I'm not interested in nobility in its formal sense. My ancestors were rather ordinary. I too am removed from both fortune and fame. I haven't even had my fifteen minutes of the latter as articulated by Andy Warhol. So when I dive into the murky dustbins of family history I'm not the least bit interested in finding title or notoriety. But the shards from the midden heaps found when digging about the gene pool are very rewarding. Touching too.
My mother is listed in the January 1, 1901 British census as being two years old at her last birthday. Her residence? The Gateshead Union Workhouse. Her occupation? "Pauper". Shades of Charles Dickens!
Then there are the other more distant rellies. Pat and I walked through the Mont-Royal Cemetery the other day. It was so leafy green and tranquil that I thought about changing my will so that I'd be buried rather than incinerated. We found the Carpenter tombstone. My great-uncle Silas H. who married my granny's sister Clara. But before that event Silas' first wife, Phoebe, had borne them a son named Gordon. Am I his namesake or is he mine?
C. Gordon Carpenter. "Killed in action at Paschendale, 6th November 1917". Aged 18 years." "Greater love hath no man than this".
I yearn to know this young man; his loves and hopes and dreams. And hold him dying in my arms. As I yearn to know all about the little "pauper" who became my mother. I can only imagine.
