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Archiver > GenChat > 1997-12 > 0883239475


From: <>
Subject: [GenChat-L] Re: AUNT CHARLOTTE'S BOOK
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 10:17:55 -0600 (CST)


My thanks to the Chatter who shares with us the wonderful excerpts
from AUNT CHARLOTTE'S BOOK. THe story of the ferry was particularly
appropriate at Christmas when again a humble shelter was given a traveling
couple and a tiny babe.
These messages have been some of the finest material on this list.
They are a wonderful window into the lives of our ancestors, which is the
meat of genealogy. A list of names and dates is just that..... dry
statistics with no soul to it. Factual data on how our forebears lived, how
they reacted to the events of their lives, their beliefs, choices, hopes,
accomplishments, and even the mundane trivia if their daily lives are
precious insights into what made them the people they were....and
consequently made us who we are.
Will the Chatter who is so generous to share them with us please
continue to do so? Although some of my direct ancestors were pioneers who
went to Missouri, the events portrayed do not concern any of them; but
surely there was a commonality of problems, ideals, social and moral mores
of the time. Any insight into these is educational. Even if there were NO
genealogical value to these, I should love reading as many as the poster
cares to send.
Would the poster care to share more information about the book and
Aunt Charlotte? Is this a publication still in print? If so, where may it be
found?
This would be a fine addition to anyone's library, especially for
those, like me, who fear that the grandchildren might not be made
sufficuently aware of the importance of the ordinary people of our past.
Thus, I am trying to acquire a storehouse of literature whereby they can
read of the people who really made this country great. Schools are
re-writing History now to be politically correct according to the present
concept (whose, I'm not sure; not mine!). The impetus is on making apologies
for the actions of generations past, and for painting our country and its
policies as the blackguard in events where we protected ourselves from the
agression of others. The great heroes of our past are torn down, and their
human failings are more emphasized than are their contributions to society,
so that we have no heroes now save martial art quasi-military assassins,
fantastic cartoon characters of android space jockies, and noisemaking
anarchistic blasphemous individuals calling themselves musicians who attempt
to look and act like some yet-unidentified species other than human, while
they destroy any idea of what real music ever was. These are our heroes,
along with those who maintain that anything is legal as long as it means
success....and moral???what is that???? Coupled with a media which is
manipulative, biased, and mostly without scruple as to the filth it is
willing to foist upon us as entertainment, we have a society which now is so
worshipful of someone who can hit a little ball with a stick or a foot that
they take little notice of the doctor who spends his life serving ordinary
people or the one seeking the cure for a terrible disease. The goodness of
the washerwoman who scrimps all her life is unknown until she donates her
life savings to education. The saintliness of the neighbor who cares for the
sick, the priest or minister who takes upon himself the burdens and troubles
of his parishioners, the parents who struggle and save to provide thir
children with a proper moral and educational background so that they will be
contributors to society rather than dependants...these are not newsworthy.
We had better all think seriously about providing for our
descendants a record of those who are really great...of leaving for them a
record of real heroes. To me, the couple who provided shelter in this
posting from AUNT CHARLOTTE'S BOOK were true heroes...the quiet ones who
expected no reward on earth because they knew where their real reward
awaited them.
With this, I step down from my soapbox for the last time (in 1997).
What???you expected total reformation??? This book, if it is a book per se,
is one I should love to own. It is better than any novel could be.
Christ's Peace at Christmas to All!
Elaine

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