The Adventurous Adams

I've always longed for an adventurous spirit, but have finally come to the conclusion that I just don't have it in me, and probably never will. I come from a long line of hard-working, quiet farmers. They labored diligently, and invested in their families, but you won't find a lot about them in the history books. Researching my husband's Adams line, however, has been an exciting thing; they led bold lives, and have led me to believe that the tendency toward adventure must be genetic!

With each generation of this family, I have uncovered details about individuals that aren't afraid to take chances, and would stand up for their beliefs.

John Quincy Adams was born the sixth child of fifteen, in Vermont. At the tender age of 16, he left his father's home, bound for college. An industrious young man, he worked winters teaching school to earn enough money to support himself and pay his own tuition. After two years, he returned briefly to his father's farm, and then, alone, headed west. He ended up in Stephenson county, Illinois, where he again taught school, and worked as a carpenter to save up enough money to go to California to work the gold mines. Two years later, like many young men anxious to find their fortune, he headed west again. He was there five years, and returned to Illinois with $1,000, and purchased a 240 acre farm near Florence Station, in Stephenson county. He then settled down, got himself a wife, and raised a large family.

John's grandfather, Martin Adams, was a Revolutionary War patriot, who, after serving his time, re-enlisted again. After the war, Martin, along with his parents and siblings, loaded up their belongings in three boats at their home in Springfield, Massachusetts, and set sail, all seven of them, upstream until they got to the present site of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. There, they built the first home, from logs caulked with a mixture of mud and twigs, with pine boughs laid crosswise for a roof. Other settlers moved in during the months to follow.

This sort of behavior must have delighted Martin Adams very much, as he did it again after his marriage. This time, he and his brothers, plus their young wives, set out from St. Johnsbury, making their way through heavy forest with all their earthly possessions, to the Barton river. Here they constructed canoes, and rowed to the present site of Duncansboro (Newport), on Lake Memphremagog, in Vermont. They were impressed by the fact that the frost had not destroyed the vegetation there, while everything growing on the hills had been killed, so here they settled, around 1793. By 1800, there were eleven families who had settled there.

In looking at the photo above, I can see why they made their decision to stay.

As already mentioned, Martin's father, James Callendar Adams, led the family's expedition to St. Johnsbury, with three canoes, seven children, provisions, and everything they owned. Now that's bravery!

Personal information on generations previous to this is hard to come by, so I had wondered if they were as hooked on excitement as these more "recent" generations. And then, I uncovered information on George Adams, the immigrant ancestor of James Callendar Adams, and I was not disappointed.

George Adams and his wife Frances, left their home in England to come to the New World, specifically, Watertown, Massachusetts. Details of their reasons for making such a perilous journey are a little murkey, but many settlers in this area were Puritans from England, looking for religious freedom, and it was not uncommon that these brave souls sold themselves into slavery for 6 years or longer to pay their fares. The family lived in poverty much of the time, but George had ideas for prospering himself. Perhaps out of ignorance for the law, but more likely due to his strong personal constitution, he bought land from the Indians, paying for it with guns and "strong water." Bad idea! The colonial government was less than pleased, and seized his land, and he spent much of the rest of his life fighting to get it back.

Eventually the court realized he had some validity to his claims for the land, but by that time it had been "re-conveyed" to someone else; so in return for his agreement to let the matter drop, they granted him another parcel of land. However, he continued his fight, and eventually the General Court vindicated him, and gave him back his land, plus allowed him to keep the land from the lower court, for his trouble.

Along with way, George fought in King Philip's War, was whipped and imprisoned, struggled for years and years with the Court, and survived an Indian massacre. He had the tenacity of a bulldog. It took a falling rock to stop him at the age of 76, at his home in Massachusetts.

What was his father like? Or his grandfather? I can only guess! And hopefully some day I'll find out. Until then, I will continue to enjoy the adventurous legacy that this family left to their descendants.

You Can't Go Home Again

You Can't Go Home Again. That's what they say. I never fully understood that phrase. You could always go home. If nothing else, you could always drive by your old home and remember the good times. And I often did that when I found myself back in my hometown.

The one place that was sacred to me in that whole town was the home of my grandparents, where we learned just about everything in life that we needed to know. I learned to hem my pants in that house, and it was in the kitchen that I learned to bake. It was where I learned how to control my temper and behave in a civilized manner. I learned about life and death there - watching with fascination as the guppy had babies, and in sadness when realizing the dog's bed was now empty...

The sight of that big Victorian-style house sitting on the corner lot, with it's white porch surrounded by the brilliant colors of roses, geraniums and zinnias, is a scene that will be etched in my mind forever, and it will still lower my blood pressure considerably just thinking about it. That house was more than just happy memories at Grandma's - it was a haven from the rest of the world, a little speck of normalcy in a life that was anything but normal. Turning onto their street and seeing the house sitting there like a beautiful fortress brings back just as many comforting feelings as it does tender memories.

The old folks had been gone a long time, but still I made it a habit to drive by on my rare trips back home. As I'd turned the corner, the eyes of my soul would see it all over again, and it felt good.

I don't know what happened. Perhaps I'd finally started seeing the old place with my eyes instead of with my heart. As I came around the corner, I saw a house much, much smaller sitting on an overgrown lot. The front steps, which we used to love to sit on, were sagging, and the paint was chipping off. I barely recognized it.

I spent the rest of the day driving around town, looking for something, but not really knowing what. I went to the park where we used to have family picnics. Everyone was gone now - just an empty pavilion remained. I drove out to the old family farm, to the site of the old grocery store, to the cemetery, past all of our old houses. Everyone and everything was gone. At some point, you truly can't go home again, no matter how long you drive.

It was several weeks later, back in the comfort of my current home with my family, working on a family history project, when my thoughts took me back again, walking through the park-like yard, holding onto my grandmother's hand while she taught me about flowers. And it was then I realized that while you can't go back home again, home can indeed come back to you.

A Life Well Lived

If she was ever afraid, I never knew it. She tackled the experiences of her life with a measure of purpose and pure guts, and a faith in God that everything would come out okay, no matter what happened. I only regret that while our lives intersected, that I did not spend more time learning life's lessons at her feet.

Lisa came into our family a long time ago - long before my time. She and my grandfather grew up as childhood friends among the fjords of Norway. The area where they lived was particularly harsh, but an excellent area for fishing and farming, and so their families made a living.

People are destined to be challenged during their lives; some wait for rescue, and others overcome and become stronger. Lisa was among the latter. Her challenges in life started early, when both of her parents were seriously ill, and several of the children of the family had to be sent to live among relatives. Lisa was sent to her Uncle Benoni and Aunt Lovise, a childless couple who lived on a neighboring farm. She grew up doing the farm work usually reserved for the boys in the family, but as her Uncle Benoni's only helper, it was a role that needed to be filled, and she did it. While she lived in the reality of her situation, she indulged in a deep, but distant, adoration for her mother, Bergitte. She idolized Bergitte's beautiful black hair and deep blue eyes, her smile, and how she could do things most women could not; her craft projects won prizes at the county fair; her singing voice was loud and clear, and she knew every hymn in the church hymnal. She grew up wishing to go home and be with her mother, but it was a dream that was never realized.

Uncle Benoni and Aunt Lovise helped instill in Lisa a love for and trust in her Lord, and at age ten she experienced a spiritual rebirth, which took her through the rest of her life. After the death of her Uncle Benoni five years later, she and Aunt Lovise took over operation of the farm on their own. Times were hard; they had to carry fire wood from the mountain on their backs, and in tough times they had to dig through snow to find greens to feed to their animals. Aunt Lovise told her, "Don't worry Lisa, some day you will be rich. Martin Luther carried wood on his back too, and became a famous man."

At the age of 18 she made the difficult decision to leave Aunt Lovise and fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher - however, she had no money to advance her schooling. She had a cow, which she sold for clothes and shoes, and her father bought her a new coat; with that, she went to the local bank and signed a loan for the school, and arranged for a kitchen job at the school. Her mother followed her to the ship bound for Oslo, and told her "The Lord will go with you" and He surely did.

She had never been away from home before - she fought homesickness, loneliness, and tried to adjust to a new culture so vastly different from anything she had ever known in the country. At one point she had had enough, and was packing to go back home, but a caring and empathetic house mother convinced her to stick with it - a defining moment in her life, and the only time I have ever heard of her contemplating giving up.

After her schooling, she took a teaching job in northernmost Norway, in Finnmark, which she described as "being about as far away from home as you could get." The school district was among the poorest. The job involved teaching in three different schools, and Lisa, who was very, very seasick, could either take a boat between the schools or walk the 14 miles, over rocks and bushes, with her books and clothing. Many of her students were destitute Lapps and did not speak Norwegian. There was no budget for school supplies, so Lisa herself had to supply whatever she and her students needed.

Despite the circumstances, Lisa fell in love with a handsome accordion player, but would not marry him before she had paid all of her debts. He could not wait, and got another girl pregnant, and married her instead. When overcome with sadness and loneliness, she would walk to Kjøllefjord, where the church was, and console herself in the company of her friends.

The horror of her life came in 1940, when the Nazis invaded Norway. Food was scarce; all radios were confiscated. Those who refused to join the Nazis faced being put into camps. No one dared talk freely, as it was impossible to know who could be trusted.

In 1945, the Germans lost the war and burned and destroyed everything as they left. The townspeople had heard the news about the burning but did not realize the seriousness of the situation until they saw the smoke rolling over from the other side of the mountain. The men went home to pack and the women all began baking bread to prepare for an evacuation. The next morning at 5 a.m., there was a knock at Lisa's door, suggesting that she leave with some friends, but she refused, as there were more people who needed help. Two hours later, the Germans were on the harbor, shooting. She took her bicycle and her valuables up into the mountains to a small lake where there would be access to water, and the German soldiers began throwing grenades into all of the homes, and by sundown that day there was not an intact house remaining.

The townspeople were being rushed into fishing boats and told to head south. One man in Lisa's boat "went crazy" under the stress and they were forced to tie him up and put him in a basket to keep him from attracting the attention of the German soldiers. After three days on the water, they came to the city of Mansus, which lay nearby a road leading to Lisa's home country. She got off the boat with two families and ran away into the darkness, toward the safe home of her mother and father.

The following year, she received a telegram from director of schools in Finnmark, asing her to come back and build up the school. She had already taken a very good job across the fjord from her sister's home in Trondheim, but she could not say no to the job in Finnmark. She packed her things and laid on the pier for three days, calling out to the passing boats, asking if they were going to Finnmark. The reply was all the same - "Are you crazy? The ocean is full of mines!" Finally a boat picked her up and took her to her destination. Upon her arrival, she discovered that there was no schoolhouse, no supplies, no chairs, no books, only children in need of a teacher. The mayor, who was grateful for her coming back, gave her whatever she needed, and she spent the next ten years building a solid school system in Kjøllefjord, one little bit at a time, first as the teacher, and later as principal of a modern school building with a crew of teachers and ample equipment and supplies.

One day years later, her life changed forever, yet again. She received a letter from her childhood friend, Adolph, who had gone to the United States 30 years prior, asking if she had ever considered coming to America. Indeed, she had! As a teacher, and a lover of learning, she was anxious to see what America had to offer. A short time later, she had taken a leave from her job, and found herself at the railroad station in Brookings, South Dakota, in the presence of her childhood friend, Adolph, who was by then a widower with twelve children. A month later, they were married. Again, her life was turned upside down, in a new culture, a very long way from home.

She learned a new language. She saw the country. She learned to relate to twelve children that were not hers. She continued her career in education, this time teaching Americans about life and culture in Norway. She embraced grandchildren, and taught them all she could about survival in an oftentimes tough world. I will never forget her telling me that the last letters in "American" were I CAN. With perseverance and trust in God, we can, indeed, do anything. She spent 96 years on this earth showing us how it was done, and her inspiration lives on.

Rebecca Lair - The Rest of the Story??

I love a good story - and I enjoy it even more when it involves my ancestors. The best story, in my opinion, is something of a mystery, and the pieces are put together slowly, bit by bit. Such is the case with my gr-gr-gr-gr grandmother, Rebecca Lair, of Princeville, Illinois.

Chasing down our female ancestors is often difficult - they tended not to leave as much of a paper trail as their male counterparts. But Rebecca's husband, William Lair, left a sizable probate file that gave me some very intriguing glimpses into her life, but as is often the case, a whole new set of questions were raised.

William Lair and Rebecca DeBolt were married on 16 Jul 1828, in Licking County, Ohio; about 1849, they and their family moved to a farm in Akron township in Peoria County, Illinois.

Rebecca did not have an easy life; she was the mother of ten children, four of whom died as children or young adults. Her husband died in 1857, after an illness of one week, suddenly leaving her with a farm, five minor children, and a long string of IOUs. William owed small amounts of money to everyone - to his son, his brother, his nephew, and others for expenses to keep his farm going and other ventures; he and two other men had also signed promissory notes to the Akron school for their share in boarding the teacher, at 10% interest.

William died intestate. Rebecca was named executrix of her husband's estate, but for whatever reason, she declined, and turned to her brother, George DeBolt, for help.

DeBolt handled the administration of the estate, paying William's debts, but his own fees and commissions for acting as administrator were significant, and the estate was deemed insolvent. To have his fees paid, DeBolt petitioned the court to sell the widow's home, and sued all eight of her children, including the five minors. The family's home was sold to another of Rebecca's brothers, William DeBolt. I can only imagine how betrayed Rebeca felt. In the following years, she worked as a seamstress and "washer woman" to support herself and what was left of her family. Ironically, while she sewed beautiful garments and quilts for others, her own windows were covered with paper curtains.

Seventeen years elapsed before my next substantial piece of information about Rebecca's life. At the time of her death, she owned real estate and rental property in the village of Princeville, and had money to leave to her adult children in her will. She had lost nearly everything in 1857, and had built up an estate for herself by the time of her death in 1874. I would love to know what happened in those missing years. I would love to know more about the woman who was knocked down, but refused to stay there. There's a great story in those missing years, and little by little, I hope to piece it together.

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