I am fascinated by a footnote my husband Dan pointed out the other day, while reading in the New International Version Study Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1985). In Genesis 16:7-9, we learn that Hagar, having fled from Sarai’s sense of justice, was visited by the “angel of the LORD,” who found Hagar in the desert near a spring and brought her comfort and promise of posterity “too numerous to count.”
Says the footnote on page 29: “Traditional Christian interpretation has held that the ‘angel’ was a preincarnate manifestation of Christ as God’s Messenger-Servant.”
I had never thought on the possibility that it was our Lord who brought comfort to Hagar in the wilderness, told her to return to Abraham and Sarai, and gave her son by eighty-six year old Abraham the name Ishmael, meaning “God hears.”
Our son Daniel, a student of mid-east politics, languages, and history, cautioned that this Christian tradition about the angel might be attributed by some to political motives. In any case, while this sometime Christian interpretation may not be generally known or accepted, it does bring reflection.
Enoch saw Heaven weep over the actions of God’s children in ancient days. Just as surely God yearns after them today, as descendants of Hagar and Sarah continue fighting each other. Dan and I recently watched televised footage of explosions and commotion as Gentile nations bombed Baghdad. The angel’s prophecy seemed to echo through time: Ishmael’s “hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him.” This sorry legacy continues, not only for this branch of Abraham’s posterity, but among ethnic groups throughout the world. Acting out family and tribal passions, we are unable to show our children a path to peace we have not found ourselves.
How monumental it then stands when a matriarch, knowing God’s love, disregards centuries of traditional struggle for position. Rather, with serenity, she engraves her own example of love and good will in the hearts of her children and theirs, with hope that they will use their agency to follow her lead.
Bridging Chasms
Sometimes I wonder if unmoved hearts might turn just a little if, along with all the perishable foodstuffs we are now bringing into Iraq, we included acid-free lineage charts for all. At the top of each chart, already inscribed, would be the names of patriarch Abraham and mothers Hagar and Sarah, confirming familial ties among Arabs and their traditional enemies. There’s something to knowing you are cousins that fosters good feelings and helpful actions.
I know that because this has been my year to find lost cousins. As surely as Moses brought forth living waters from The Rock with the rod (or Word), so are frozen depths being struck and melted as Internet highways burst forth, broadcasting new connections and bridging chasms between continents. As we tribes of Israel bring forth our records and connect with each other, we prepare the way for more literal gatherings from lost places.
Motherless Mother
I wish I had space to tell about all the cousins I have “met” on the Internet. For now I will tell about those descended from a special mother-one three generations ahead of me-Clarinda Evick Hall. “Clara,” as she was called, was born September 5, 1808 in Virginia, married William Hall on June 22, 1826, and died in 1892 in Lafayette, Allen, Ohio.
These old photos seldom do our people justice, but I think some of what Clara was shows in her solid gaze.
Our records for Clara and her family are still being firmed, but at least one researcher credits her and William with twelve children, four of whom were still living at home when they took in two grandchildren to raise, their oldest son, Henry C. and his wife Elizabeth Staley (my second great-grandparents) having died young.
I spend just one afternoon with my two grandsons, and though I cherish my time with them, I’m exhaustedly ready for their parents to come and get them. I can’t imagine what strength it must have taken for Clara, having sent eight children from the nest, with four remaining and perhaps the end in sight, to then think on raising her grandchildren, as well!
Clara is herself in a sense orphaned, since I never could document who her parents were. By a process of elimination, I suspect that her parents may be Christian Evick and wife Sarah Fisher, but this idea needs verifying. While trying to accomplish this, I placed a query on the Allen County, Ohio webpage, giving Clarinda’s important dates and family associations, while hoping that someone would read it who could help bring Clara home.
A Mother’s Legacy
I still have not found Clarinda Evick Hall’s parents, though my web query brought to light new-found “cousins,” or their sleuthing spouses, who have not only provided important genealogical information, photos, and family histories, but have honored Clara’s name by modeling the goodness, patience, and generosity that was surely part of her being. These are traits I associate with my father, Clarinda’s descendant H. Tracy Hall, Sr. The more I learn about others in her lineage, the more I see these qualities as part of her enduring legacy.
Gone Fishing!
It’s not easy to describe the fun and excitement in regular communications and sharing “finds” with internet cousins, but I’ll try. I so enjoy “going fishing” with them, as I have come to call it. That is to say, I seldom give away entire genealogical files or post all my information on a particular line on the “net”-at least not until I’ve plumbed the best fishing holes. I do this by offering to trade information with fellow-researching cousins. I dangle my latest bait by posting a query on an ancestral county page, hoping for a good bite. In response to subsequent replies, I try hard to cast delicious details every time, so they’ll want to keep nibbling. When I find something interesting, I send it along as a potential trade, and in return my cousins show me how to tie their favorite tradition or thread more family lore, as they share their “catches.” Exchanging “finds” in this manner, we show each other new angling methods, hiking trails, and fishing spots, all the while having so much fun casting and landing, we sometimes forget to calculate the harvest.
It’s sobering to sense our Master’s guidance showing where to cast the net; and when the catch is in, what’s best is knowing Who prepares the feast and coaches the sharing.
Hearts Turn
Don’t you think our Lord could, at just so saying, document our earthly lineage for us? Wisely, He instead provides a way for us to grow in love, both for those who join our search and those we find at greater price than were it simply handed over. Because this is all in The Plan, I can now introduce you to my new-found cousins:
First meet Jane, master Hall family sleuth, who has devoted much time and effort to finding descendants and ancestors of her husband Garth O. Hall, a descendant of Clara’s son, Isaac. Jane and I met through internet queries and I, in turn, introduced her to another researcher descendant of Clara’s, Delight Heckelman (more about her later). Jane copied me into her first letter to Delight, October of 2002, with the following explanation:
“Sherlene may have told you my friend Deloris and I, Jane, are making our annual trek to Salt Lake City to ‘vacation’ in the Family History Library in a couple of weeks. I’ll check out the Osceola records for the Prossers, Youngs and Hamers.”
[Jane told me that Deloris, who is in her early eighties, insisted on again coming with her to the FHL this last time, even though she was in a brace, after back surgery! Jane, who is somewhat younger and also acts like she’s twenty, tells me that Deloris “took a spin on her son’s new Harley a few weeks ago and is planning on going up in a balloon shortly.” Hobnobbing with fellow genealogists is never boring, that’s for sure!]
Continuing with Jane’s early letter to Delight:
“Garth and I met Sherlene in SLC in early August. I had previously corresponded with her uncle Eugene and also briefly with her mother. It was a fun encounter. We were there on our 50th wedding anniversary ‘blast’ – Garth attending the Astronomical League Convention, and I had to sit in the Library (sigh). I think I’ve cranked more of the LDS’s films through readers than most people, as I’ve been doing the November trip there for 35 years.”
I thought I knew what I was doing, but Jane, a well-published writer who does genealogy as a side-avocation, ran circles around me at the FHL, tracing clues to unearth new facts, while dispelling long-standing family myths with her insistence on careful documentation of the facts. Jane’s quick mind is now pursuing some of her own family lines. I miss those regular communications about our Halls, filled as they are with her wisdom and humor, but trust she won’t stray long from the one, true search.
More recently I met Kathy Pyles “on the net.” She is a descendant of Clarinda’s last child Jemima and is therefore my fourth cousin. Kathy explained that she is “just getting started,” and quickly demonstrated that all there is to doing family history is to start where you are and just keep going.
I thought I was possessed with Elijah’s magnificent obsession, but you should have watched Kathy take off! It started with taping stories, as told by her ninety-one year-old grandfather (tales about ox-carts, then model-T’s, “Injuns” and bears), visits to family cemeteries (I was the pleased recipient of her family grave photos), and more recent dig-ins at local courthouses, where Kathy, too, has demonstrated her respect for original documents. Just last week she found a marriage license for Clarinda’s daughter Jemima, on which Jemima’s mother is reported as “Clara Evick”-our first indication of her nickname!
Wrote Kathy last week: “‘Just a note to let you know next Saturday I’ll be going to the library in Wapakoneta to hopefully gather some information on my husband’s family [another stray in the making, sad to see]. The Latter-day Saints are sitting up at the library to bring in new data-at least this is what I’m told, so I’m going to see what this is all about.”
[Strange “coincidence” again, in that just as I was writing this about Kathy, my computer “pinged” her e-note coming in, with a clue that may very well lead us to Clarinda’s parents! And she still thinks she’s a novice at all this.]
Another internet friend who is not descended from Clara, but is certainly related, is Roscoe J. Dearth. He grew up where Clara lived, so generously shares his detailed knowledge of her environs. Wrote Roscoe, last Thursday: “I cannot find the reference I once had that said Clarinda Hall was an Evick and was raised by a Fisher family after the death of her parents. Do you agree with this? . . . One of the drainage ditches in the area is called the Dearth Ditch, apparently because my g-grandfather contracted with the county or state to dredge the ditch. It drains into the Ottawa River (called ‘Hog Crick’ around here). A few miles down the river is Candler cemetery where many of my ancestors are buried. . . Less than a mile further downstream in Allen County is the Evick Cemetery. . . When I was a kid, there were only two stones visible, Christian & Nancy Evick. Christian was a vet of the War of 1812 . . . I hope to get there someday with a shovel and check things out . . . the stones are completely down and buried.”
Finally, I want you to meet Delight Heckelman, who also answered my query (or perhaps the reverse). Also a descendant of Clara’s daughter Jemima, and indeed a delight, she also shares her enthusiasm for “The Search.” Besides sending along much genealogical detail, wonderful photos, and important family insights, she shared this wonderfully warm family-search adventure, which is best told in her words, e-mailed this past year (leaving some names and detail out to protect the privacy of those involved):
“My mother had a younger sister who married and had ten children, including two sets of twins. After the youngest was born, Aunt _____ became very ill with TB. It was right after the Depression, and they needed help, so they went to the Health Department. The children were placed in foster homes for a year. The youngest seven were adopted by their foster parents after a year, and their father took the oldest three home. My aunt recovered, and she and her husband were able to raise the three children. They never told the three about the adoptions, but the oldest girl remembered that there were ten children. Mom knew the woman at the adoption agency, so she knew where the children were all placed. She and her other sister used to talk about the children once in a while, so I knew the last name of the twin girls.
“Through the years I often wondered about the other seven. I kept in correspondence with the oldest boy. When I started working on our Family Tree, I asked him about the younger children. He was shocked. He and his younger brother had never heard of them! By this time his older sister was dead, but she had told her daughter about the adoption and that it was a secret.
Lost are Found
“This daughter contacted me in March, this year. I had sent her uncle a genealogy form to fill out, and he had sent it to her. It had my name and phone number on it. In the time that had elapsed, her uncle died. Since I knew the name of the twins, I told her I’d try to find them.
“With the help of the phone book and some of their distant relatives, I found one of the girls. She was thrilled and came to visit. To make a long story short, we found the whole family! There were four of the seven still living, and we have detailed information on the three that died.
“It has been an eventful month, with e-mail flying back and forth. I wanted to share this with you because you mentioned “turning the hearts of the children to their fathers” to me. That phrase has run through my head as we talked to each of the remaining girls and boy (in their sixties now). The daughter of the oldest child is thrilled. Her mother was one of those that stayed with the parents and remembered the other children. We are uniting both sides of the adoption.
“This has been a year of reunions, potlucks, picnics, even a wedding of one of the girl’s granddaughters. They are all happy to be reunited and are a great bunch. Three of them live in one state, and the other two, in another. Two of them live on opposite ends of the same state and haven’t met each other yet. The rest of us have met them all. There are plans right now for a big Thanksgiving party in November. They have asked that their circumstance and families be kept private, so I have not included names.
“They are descendants of William and Clarinda Hall, so are your relatives, too. I’ve included a picture that has all but the twin girls. I’m in the middle in the back. The young woman in the middle in the front is the daughter of child #1. Aren’t they wonderful?”
I like to think, as Mother’s Day approaches, that Clarinda has been well aware of and maybe even fostered the cousin-findings of this past year. Perhaps Hagai and Sarah look on their posterity with hope that they, too, will find themselves as cousins and learn to work together toward lasting peace.
As any mother knows, there’s no such thing as a family in which there was never some anger and contention. Can one of us, having experienced such, think of a better way than God has provided to mend ties and foster good relations? Family history must have been created to especially bless mothers, as we turn our hearts to our fathers, in fulfillment of the amazing prophecy in Malachi. Surely God does hear every mother’s cry!
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2002 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
