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

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.

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.”' 
​

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.

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.  

"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. 

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​

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. ​

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."

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.​

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.