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Addendum to "Linen"

 This is a cover letter of sorts for the box and the linen addressed in another essay.

https://jaywwrote.blogspot.com/2025/04/linen-wonder-of-touching-history_10.html.

 

January 2026

 Sara knows some of the family history and we have lots of genealogical research about the Schultz family, who made and preserved this  

The Schultzes came as refugees to Pennsylvania in 1730 when it was an English colony.  They were part of a persecuted Christian religious sect driven from their homeland in what is now the western region of Poland.  Among other things, they were forced to operate as near slaves the oars of war galleys in the Mediterranean Ocean in battles with the Ottoman Empire.   Driven from their homes, they had only what they could carry, a little more if they owned a wheelbarrow.

You can read much about this group, as the Schwenkfelders' compiled history of their “Exile” : https://www.schwenkfelder.org/saved-in-vault-blog.  My great grandfather helped pay for its publication  100+ years ago and we have a print copy that I suppose I should get to NZ one day.

I have also written an essay about them, Refugees All which tells about their suffering and about the strangers who helped them, https://jaywwrote.blogspot.com/2018/05/refugees-all.html.  

I have a longer version, I think, where I include other relatives who 
    came to America as persecuted “Puritan” religious exiles (Mayflower and later), 
    came to Quebec as a homeless and possibly criminal woman (likely held in a cell  in 1600 located          close to the hospital where Karen started her stroke recovery in Paris) 
    were  among the first Mormons who fought a series of battles with US forces while fleeing                      westward because of their new and bizarre (as opposed to old, accepted and bizarre) form of                     Christianity.

I am thinking about this during this time of great worry and threat of greater political violence in MN and the US.  Immigrants, as all our families as an historical fact, have been, are targeted the front line victims here.  I use this history to ground myself as I talk with others about why Trump’s dehumanizing actions have historic precedents that are relevant to and should be a warning to everyone.  And I think about the strangers who helped by 4th and 5th great grandparents survive.

Of course our people were also, at times, perpetrators as well as victims, heroes and heroines and just plain folks.   Knowing that we all come from a mixed bag of actors in history should both humble and inspire us.  All-in-all though, to us much has been given and, from us much is to be expected.   

Lily: I know that  you’re learning about good and bad things in history and I hope that among the things you  and classmates will take out of this learning it is neither great pride nor great shame in understanding how our ancestors lived, but an understanding of our commonalities with others.  And a commitment to the best thing I found in Christianity:  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  (The Golden Rule, a common rule across many cultures.)

It is a bad situation in MN   I am taking indirect action only against MAGA and ICE in order to safeguard myself and Karen. I think that we collectively will be strong enough to resist and inspire others and eventually prevail.

Is Lachlann at a stage to understand much of this yet?  Probably not, but do share some of this with him as he get curious and has more knowledge of the context.

OK getting off my preacher’s box now.
 
Two weeks later I add this:
 
In addition to victims and adventurers and perpetrators and people struggling to get by, we have ancestors who strove to do good for others.  My great-grandfather in Vermont was a local healer and nurse in his community at a time when formal medical care was scarce and people had few resources. I believe it was William Chester Walker 1850-1928.   His wife's aunt, Martha Johnson, spend the Civil War and the rest of her life with the Freedmens Bureau in the Sea Islands off Georgia teaching freed slaves to the sound of artillery firing onshore.  There are others.
 
It is good to know what "our people" have done. However, we should not be emotionally burdened by nor made complaisant about what our forebears have done. They may have made our lives wealthy, peaceful, educated and connected. Of that we should be conscious, grateful and made ready to give to others. But the most important awareness we can have is of the choices and actions that face us each and every day. What I did thirty years ago, heroic, or ten months ago, shameful, I cannot change. But what I do today is what I can now control and what will make me and the world better or worse.
 
 


 

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