HENDON FAMILY
CHRONICLES
"The Chosen"
By Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten
by her granddaughter,
Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited
and reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943
“We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called
to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live
again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow, they know and
approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead,
breathing life
into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe.
All
tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those
who
have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding
them,
we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and
cried?
I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have
a
wonderful family; you would be proud of us.". How many times have I
walked
up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot
say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I
do
the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever
to
weeds and indifference and saying - I can't let this happen. The bones
here
are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something
about
it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How
they
contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships
and
losses, they’re never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness
to go on
and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the
fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a
deep and immense
understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of equal pride and
love
that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not
exist,
and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be
born
who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring
and
scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are
the
sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my
family.
It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call
and
take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do
my
family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up
and
restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before."