Stars and flowers

As the daughter of the family historian, one of the hardest things to contend with is the physical and emotional weight of the records and artifacts passed down through the generations. My family was blessed by having prolific writers: we count easily a half-dozen journals, from the sweet recounting of a teenage girl's wardrobe and school crushes to the hefty and pensive journal of a Civil War chaplain (and that of his wife and son). These all have a physical presence as well as capturing not only our family's history, but the history of our country at a key moment.

After my mother died of Alzheimer's, I had the arduous task of combing through disorganized piles of family and historical research (she was a published historian), interspersed with decades-old bank statements and direct mailers for things she would never buy. Deciding what to keep and what to discard, what to take to my home and what to let go, was a difficult decision, complicated by my difficult relationship with my mother. As I can now take time to comb through her work and read her journals (yes, she kept journals as well), I have come to better understand and admire her accomplishments. 

But by far and away, the most difficult piece has been what to do with her unfinished projects. I admit to the same overachieving tendency that she had: to start projects. It's a little like knitting a sock, and wondering if you will have enough yarn to complete it; will I have enough days to complete them? Adding my mother's projects to the pile adds a new level of stress--I have my own projects! Is my time to be used finishing hers? 

As I dig through the piles of family artifacts, I find a box  labeled "Civil War blanket" which I always assumed was the blanket that my GGG Grandfather had used many a night on the cold, hard ground. Instead, I find what looks to be odd scraps, but turns out to be a partially pieced Ohio Star quilt top with a label pinned to it. It was begun by a great aunt in 1867, the year she turned 19, the year she graduated from Hamline, and the year she was married. In less than two years, she died of consumption, leaving behind a bereaved husband and an unfinished quilt. 

Underneath that box is another dress box with stacks of hexagonal "flowers" destined for a grandmother's garden quilt. Some of the fabrics I can identify from my mother's scrap pile as being from garments she sewed for us; others appear to be of her mother's and grandmother's vintage. 

Turning the work to the wrong side, I can see that all the stars and flowers are hand-stitched. These two incomplete quilts are a physical reminder of how our time is borrowed. Stiches in time.

I keep chipping away at my own projects, but I have also found a local quilter who is enthusiastic about helping finish both quilts. Hers will add a third generation of hands and stiches to the mix. I find comfort in being able to honor these women, and to wrap myself in their handwork, and I hope they will share that same sense of accomplishment when you can fold up a beautiful thing, and say to yourself, "done." 

Ella's quilt: begun in 1867, finished in 2023

Putting the pieces together

Julia Ann Jordan was born 24 Aug 1847 in Bangor Maine, to Eben Jordan and Abigail Hutchinson. Between the birth of her brother James Eben in 1851 and 1865, her mother must have died, as she received a bible from Bangor elementary teacher Miss Eliza A. Thayer in August of 1865 (the newspapers describe it as a Flag Presentation where the teacher gave bibles to all her students), inscribed "God Bless the motherless child." Julia kept the bible.

Julia's inscribed Bible

Among Julia's possessions was also a letter addressed to Julia A. Jordan from a soldier stationed at White Oak Church during the Civil War, with the lyrics to The Girl I left behind me, a sentimental and popular tune during the war. The Church served as a camp from Jan 25 - Apr 28 1863. The soldier does not sign his name, but gives us his regiment number: 6th Corps 2nd Division, Co. I, 7th Regiment "The Voluntiers." From historical records, we know that after the Battle of Antietam the 7th Maine was sent home to Maine to recruit, leaving White Oak in Oct 1862, and leaving Bangor Jan 21, 1863. Julia would have been 15 years old. 

Julia gave birth to a daughter, Estelle Abigail, on 23 September 1864 in Bangor; Julia was 16 years old at the time. While there is no birth or marriage registered to Julia Jordan in Maine, in the 1930 US Census, Julia states that she was first married at age 17, and a birth is recorded on 23 September 1864 in Bangor for an unnamed child of undetermined gender to Richard and Julia Davis.

Records from the National Archives show that a Richard Davis of Bangor served in the Maine 6th Corps 2nd Division, Co. I, 7th Regiment during this time period. He mustered out in December 1863, and took 30 day's leave in his home state before re-enlisting--nine months before Estelle's birth. According to a 1904 newspaper article, Estelle was kidnapped from her father in 1869. Richard takes a new wife in 1870. 

Shipping reports indicate that Miss Julia Jordan arrived in San Francisco on August 11, 1865 on the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s steamer Sacramento, coming from Panama (via Acapulco and Manzanillo; one Canadian passenger died on the trip). No child is noted. But she may not have been alone: the 1865 San Francisco City Directory shows an Eben Jordan as mate on the steamer Sacramento. Given that we have been unable to find Eben in any Maine census after the birth of Estelle, this seems too convenient to have been a coincidence. 

In the 1880 US Census for San Francisco, Julia—a “dealer in fancy goods”—is married to David Walsh (a teamster), and they have three children, all with the surname Walsh: Stella, 15 (at school); Vincent, 8; and Albert, 2. If David had officially adopted Estelle, the papers would likely have been lost in the 1906 earthquake and fire. What is clear, both from the paper trail and family lore, is that she was part of the Walsh family.

Estelle married Frank Henderson Cranford (a carpenter) in 1886 in San Francisco. They made their home in San Francisco, and had two sons, Richard Jules in 1887, and Carson Francis in 1889. Richard died before his first birthday; Carson, a painter of houses and film sets, survived to a troubled adulthood, and is found in several western prisons during his life. He died without issue.

But the past always comes back: A San Francisco Call article of 1904 tells of a visit by Estelle and Frank Cranford to Richard S. Davis of Brewster, Maine (across the river from Bangor), describing it as the reunion of a child who had been kidnapped by her mother. The newspaper recounts a happy reunion with the family, which would have included Richard’s wife of 40 years, and his son Charles Franklin Davis, and his wife and children.

Family described Julia as independent and strong-minded. After David’s death in 1910, she lived with her unmarried son Albert, who was a mining engineer and who traveled often. In May 1911, she gifted 160 acres to her sons Vincent and Albert near what is today the Long Ridge Open Space Preserve in the hills over Saratoga, California. 

When Albert and his bride Ruth Neely Thompson purchased the Biltmore Hotel in San Francisco around 1928, Julia moved into the hotel as a guest. Julia died of pneumonia on December 22, 1934, in San Francisco, survived by her two sons and Estelle. She was 89 years old. Julia is interred with her beloved David at Woodlawn Cemetery in Colma. 

On a limb

A friend of mine of color recently posted a list of things that should not be posted by non-POC people during Black History Month. She finished with, "If you are not throwing a hissy fit, and making everyone around you uncomfortable, you are not being anti-racist." She has more skin in the game, and I am still learning how to navigate the conversation around race. 

My 3GGF was an itinerant Methodist minister. As a young man, he lost his right hand to a farming accident, which limited his career options to working with his head and heart rather than his hands. We are fortunate to have his journal, which just happens to include the period of the Civil War. 

The family narrative is that great-great-great-Grandpa was a peaceable "freedom fighter." He was what was then called an abolitionist, because he believed slavery was wrong and should not be permitted. 

And he acted. In 1852, his home in Galena, Illinois (where he lived with his toddler son and pregnant wife) was a stop on the Underground Railroad. He was not alone; his accomplices included a Justice of the Peace, a German housemaid, and an unnamed man with a team who would take an escaped slave to Canada. 

"My wife prepared a bed for her in our garret, and she was beyond the reach of her pursuers. Nobody had suspected me of being an abolitionist, nobody crept around under our windows to eavesdrop, and the police never came to search our house, though many houses were searched. The whole police force were on the lookout for our guest. We asked no questions that night. We only knew she was a human being panting for freedom." 

In 1860, he journals that he proudly cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln. 

But he did more. He volunteered as a minister during the Civil War because he believed slavery was wrong, and his education and faith meant he understood this was the fight to right that wrong. With a wife and young kids at home, he was sent off to Tennessee to report on troop morale. Early fighting was brutal, and in spite of heavy losses, he was moved by slaves crossing battle lines to join the Union army. He signed on as the white minister to the 7th U.S. Colored Artillery Regiment. 

Noting that the wives of black soldiers were not considered wives because their plantation marriages had no force of law, he set about marrying as many black soldiers as possible to prevent their placement in a refugee camp. This action also insured their future veteran's (and widow's) benefits. 

In the years after the war he realized that his efforts were only the beginning of the struggle for equality. He saw education as a key to changing the oppressive systems. With another pastor, he opened a small school in 1876 in a wooden building in Dallas. Two months after opening, the school was torched by the KKK. They rebuilt it in an act of defiance. 

Eventually the school moved to Austin, where it became a liberal arts college for African Americans, called Samuel Huston College. The college exists today as Houston-Tillotson University. He lived long enough to see the college prosper at the dawn of the twentieth-century, and to see two of his children take up the cause of his life among the ex-slaves. 

Did his actions make others uncomfortable? The stories of his journal make it clear that others' reactions were most certainly motivated by fear and discomfort. But the tone of his words in his journal is never hissy-fit angry; rather, he was moved to overcome fear and comforted in his righteousness by his deep faith. 

But I realize that I am spitting angry: even though George spent most of his life doing these things, none of them—not hiding an escaped slave, voting for Lincoln, ministering for dying soldiers, marrying families to preserve their freedom, even founding and teaching at the college—none of these moved the needle on the racism at the heart of the problem. Yes, it made a difference to those individuals whose lives he touched, but it barely moved the needle. So, yes, I’m angry, but mostly frustrated that we still have so far to go, both individually and collectively.