History in the Present.

Today’s image: An old bell tower in the sunset.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been delving into family history. When I started I thought it would be a simple linear flow-chart, a geometric progression of “so-and-so begat so-and-so, and they produced X number of children”.

Far from it!

I am discovering letters, journals, and photographs that turn stark research lines into a vibrant landscape, filled with far more than just two diverging roads.¹. Inescapably, I am drawn in.

The Riches of the Roads.

Robert Frost in his poem below speaks of the two roads of decision. I see so many decisions facing these people of earlier ages. Decisions they must make within the confines of their particular circumstances, the modes and norms that form their eras.

I have

• Become familiar with the realities of life in previously unknown villages in West Yorkshire.
• Seen the challenges to mills and cottage weavers as they sought harmony in the industrial age.
• Read personal accounts of Victorian social conditions.
• Shared the fight of those striving to advance medicine.
• Begun to understand the British presence in India.
• Gasped at the implications of the dearth of education for women.
• Been touched by the poignant examples of sacrifices made for the good of others, especially family.

A Strong Foundation

And through it all I have shared the living faith of a strong and diverse family, building their lives on the biblical principles and values imbued in them by John Broadbent.

What a privilege!

¹
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, published in 1916

Developments

These and other pensive comments on the journey of family discovery are grouped under the category Developments, distinct from the pages about the people in the Family Tree.

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