The family history book was rather old by the time I discovered it. We’d had it for years, and it hadn’t been recently published when it was given to us. It didn’t have my name in it, or my older brothers’, or even my mother’s, it was that old. I had a laugh at this thought process-why, it must be old; it was written before my parents were married. How dreadfully ancient! And, yet, politeness to my parents aside, it was old. It was from a time before I existed, a culture I was never a part of. It spans nearly two centuries of family history, holding memories from Friesland, the journey to Iowa, the years in Pella, my various family members’ relocations all around the country and globe-and all of this happened before I existed. 

When I first cracked the cover, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleased by what I discovered. I found long lists of names, a few black and white photos, and stories-lots of stories. Some of them were more interesting than others. I was excited to find my great-great grandfather Gerrit’s Oregon Trail day book. He had been twenty years old and a wagon driver on the Trail in 1860, and had then spent nine years in Oregon. I was hoping that his diary would hold great tales of adventure and hardship-we’ve all played Oregon Trail! But it read more like a laundry list of all the places they went through, the animals they saw, the weather. Still, I found interest in that, if only a little-I’ve been west, and I knew some of those places! I had been where he had. But the short, dull descriptions, while leaving plenty of room for the imagination, didn’t provide much information about his thoughts and feelings-shouldn’t he have realized that someday his fourth son’s second son’s second son’s oldest daughter would want to know how her great-great grandfather faced the long, lonesome prairie?

Occasionally Grandpa Gerrit left some hint of his own flavor of the family sense of humor, and I smiled or laughed a little. But nothing caused me as much laughter as part a certain letter his older brother Hendrik, a Union soldier had written home around that time:

Greet… Sip Viersen, the Beintemas, Vander Muelen, De Haan, Witzenberg, Dykstra and all others who inquire about me, and those who do not, charge them a dollar.

I looked at the old faded photo in the book-so similar to all the ones I had seen in history texts all my life. Just a thin young man, his handsome face short of a smile, a patched-together uniform. But this young man staring up at me wasn’t just another nameless stranger from long ago. He was my own flesh and blood. I looked closer at the photo, and if I tried hard, I could see a little of one of my brothers in him. But the real family resemblance still lay in the dry, sharp humor of his letter. I wonder if this Hendrik had known it was likely to be his last letter home before his death. Maybe he had. He closed,

Farewell, and live happily, and may the Lord bless us all. Dear Mother, I thank you for writing-I can see that Mother is better at patching an old pair of trousers for me. Excuse mistakes,

I am, Your son and brother

I marveled at this. Twenty-three years old, fighting for a country he’d just barely arrived in, and still writing funny letters to his family. Yes, he was certainly my uncle.

I thought of the Civil War memorial in our town’s Central Park. I had long ignored it, assuming it to only mark other citizens’ relations. I hadn’t realized that my family’s blood had been spilled to-no, I was being silly. It’s no good romanticizing family history. Hendrik had died because he was ill. The book didn’t even mention if he’d faced battle. However, he was one of the men that memorial was erected to honor, and I feel a certain pride now when I walk past it. I pointed it out to my four-year-old sister when I next took her to the park. But she was not long impressed by the tall stone solider, his feet raised above our heads by the pedestal he stood on, and she forsook him to play on the Japanese artillery piece captured in WWII (given to replace the Civil War canons the town had donated to the war effort.)

But I am still captivated by the soldier. I wondered if he really looked like any of the men from my Dutch town who had fought in the war. He certainly didn’t look like my relatives. Perhaps it was a fault of the sculptor that his face looks so chiseled and stern, not at all like the boyish face of my uncle. His thick mustache looks almost as scratchy as his heavy coat, and if you stare at him too long, you find yourself feeling warm and uncomfortable. I wondered if the gun he leans on is similar to any of the ones I’ve shot. I doubted it.

There were other stories in the book. I’ve developed a real fondness for the tale of the Irish men trying to throw my relatives out of a leaky lifeboat to lighten the load. Their plans were thwarted by the Dutchmen holding them off with pocketknives, who spent a whole night simultaneously keeping the Irish away and bailing water. And I appreciate the very first woman in the book, who, when widowed, retook her maiden name, as did her children. If she had not, today I would have to be a vanden Akker. An unpronounceable two-syllable Dutch name is more than enough already.

But, while these stories amused me, gave me first-hand accounts of historic events, and made my distant ancestors seem more real to me, I still felt that there could be more. What was I looking for? It didn’t take me long to realize that I wanted a share of their courage, a taste of their victories and triumphs. I have my own ocean voyages to face, my own battles to fight, my own Oregon Trails to drive.  I wanted the family spirit, and I realized that I wouldn’t find it until I closed the book and struck out, just as they had.