Bank box secrets a family’s history
The ladies at our bank probably hate to see me coming.
In recent months, when I walked through the door of the Signal Mountain branch of Regions Bank, there was a 50-50 chance I needed to visit my safe-deposit box.
For the bank tellers, that means physical labor — climbing a ladder in the vault to haul down my safe-deposit box, which is overstuffed with about 15 pounds of papers, coins and photographic negatives.
My late mother, a lifelong banker, schooled me in the virtues of keeping important family papers and heirlooms inside a bank safe. So every time I need a birth certificate, car title or a passport, I show up at the bank.
On one recent visit, I had 30 minutes to kill so I took the safe-deposit box to a little room designed for people who need to inventory their belongings.
I emerged from the closet-size room a half-hour later feeling pleasantly dazed and disoriented.
Inside the safe-deposit box, alongside the wills and life insurance contracts, I found a spiral-bound notebook filled with facts about my maternal forebears. I recognized it quickly as the work of my maternal grandmother, Mabel Whiteside.
The handwriting appeared to have been the product of a shaky hand, which makes me think this was done late in my grandmother’s life — probably at the request of my mother, Wilma Kennedy.
The family narrative went back five or six generations, to the early 19th century, when my earliest known forebears migrated from North Carolina to Maury County in Middle Tennessee. Most of the family facts were unembellished: name, date and
place of birth, date and cause of death. There was a cancer noted here, a brain hemorrhage there, an infant death several times each generation.
Some of the family facts I knew; most I did not. Two things I learned in those few minutes still resonate days later.
First, I learned that my sister and I are directly descended from a man born in Newport, Tenn., who — because he was opposed to slavery — fought for the Union forces during the Civil War. Also in the box is a book that traces my late father’s family to Robert E. Lee.
I have always heard of folks in East Tennessee who have forebears who fought on different sides in the Civil War, but now I had proof that I’m one of those people. I’d always known about the Lee connection, but the Newport relative was news.
In light of the current debate about preserving Civil War relics (or not), there’s something mildly liberating about having a diverse genealogy that encompasses both sides in the war. It shifts your worldview ever so slightly — in a good way.
Second, I learned that I had a pair of close relatives, a great-great uncle and his wife, who both died in the prime of their lives during the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918.
I’ve often thought that the flu epidemic of the early 20th century is one of the most poorly remembered mass tragedies in history. By some estimates, more Americans died of the flu in 1918-20 (up to 675,000) than were killed in the Civil War (620,000).
Worldwide, the numbers were even more frightening, with 50 million to 100 million deaths attributed to the flu pandemic, 3 to 5 percent of the global population. In one year alone, 1918, life expectancy in the U.S. is reported to have dropped by a staggering 12 years.
With the 100-year anniversary of the flu outbreak next year, perhaps there will be new focus on the tragedy. Let’s hope so.
With all this new information suddenly at hand, my family last week went to see the new Pixar movie “Coco.” It’s based on the Day of the Dead, a tradition in parts of Mexico to honor deceased forebears and to help them on their spiritual journey.
It’s an excellent movie. I won’t ruin the plot, but a subtext to the story is the notion that souls suffer in the afterlife when they are completely forgotten on Earth.
I’ve found my mind drifting backward — not always forward — since my safe-deposit box encounter and trip to the movies. I recommend such an occasional about-face as a bracing change of pace. Knowing the full diameter of your roots is a good way to stay grounded.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.