A few years ago, my cousin did some research into our family history; I remember being interested at the time to hear that she’d discovered relatives of ours who had emigrated to the USA over a century ago, but didn’t pursue it much further. Just recently, my mother mentioned to me that she’d just realised that one of those who came over had served in the Civil War, and had lived in Illinois. My attention was caught, and cousin Joyce sent through the details.
It all began when members of my great-grandmother’s family made the huge decision to seek a better life across the Atlantic in the mid-nineteenth century. That side of my family, my maternal grandmother’s, lived in the small farming village of Isleham, about ten miles from Ely, the market town where I grew up. In those days, it was remote, and isolated, and probably rarely offered its inhabitants much that was new or strange. John and Mary Fletcher’s decision must therefore have been doubly shocking and difficult, but they left home and family in January 1855 and set sail for America, taking their nine-year-old son Alfred with them. I can only barely imagine them, resigning themselves to the grief of never seeing other family members again but firm in their resolution and confident in the dream of their new life. They landed in New Orleans and made their way north on the Mississippi (including a six-week delay in St. Louis for ice) before settling in Iowa.
Uncle Alfred apparently went his own way, and settled with a cousin in Morrison, IL for seven years. It was during this period of time that he joined the 8th Illinois Cavalry, Company A, and served under General Grant in the closing months of the war. Returning to civilian life, he resettled in Iowa, in Johnson township, where he farmed the American soil just as, when a child, he had helped to farm the dark earth of the English fenland. He retired to Merrill, IA, where he was buried in 1929 with high honor as the last local Civil War veteran.
‘Finding’ Uncle Fred has stirred interesting feelings in me. Suddenly, I feel more connected to this country, to which I came in my turn almost exactly five years ago. A relative of mine gave his strength, sweat and zeal to establish a more perfect Union; someone connected to me by blood gave a measure of his life and self in the cause of justice and freedom
for all America’s children. It feels like an extraordinary new taproot in this place, an abiding connection to a country which has sometimes felt strange to me, and in which I have struggled a little with the new notion that I’m now the ‘stranger’ and the ‘alien’. Uncle Fred helps to reinforce my sense that I really do belong here and have a contribution to make to the life of my new home.
These themes are powerful ones in national discourse just now. I saw one of my favorite historians, Doris Kearns Goodwin (whom I’m excited to hear at Aurora University in the spring) on Meet the Press this weekend. She spoke in the first half as an academic, offering insights into current presidential politics. She spoke in the second half as a mother, with her son who joined the US Army right after 9/11, exactly ten years ago. In her reflection, she placed many of our responses to that terrible day in the context of the US’s larger story. In so doing, she reinforced for me that sense of how large the American family has been at it best, and how generous the vision of the United States has been and can be: inclusive, confident without arrogance, and welcoming to all who would contribute to the nation’s welfare. As we mark this anniversary, I’m remembering Uncle Fred, and hoping that we all continue to inherit from him and those like him the courage and wisdom we shall need.
[Postscript: the Wackerlin Center will also be hosting a national travelling exhibit about the poet Emma Lazarus (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”) later this Fall, and thus we’ll be exploring these themes in more depth. Mark your calendars for November!]
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