Beginning with the end in mind...

“Did you always know,” I asked, “that you were a descendant of the slaves at the Smith farm?”  “No,” he replied, leaning back in his chair.  “It wasn’t discussed.  You didn’t discuss those things.”  It took a moment for him to frame the sentence.  “We know where we end,” he said.  “We don’t know where we begin.”

I was sitting at a table in the library with my colleague, Kelly, and an elderly black gentleman whom we had recently discovered was the great-grandnephew of “Uncle Wilke,” one of the approximately two dozen enslaved men, women, and children owned through the years by the Smith family—original owners of the History Center’s Smith Family Farm.  He had walked into the library almost two years ago while I was working the reference desk and asked if the History Center would be interested in the information he was gathering about his ancestors.  I jumped at the chance to get his contact information, passed it on to one of the historic house managers, and promptly got overtaken by other events.  I only remembered that encounter when it was announced that the History Center was going to host an exhibit next month based on the enslaved families at Jefferson’s Monticello.  The exhibit included a massive genealogical project that traced the descendants of those slave families and conducted oral history interviews with them.  The project documented the lives of those descendants, providing the “rest of the story” about them.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could contact this man?  Kelly found him and arranged for the meeting.  His last name is Smith, too.

“So how did you find out?” I asked him.  He explained that his Aunt Grace knew a lot about the family history.  When he began to do his own research, he asked her for information and she told him.  He realized then that his father knew.  His aunts and uncles knew.  They all knew.  But they didn’t talk about it.  “Do you remember that conversation?” I asked.  With a faint smile he replied, “Oh, I remember some of it.”

WOW, I thought, I can’t ask him for more before I ask him if we might record it.  This is going to be too intense for note-taking.  That conversation had to have been life changing.  The archivist/genealogist in me began to mentally rub my hands together in anticipation of such a coup.  THIS is gonna be incredible!  “Mr. Smith,” I began, “please say no if this makes you uncomfortable…don’t hesitate to tell us no, but we have a camera here.  Would you be willing to let us let the camera run while you remember that conversation?” 

There was a long pause.  With a half smile he finally replied softly, “Maybe next time.”  There was a moment of hesitation, and then his face crumbled, his eyes welled up with tears, and he brought a weathered hand to his face and began to weep.  Stunned, all I could think to do was dash to the desk for the box of Kleenex we keep there, fervently praying along the way that I could find a way to repair the breach; to stop the flow of pain.

When I returned, he had managed to come to grips with his emotion, but it was a tenuous grip.  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Smith, I didn’t mean to upset you,” I heard myself stumble.  He  shook his head apologetically and I grabbed the moment to launch into a story of my own.  “Memories can be tough…” I offered, hoping to turn the tide of memory to happier shores—away from the rocks.  It worked.  He laughed as I described my experience all those years ago, frantically scribbling Daddy’s memories onto the backs of my checking account deposit slips after he’d had a few too many Budweisers.  “Yes,” Mr. Smith laughed, “sometimes that’s the best way to get at these memories!”

We continued our visit, bringing books and papers to the table that might shed more light on the Smith slaves.  We walked over to the 1893 Fulton County map and he and Kelly located the area where the farm stood.  I asked if he had ever seen the photograph we have of the family at the farm in the late 1800s.  He said he hadn’t.  I quickly brought it up from the stacks and laid it on the table before him.  “Oh my,” he said.  We explained that the photograph was taken in 1884.  We watched as he took it all in.  The white family standing at the front of the house.  The black man standing near the horses.  The black women off to the side.  The little girls standing next to them.  The children sprawled on the ground in the foreground, staring straight at the camera.  “Oh my.”  We came to the conclusion that based on the date of the photograph and the birthdates of his great-grandfather and siblings, there was every possibility that those children in the photograph were, indeed, his ancestors.

By the time he left us, he seemed to indicate that perhaps one day he could share that story with us—the start of his journey to find where he began.  He said we might be able to interview another of his aunts—Ethel—perhaps by phone.  “We can come to her,” I suggested quickly.  He shook his head and smiled, “Oh, she may not let you in!” “Well, maybe you can talk her into it,” we teased. 

He was smiling when he left. 

I am hopeful.

And I am changed.  In that split second before his face dissolved into tears, I glimpsed the pain in his eyes and I suddenly realized that everything I thought I knew about slavery was unimportant.  Dred Scott v. Sandford.  Anthony Burns.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Harper’s Ferry.  I knew all those facts.  I’ve read the stories—even the first-hand accounts—and have been moved by them.

But nothing like this.

I know where I began, so I can never really know what it feels like to not know.  My great-grandfather appears in the census records by name.  I know exactly when and where he was born.  I know what he did for a living, who his parents were, from where they immigrated.  When I see “9” in the column labeled “mother of how many children” next to his wife’s name and “7” in the column marked “how many children living,” my heart aches for him and my great-grandmother and those babies they lost.  When I see his picture I see my father in him.  I see me in him.  I know him.

Mr. Smith’s great grandfather is a tick mark on a slave schedule. There are no names, only ages and gender.  In 1860, Robert Smith owned eleven slaves, six of whom were under the age of 12.  The youngest two were boys—one a year old, the other six months old.  Either could have been Mr. Smith’s great-grandfather.  Or neither.  Robert Smith gave his slaves to his children as gifts when they married.  Perhaps Mr. Smith’s great grandfather went with one of them.  Perhaps not.  He has not found a picture of him.  At least not yet.

We know where we end.  We don’t know where we begin.  I realized that this man’s story begins in pain.  I’m sure he thinks of his ancestors fondly, but he cannot think of them without thinking of the horror of slavery, the brutality of reconstruction, and the injustice of Jim Crow.  And now I understand why his father, aunts and uncles wouldn’t talk about it. 

Now it makes sense.