History, Politics, Fate

October 17, 2016 — 2 Comments

My parents

History teaches us that political and religious movements go through transformation on a continuous basis. While in the eye of any storm it is impossible to assess the impact it will have. We find ourselves embroiled in a serious vortex of change that promises to be destructive. It remains to be seen in what ways we will endure this shift.  My ancestors all come to mind as well as into focus on Day of the Dead.  My parents are buried in a section of the cemetery where holiday decor is the norm for the dead, especially at the end of October.  I upgraded my parents to solar decorations this year.  They have been popular with their neighbors, and my parents were always competitive about their yard.  Leaving them without attention this time of year would signal some major abandonment, so I make sure they have a little seasonal something on their grave.

their ‘hood

their neighbor

their neighbor

They voted Republican their whole lives.  I have no idea how their parents voted.  I have followed my ancestry back for centuries and can only detect very large trends in my family.  They were pioneers, many early European residents of Massachusetts or Virginia.  They followed different religious persuasions, predominantly Protestant in nature.  My parents were not religious, but they carried the inherited beliefs of their respective families in their subconscious minds.  I very recently learned that my mother’s grandfather William Ellison Taylor, who was a preacher in the Church of Christ, was not raised in that church.  He was converted to his faith and began an itinerant preaching practice in East Texas after the Civil War.  I had always assumed his parents and their parents had given him this idea. This recent discovery has shown me this was not the case:

William Ellyson Taylor was born in Alabama, November 22, 1839, and was reared in that state. His education was received in the common schools. When the war broke out between the states he enlisted in the 4th Alabama Regiment and went to Virginia. In the battle of Manassas. July 21, 1861, he was wounded, which made him a cripple for life.

Dec. 27. 1864, he was married to Lucinda Armer, who has been his faithful help-meet, and to the present shares his joys and sorrows. To this union six boys and two girls have been born.

November, 1869, he moved to Texas. In August, 1874, Dr. W. L. Harrison preached the first sermon he ever heard. Afterward and and David Pennington became a Christian. In 1877 he began preaching and though he works on the farm, he has preached as he found opportunity. Entering the firgin field he has established congregations in Montgomery, San Jacinto and Walker counties and is now preaching monthly for congregations at Willis, Bethan and Ne Bethel, Montgomery County. When confined for nearly two years through sickness his brethren administer to his every need. All who know Bro. Taylor love him for his intrinsic worth and work in the Lord.
Gospel Preachers Who Blazed the Trail by C. R. Nichol, 1911.
Originally posted by: Tom Childers

my great-grandfather

This is very interesting to me since some of his distant ancestors seem to the Presbyterian in a serious way in South Carolina.  I wonder if the religious idea or the gene to get into religion is carried through generations.  My father has a large number of teachers in many of his branches.  My mother has a plethora of preachers.  I am talking about over centuries, as well as in their lifetimes.  They had to feel influenced by these people because their own image of reality came from them.  William Taylor fought for the Confederacy, moved from Alabama to Texas on an ox cart, and became a preacher.  He must have had some strong political views.  We do not know what they were exactly, but we have in his own hand the Rules for the School, which must have to do with Sunday school for his congregation.  This is pretty formal stuff:

handwritten rules

Do you ever wonder what part of your own political belief system you have inherited from your ancestors?  I do.  Many people say what would the founding fathers think.  I don’t care what famous people in history thought.  I care what my own relatives were thinking and doing that defined their lives and the future.  That subject fascinates me.  Do you know about the politics of your forefathers, gentle reader?  What do you think of them?