Mystery dinner invitations

It's one of those interview or cocktail hour questions: If you could invite [insert number here] people, past or present, to dinner, who would you invite? Common responses are people like Albert Einstein, Johnny Cash, and even Anakin Skywalker. 

But to the family researcher, this would be an amazing opportunity. I would love to hear from my great-grandmother Julia about the love affair that brought her daughter into the world--and how she felt about that daughter finding her birth father as a grown woman. I would also ask if she actually married my great-grandfather, and what on earth they were doing having a baby in a mining town in Nevada when their lives were in San Francisco. 

I would also invite my great-grandfather, who accepted Julia, a woman with a past (and a young daughter), and gave them his name and heart. I would want to talk to him about why he split from his family in New York, how he got across the country (was he aiming for San Francisco, or is it just where he ended up?). I'd also love to know how, if he wasn't speaking to (or about) his family, did he end up with his older brother's trophy. I actually would love sitting down with the entirety of the New York Walshes, even if they might well empty my stores of whiskey. 

I think I would enjoy talking with my great uncle Vincent, who drove a flashy car, married a new-age German woman (who sang opera and penned poetry), and who left his house to his secretary, a spinster who kept the business running while he was living it up with his wife. He's also the younger brother who stepped up for his nephew when my grandfather died prematurely. As an aside, I would let him know that we share a birthday, and ask if he knew the circumstances of his birth. We'd probably share some laughs, too. Of course, I'd set the table with his wife's silver, which was passed on to me. 

I might also include my Grammie, with whom we shared meals every Sunday, and for all her commitment to family research left us precious little about her own life and family. I know she was social, and I would love to sit with her, and have her tell me who the smiling people in the group pictures were. I'd really like to ask about George, who is clearly her beau, but did not become her husband. We would use her silver, monogramed with her maiden initials on the table.

I would be beyond ecstatic to fill my weekend calendars with dinner parties for each and every one of my brick walls, but alas, that is not part of the question, and those amazing conversations will never take place. 

They say that dead men don't speak, but the fact that part of them literally forms part of us in the form of inherited DNA, does give voice to them, confirming the family lore, or exposing secrets buried over the generations. Those of us with stamped letters and envelopes sealed with a kiss and Victorian hair art will hold on to them, as they may allow our ancestors to speak once more, even if we can’t invite them to dinner.

A message from the past that may speak to us