2017 - This was written in May and September of 2000.
Preserving The Memories
Childhood is all to often the lost chapter of biography. During those precious years when mind and memory offer blank pages hungry to be filled, every thought, every experience, is imprinted without scruple over its worth. As time drives people farther from their youth, the ensuing years of maturity inevitably erode the earliest memories, making way for those that follow. Always some special recollections – often trivial and signifying nothing – stay locked in the mind well into the twilight of a life. Yet, in the last years, looking back, trying to clasp and hold the fleeting images of early days, the tired and inevitably saddened old reader can find little more on those yellowed pages than blurs, smudges, and blanks. And few as the memories of childhood may be, the actual records of youth are fewer still – little more than slender shafts of light through a forest of shadows. If Wadsworth was right, if “the child is father of the man”, then few indeed are those men who truly remember, truly know, their “fathers”. Growing up makes orphans of us all.
– Jefferson Davis, The Man And His Hour, A Biography – William C. Davis
I have always felt like an orphan. Oh, I have five brothers, a mother and a father, but the feeling of family was never terribly strong. Somehow I never felt that my family was as necessary as it should have been. No Brady Bunch togetherness - they weren’t even a natural family. I often ask myself why I am the way I am. What makes my brain think the way I do and what experiences have shaped me positively and negatively? My story is one which I am sure has repeated itself many times over but it feels somehow unique to me. Is it possible that someone else has felt the same way as me, experienced the childhood that I had and lived to tell about it? I imagine that some of my brothers have had similar issues but we are very different.
I write this story to preserve my past, perhaps for my own self gratification, perhaps because I am afraid of forgetting. However, my actual excuse is that I am writing it to let my child know who I am and was. Maybe she can take my experiences and use them to shape her own life. The smartest people in the world, I think, are those who can learn from other people’s mistakes.
There are other reasons to preserve my thoughts. One is that I have been doing genealogical research for a few years now and I find that I am regretting not having had any relationships with my grandparents. I never met either grandfather. I met my paternal grandmother only a couple of times in my youth and one final time on her deathbed (I’m not sure she knew who I was). I wrote a letter to my maternal grandmother only recently asking about her research into her family line. Unfortunately, although I got the information from her husband, her mental state had progressed to such a state that any chance of a relationship is low.
I have had at least one good relationship with a grandfatherly type and that was my wife’s grandfather. I had the opportunity to interview him back in 1989 and I probably know as much about him as any of his children do. Alas, the little report I ended up writing about this man seemed to be truly lacking and it is, after all, my rendition of his life. Sure, it was based on an interview with him but I can’t help but think that the picture is woefully incomplete.
Sometime in the past 2 years I realized that genealogical research should be a study of the living as much as it is about those who have passed on. I wonder about those folks who get so obsessed about the big genealogical logic puzzle that they pay more attention to the dead than to those around them. This is why I have shied away from taking time away from my family and why I may not be as far in my research as I might otherwise be. I take pride in that fact.
Another reason for preserving my past is to provide answers to my daughter. It has been frustrating to think about how, beyond my father, there is no Poulin history. What is the point in getting excited about family when your genealogical tree ends one root down? Perhaps the fact that my Poulin grandfather was not around to provide me with family history is the reason that my Brady Bunch bond with my father is just not there. What is the point of family?
So, in the interest of filling in the gaps about Poulins, I set forth my remembrances as best as I can recall them. Maybe they will not be wholly accurate, remembrances being what they are, but at least I’ll have tried and, someday, my great-great grandchildren can look back and remember me not just as having been born, been married, and died but as an individual who was important in the small scheme of things.
I suppose that last line brings me back to fulfilling my self gratification. I want to be remembered for being me because I am pretty sure that I won’t cure cancer. I am scared of being a forgotten orphan.
– Jefferson Davis, The Man And His Hour, A Biography – William C. Davis
I have always felt like an orphan. Oh, I have five brothers, a mother and a father, but the feeling of family was never terribly strong. Somehow I never felt that my family was as necessary as it should have been. No Brady Bunch togetherness - they weren’t even a natural family. I often ask myself why I am the way I am. What makes my brain think the way I do and what experiences have shaped me positively and negatively? My story is one which I am sure has repeated itself many times over but it feels somehow unique to me. Is it possible that someone else has felt the same way as me, experienced the childhood that I had and lived to tell about it? I imagine that some of my brothers have had similar issues but we are very different.
I write this story to preserve my past, perhaps for my own self gratification, perhaps because I am afraid of forgetting. However, my actual excuse is that I am writing it to let my child know who I am and was. Maybe she can take my experiences and use them to shape her own life. The smartest people in the world, I think, are those who can learn from other people’s mistakes.
There are other reasons to preserve my thoughts. One is that I have been doing genealogical research for a few years now and I find that I am regretting not having had any relationships with my grandparents. I never met either grandfather. I met my paternal grandmother only a couple of times in my youth and one final time on her deathbed (I’m not sure she knew who I was). I wrote a letter to my maternal grandmother only recently asking about her research into her family line. Unfortunately, although I got the information from her husband, her mental state had progressed to such a state that any chance of a relationship is low.
I have had at least one good relationship with a grandfatherly type and that was my wife’s grandfather. I had the opportunity to interview him back in 1989 and I probably know as much about him as any of his children do. Alas, the little report I ended up writing about this man seemed to be truly lacking and it is, after all, my rendition of his life. Sure, it was based on an interview with him but I can’t help but think that the picture is woefully incomplete.
Sometime in the past 2 years I realized that genealogical research should be a study of the living as much as it is about those who have passed on. I wonder about those folks who get so obsessed about the big genealogical logic puzzle that they pay more attention to the dead than to those around them. This is why I have shied away from taking time away from my family and why I may not be as far in my research as I might otherwise be. I take pride in that fact.
Another reason for preserving my past is to provide answers to my daughter. It has been frustrating to think about how, beyond my father, there is no Poulin history. What is the point in getting excited about family when your genealogical tree ends one root down? Perhaps the fact that my Poulin grandfather was not around to provide me with family history is the reason that my Brady Bunch bond with my father is just not there. What is the point of family?
So, in the interest of filling in the gaps about Poulins, I set forth my remembrances as best as I can recall them. Maybe they will not be wholly accurate, remembrances being what they are, but at least I’ll have tried and, someday, my great-great grandchildren can look back and remember me not just as having been born, been married, and died but as an individual who was important in the small scheme of things.
I suppose that last line brings me back to fulfilling my self gratification. I want to be remembered for being me because I am pretty sure that I won’t cure cancer. I am scared of being a forgotten orphan.