Knox County TN mail list

knoxcotn-digest Sunday, April 16 2000 Volume 01 : Number 081

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Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 16:34:09 PDT

From: "Barbara Brinkley" <barb_brinkley@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: Masonic records (was Re: [KnoxCoTN] Masons in E TN)

I have been basically a listener, only occasionally replying since I have

been on the list; and, I too, am glad everyone is friendly. I didn't mean

to stir up any controversy and have been thankful that everyone who has

responded has done so in a helpful and gracious manner. Barbara Brown

Brinkley

>From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org>

>To: "Barbara Brinkley" <barb_brinkley@hotmail.com>, knoxcotn@rootsquest.com

>Subject: Masonic records (was Re: [KnoxCoTN] Masons in E TN)

>Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 07:39:39 -0700

>Hey, everybody!

>I'm so glad our list is friendly! This topic has such potential to flame

>so many people!!!

>I've got a lot of Masonic ties in my family on both maternal and paternal

>lines. After my daddy died unexpectedly, I established a web site for his

>lodge -- my husband is now the webmaster, since it's his lodge,

>too. Here's the official "poop" on the records issue: individual lodges

>and the grand lodge in Nashville don't give out info on living

>members. They will give out info on deceased members -- but all they have

>is birth date, death date (if known), dates of different things that the

>man did in the organization, and info about any lodge the man might have

>transferred to or from. There's a really interesting published history of

>Tennessee Masonry -- it's got lists of lodges and dates and places, if

>you're trying to find somebody's membership "home."

>You can write to the Tennessee Grand Lodge in Nashville, and they will help

>you. Please keep in mind that they're all volunteers and are extremely

>overworked just keeping up with the current membership activities --

>genealogy isn't a big thing to them. My husband has links on his

>webpage: http://www.korrnet.org/bml763/links.html

>And Masons do take care of each other -- and members' wives/widows and

>children. They also do marvelous things for the community. There's no

>secret stuff, really -- my daddy and my husband have told me repeatedly

>that everything that's in their ritual is based on history and Biblical

>text. The "secret" is how they apply it in their lodge functions. My

>husband's ritual book is in a drawer in our house -- I could read it if I

>chose to, but I respect that it's part of his life and not mine.

>Enough of all that -- write to the Grand Lodge if you have questions about

>deceased members, or write to the individual lodges if you know where the

>man was a member!

>At 05:36 PM 4/11/00 -0700, Barbara Brinkley wrote:

>>My cousins and I are seeking info on elusive Knox Co ancestors, some of

>>whom we believe may have been Masons. We are wondering if Masonic Lodges

>>would provide historical and/or membership information. Does anyone know

>>if this is feasible, what kind of information they have, and how I would

>>find a contact person among the Masons of E TN? Barbara Brown Brinkley

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Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 07:24:49 -0500

From: Craig & Stacie <onionring@BLomand.Net>

Subject: [KnoxCoTN] unsubscribe

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Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 09:09:16 -0700

From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org>

Subject: [KnoxCoTN] 2 April 2000 Sunday Afternoon Rocking

"The Seeds We Plant" (from the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking" Series)

Afternoon All,

Not long ago a young cousin wrote to me, telling me of the trip she made to

what

was once our family's old homeplace...to gather daffodils to plant in her

yard. Our homeplace, taken for LBL (Land Between the Lakes) is no more, and

what once existed as a thriving community of simple farmers is now a

wilderness haven for wildlife. Only the flowers that annually spring

bravely up in spite of a lack of attendance, are evidence now that this land

was once other than what it is. They wave like brave flags each spring, and

those who can remember (which are growing fewer each year) point to them and

say there is where the old Dennis place stood, or the old Jackson, or

whatever family made their home there for so long.

And so...when this cousin told me of gathering some of the flowers her great

grandmother planted, I was thrilled. She of all of us who are descendents,

lives in a place that will more than likely be a permanent home for all of

her life. She will take them home to her place on a hill, and she will

plant them. And in my mind's eye, I see her children, a bit older, standing

beside her as she points and tells them where those flowers came from, and

who first planted them. They will ask questions, and this will be her

threshhold for telling them of our family story. And

someday....perhaps...one of her own children will either make a home where

she does now, or will come to gather the flowers...and plant them in their

own yard, to tell the story to yet another generation.

More than just flowers, more than heart wrenching flags signaling where a

family once lived for generations, they have become beacons...invitations to

a discovery of the legacy that family left and the history that preceeded

the family of today.

And I wonder, thinking on those flowers, how many of us have such

beacons...such invitations all around us? Perhaps they are not flowers at

all.... perhaps it is a quilt, a stone crock, a treadle sewing machine, a

cross-cut saw....or something as simple and innocuous as a ancient "button

box" or a hammer...as simple as a scrap of a tattered hankerchief, a chipped

cup, or a calendar long out of date.

But whatever those things are, they have been kept, they have been

treasured....for someone they bring back memories...and stories. And all of

them are as clearly "invitations" as if they had gilt edging and RSVP

written upon them. Perhaps you have these things scattered about your

house, hanging on walls, displayed on shelves...and if the questions are

asked, you are more than ready to answer them. Perhaps you have them

wrapped carefully and tucked gently away in a box, in a trunk, bringing them

out sometimes only to remember....or only to show to someone very special

who will appreciate what it is you are showing them.

Again, as I have so many times, I encourage you to attach the stories to the

objects...lest at some point, all who remember why they are meaningful are

gone... and the simple objects no longer serve as the invitation they are

meant to be. And of course, without an invitation, how can anyone respond

to an RSVP? Treasures can't leave with us, and those things we hold so dear

to our heart must be passed on to be treasures at all. That, I have often

thought, is the beauty of "matters of the heart" over material

riches.....sharing is all that makes them treasures at all...

Today take a look at your "daffodils", those things you have kept that in

actuality are beacons...invitations to the past....and share your garden

with another of your family, make sure the stories survive to lend color and

beauty to the gardens that will come from those yet unborn.

just a thought,

jan

c2000janPhilpot

________________________________________________

(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be

shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.

Thanks, jan)

Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday

Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per

week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to

Sundayrocking-subscribe@egroups.com

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Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 09:05:04 -0700

From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org>

Subject: [KnoxCoTN] 16 April 2000 Sunday Afternoon Rocking

"Thoughts of our Ancestress Perhaps" (From the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking

Series")

Afternoon All,

Long ago, as a young girl, I dwelled on the sea for the first time. I was

old enough already to have my breath taken away at the sheer immensity of

it, and old enough that my mind was spinning as I realized that across that

water that stretched so far one could not see where it ended, lay another

land, and that a people that came before were the very reason I stood now on

a faraway shore looking back at the perils their fortitude brought them

across. For a very long time, the thoughts of how brave my ancestors and

yours must have been to cross that great water, leaving behind all they

knew, knowing that they would never return, understanding that the moment

they stepped foot onto a ship might be their own death warrant...either by

sea, or shortly thereafter in a land that held as many perils as promises,

has overwhelmed me. Such it was that the reverie below came to mind.

- -jan

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Thoughts of our Ancestress Perhaps

I will hear Mistress Gray's screams for as long as I live. I will hear them

in my waking as well as in my sleep. When Patience, her child of five

years, grew ill, she nursed her night and day. Indeed many of us sat and

washed the child's feverish brow, spoke soft words hoping to calm the

thrashing child, tried to slip bits of water between her lips, and when at

last she was quiet, and Mistress Gray's harried demeanor was quiet as well,

we first believed what the mother spoke when she said her child was only

sleeping. But something was wrong, and we could see it in the way Mistress

Gray kept the child hidden behind her, cooing softly and muttering words to

the child, but glancing over her shoulder wild-eyed at the rest of us. If

any dared to come near she was like an angry mother cat, hissing that we

stay away and not disturb her child. It was soon we realized the truth, and

it was the First Mate that finally approached Mistress Gray and took the

child from her forceably, Mistress Gray hissing and screaming, her eyes

casting wildly about at us for help, her husband holding her back, tugging

at the hands that clawed at the eyes of the First Mate, and tore at the tiny

blanketed body, yearning to hold it safe unto her again. I shrank from the

angry accusing eyes of Mistress Gray, as the child was carried away,

understanding full well what had happened, understanding full well what was

to be, and hurting with guilt and pain in my heart for a thing I could not

help.

Mistress Gray knew what was to come, and that was why she did it. Somehow

her mind had the idea of keeping the child hidden from all of us for the

next month, of one way or another making it possible to bury her child on

hallowed ground, and that could not be. Already we have buried five of our

party in the sea, sent their bodies sliding under the waves to an unknown

watery grave, and I shudder to think of that. I shudder when I think of the

sharks that sometimes follow our ship...and when I think of those we have

slid beneath the same waters that those hateful creatures rule. Left in an

ocean for the fish to feed upon, miles from the Homeland, and miles from the

new land, no marker, none to come and mourn, none to tend, none after a

while to even know or remember...I can think of no worse ending, and I

wonder why it even is we are embarked upon this journey if this is the cost

for any at all, especially an innocent child who did not ask for such an

ending. And when we slipped that tiny wrapped body into the sea, the

prayers could barely be heard for the screaming of Mistress Gray who had to

be held away from the sailors that held her child, lest she tug at the body,

or worse, throw herself into the sea after it. And so the tiny child

slipped beneath the waves, and Mistress Gray's cries echoed across the water

until at last she was still, staring at the water that now possessed her

child. I reached into my hair and pulled the blue ribbon from it, watched

it fall through the air until it drifted on the sea where the child had

vanished beneath, and I wished I had flowers to strew. Mistress Gray no

longer speaks, nor eats, nor moves, and her husband keeps a constant worried

watch over her. Her eyes are no longer wild, and no longer accusing, but

something far worse is in them....nothing at all. And though she is

silent...her cries are heard until yet, and I venture to say all of us will

always hear them.

So it has been for all of this trip, painful, and a thing that makes me

wonder if any of those who made this decision had aught the knowledge of

what it really was all about, and what would be asked of us. For all have

been sick, from the first day that we sailed from the harbor, when all of us

were heaving over the side of the ship, or into buckets if we could find

them, or the boards at our feet if we could not. And so that has continued

every time the water is not calm, which is much of the time. If we could

eat, it was not tasteful what we did, and that it was not easy to even hold

onto as this ship moans and tosses itself upon the waves. Sick I am of this

ship, of its smell of old fish (for fish is what it is built to carry, and

not people), of the bickering of those within it, of trying to find privacy

where there are too many people and too much stench, of having no moors to

walk upon and only sea, sea, sea as far as my eyes can dwell. I am still

sick with the knowing of what is behind me, what I will never know

again....and I am sick with the thinking of what is to come in a land that

holds as many perils as promises. But if I reach that land, if God gives me

the strength to escape a watery grave, I have told William I will only live

where I may never dwell upon the ocean again as long as I live.

This is the first calm since it all began that I have had wit or nerve to

sit alone and gaze across a sea stretching as far as one can see, and I do

so with great trepidation. I wonder what is waiting for us there, and if

this was indeed the best thing to be done. A great numbness is upon me, for

if I dwell upon what has been or what is to come I fear I cannot bear it at

all. This was William's plan, and I had no choice but to do as he wished.

But it was much he asked.

I felt my heart would break as we went round to our friends and family,

bidding goodbye, and knowing full well it was the last time in this world we

would see them. Between tears I must blink back lest William see them, I

looked long and hard at our little home and memorized each corner and cranny

of it. I gazed upon the village until my eyes were full with the sights and

my heart etched with the pictures, willing that I remember how the sun cast

shadows upon it, how the leaves whispered, the sounds of all I had known for

all of my life. I sat for long in the churchyard talking to the mother and

father now gone these long years, asking forgiveness that I will not be

back, and I memorized my sister's face that I would never forget.

The little we owned was sold, the most of it, or given away. It took all

we could scrounge up to make this trip, including my grandmother's broach,

the only thing of any value I owned, and all I had left of my mother or

grandmother. William gave up far more, but neither of us had a great deal.

He says we are fortunate that we can enter a new land with no bond on our

heads, that we are free to be our own people and to build in the new world.

He says that in a land that promises so much we will soon be wealthy, own

land as far as one can see, and that the broach and all the other things

were very little to afford us an opportunity we would never have in the land

we have left. He says that if he could not be a lord in the land we left,

it will not matter where he stood in his family line in the new. And the

more I think on William's reasons, the more I wonder if he really understood

all he was asking. Indeed, I wonder if now he is not dwelling on the same

himself. Is it peril or promise we sail into?

There are times that make one understand what real needs are, and real pain.

These last months before the sailing and during have made me wonder a great

deal. Vast lands no longer seem very important, nor does the trade William

swears will make him wealthy in a new land, and right now I am wondering if

we will ever even see this land. I venture not to explore what awaits us

there if we even do so. And for the first time, I am very glad that William

and I have not been blessed with children as yet. Indeed, although I know I

should not think such thoughts, perhaps it would be best if never we did. I

fear this land we are going to, I fear the pain that will come again and

again over all we have left behind, I fear the journey we are making...and

what this will mean for the children we undoubtably will have. If I could

but look into the future, a hundred, two hundred years, I would know, and

perhaps one day a child that has sprung from this dream of William's will

have the answer....but I can see nothing but an ocean. Again and again I

hear the cries of Mistress Gray, and again and again, I wonder, is it peril

or promise we sail into?

c2000janPhilpot

________________________________________________

(Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be

shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety.

Thanks, jan)

Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday

Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per

week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to

Sundayrocking-subscribe@egroups.com

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End of knoxcotn-digest V1 #81

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