 

In 1997, at 72 years old, retired and living in San Francisco, Hultin happened upon an article in the journal Science that drew his mind back to the 1918 flu once more. Molecular pathologist, Jeffery Taubenberger and his colleagues had managed to isolate virus specimens from two young 1918 flu victims. But, the sample size was small. He needed more. Dr. Hultin wrote Taubenberger immediately. 

Hultin found himself back at the same Alaska village he traveled to many years before. Again with Native elder permission, he retrieved preserved virus samples that in time led to its origin as well as a vaccine to prevent an outbreak from occurring again.

I highly recommend "We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918." It offers insight into the situation in which we now find ourselves.

Learn more about Hultin's expeditions and Taubenberger's research in this fascinating article from the Anchorage Daily News, "How an Alaska village grave led to a Spanish flu breakthrough."

Also, available for streaming is the PBS American Experience episode "Influenza 1918." 

The lessons learned from the deadly 1918 influenza outbreak and the preserved samples have given scientists tools and insight into the fight against COVID-19.  

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Dr. Hultin in 1997 at Alaskan dig site where so many died of the 1918 flu; they were buried in a mass grave. Photo courtesy of Johan Hultin
"It is absolutely certain another pandemic will come, but we don’t know what form it will be. The question is, How can we be forewarned?" — Johan Hultin, February 2002 

As a non-scientist, I only have stories to tell. The virologists are some of the real heroes here. And so far on the road of existence, we have been able to cope with scourges in the end. Even now, we see light in the distance because of the tireless efforts of the Biden administration. 
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The Tragedy of Child Separation

2/15/2021

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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. ​
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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
​
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The Kendall House: Built With the Underground Railroad in Mind

9/16/2020

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Shortly after Nancy Jones, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and siblings arrived in Iowa, both of her parents became ill with typhoid fever and died within a day of one another. 

This tragic event left young Nancy, not yet 20 years old, in charge of her five younger siblings. A couple of her brothers attempted to continue work on the house for the Jones children, but both of these young men suffered from illnesses themselves in those first years. At 19 years of age, Nancy became responsible for feeding and housing five siblings in a new part of the country without a completed house to call home.
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*See source below.
Andrew Kendall was a recent immigrant to Iowa from Pennsylvania. Andrew and Nancy met in Washington and fell in love. Nancy was 20 and Andrew 30 when they married.  
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*See source below.
Nancy believed in her father's dedication to abolitionism. It is likely that the home's secluded location on the outskirts of Washington was chosen with the Underground Railroad in mind.

Andrew was a gifted and talented craftsman and builder and went right to work on completing the large home the Jones boys had begun. He originally wanted to build the home out of wood but lumber was not readily available. Instead, he made the 60-mile drive to a brick factory in Burlington a number of times to build the family home. ​
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The Miss Kendall referred to here was a daughter of Nancy and Andrew. *See source below.
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Although not documented, the Kendall home may have included secret hideaways for fleeing slaves. Many abolitionist homeowners did just that. Reverend Alexander Dobbin's historic home in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, contains sliding shelves that conceal a large crawlspace with room for several adults.
 
Other abolitionists were defiantly bold in their work. Quaker businessman Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, made no attempt to hide what he did.
 
He was harassed, threatened, assaulted and heavily fined for his troubles. After a court forced him to pay $5,400 in assessed damages in a staggering financial loss, he declared, "... I will go home and put another story on my house, so that I can accommodate more of God's poor."

Andrew Kendall was too old to go to war when it broke out but vowed to help the cause of anti-slavery any way he could. He and Nancy worked to become a haven for fleeing slaves even as their own family responsibilities grew. Together, Nancy and Andrew Kendall dedicated themselves to helping fugitive slaves find freedom.

Next time -  Nancy Kendall tells the story of a Free Soil Party member's visit and how the town reacted.
​
* From the article "Helping the Fugitive Slave Thru Iowa," published in
The Burlington Hawk-Eye, Sunday Morning Edition, May 15, 1921. Byline: Alex R. Miller
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Harriet Tubman: In Life & Film

8/26/2020

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PictureCynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman
The recently released film, Harriet, about the life of Harriet Tubman, was beautifully done and certainly worthy of the awards it received. 

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Harriet Tubman's life is probably our richest source of information about the details of the flights of enslaved persons. Even in her own time, she was known for her remarkable work and bravery. 
 
As the film tells the story, Harriet's first flight to freedom, done partially with help from the pastor of her home church, she did alone. At a time when most slaves either escaped in small groups or were young men fleeing alone, Harriet did not let her gender keep her from freedom.
 
It seems almost unbelievable that she went back so many times to help others escape.  It was such a perilous undertaking. I am amazed this remarkable woman survived.   

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The movie does help us understand some little known ways and methods used to aid fugitives. Early in the film, Harriet decided to return for her husband and children and is told that she might get help from men who made the journey back and forth on boats, helping people where they could. It was with their help that she reconnected with her husband. I will not be a spoiler. You will have to watch to learn what happens next.
     
Harriet, who had been known as Araminta Ross when a slave on the plantation, had actually grown up, as many did, along with their white master’s children. Some of those relationships over those years, were deep and true, despite the differences in stations. 
 
Harriet Tubman, called the Moses of her people, never learned to read. But, some slaves did because of the close relationships that developed with the children in the household. Nancy Kendall speaks of one such young woman. The 25-year-old woman arrived at the Kendall home one night exhausted and cold. 
 
Nancy asked her why she was being so heavily pursued. The woman explained she had been a house "girl" for a family with two young daughters. The girls thought highly of her and taught her to read. When their father found out his house "girl" could read, he made plans to sell her for $1000. Apparently the ability to read added to her "value." 
 
The two young daughters, who were 16 and 18 at the time, warned their friend of what was about to happen, and she fled. Nancy Kendall writes, "When I See the Intellect that Girl Seemed to have it Was too bad and unjust for any one to Say they are not Capable of learning an Couldent manage business."*

Nancy asked the young woman if she would write to her from Canada to let her know she was safe. "About a Month After She Was here I got a letter from her," Nancy writes.*

Cynthia Erivo plays Harriet Tubman in the film. As with most life stories on the big screen, the timeline of events and a few of the side stories are not completely accurate. But film has a wonderful way of making us feel part of something bigger. And, making us want to know more.

* Spellings and wording as transcribed from Nancy Kendall's journal.​

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Wolves, Rivers & Taverns: The 1840 Journey from Kentucky to Iowa

7/22/2020

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As 17-year-old Nancy and her family made their way from Kentucky to Iowa, the Underground Railroad movement was active.  It was, as we know, a politically charged time for the nation and would lead us into one of the most devastating and bloody wars we, as a country, would ever face. 

Abolitionists were involved in a dangerous business, of course, since owning slaves was still legal, and running them down as rightful property was expected. 
Although we generally think of the Underground Railroad as a series of specific routes, according to The Atlantic writer Adam Goodheart in his March 2015 article, "The Secret History of the Underground Railroad: Eric Foner explores how it really worked,” that wasn't the case. Goodheart explains "Yet its tracks ran not just through twisting tunnels but also on sunlit straightaways. Its routes and timetables constantly shifted." 
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National Park Service Map of Known Underground Railroad Routes
The National Park Service map pictured above is of known Underground Railroad routes. The Park Service updates the map as more routes are discovered. See a larger image in the Gallery.

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New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, a descendant of slaves, in a recent interview with NPR’s Terri Gross, talked about the discovery that some of her ancestors settled in Iowa. 
But, Iowa was not the westernmost edge of the many routes to freedom. Little has been written about Clarina Nichols' contribution to the Railroad and civil rights in the Kansas Territory. We’ll talk more about Clarina Nichols in future posts. However, western Underground Railroad treks went as far as and around the Pacific coast. 
PictureCovered Wagon & Oxen
The 1842 trip from Kentucky to the "New Terrytory of Iowa"* took Nancy’s family about four weeks. They were as well- equipped as emigrants could be at that time. They had two large wagons filled with household goods, beds, bedding and other necessities.

​They were fitted with a yoke of oxen, driven by a hired man. Nancy and her father drove the second wagon. Nancy’s younger brothers rode alongside on horseback. They pitched tents at night, traveled six days a week and rested on the Sabbath.

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How It Began

7/7/2020

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PictureNancy Kendall - Larger image in Gallery
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.

PictureJournal Page 1 - Larger image in Gallery
Nancy Kendall wanted to write down a few words for my wonderful, gentle grandfather about her family's work.  And because he gave this precious gift to me, I humbly offer her story. I hope you'll follow with me as we take the journey with Nancy Kendall from Kentucky to Iowa and the Underground Railroad.

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    Nancy Jean

    Nancy Jean is a woman of several lives and careers, including school teacher, homemaker, parent, amateur musician and writer. ​Read more...

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