Tall tales
My oldest brother (not
the one you've met here on the blog) is getting married in August, and
he asked for a family geneology as a wedding gift. So I've been
engrossed in old photos and history for the last few weekends.
I'm struck by how
everything is just a story with no clear line between fact and
fiction. Here's a typical tale from my father:
My
great Uncle George, Grandad's brother,
was a noted storyteller, and, some would say, liar. He told me once
about visiting Grandmother Hess's relatives down at the Kentucky
border, the patriarch of whom was Devil Anse Hatfield. I haven't a
clue if what he said was true or not. He told of seeing sun
glinting from rifle barrels as he traveled up the hollow to the
homestead.I always took Uncle George's stories with a big grain of salt. He said the Hatfields planted their potatoes in a row going straight up the hill. It was so steep that to harvest them they just dug at the bottom and held a basket when they came pouring out.
But George showed me bear tracks on the riverbank near where he had his garden and showed me how to bake corn in the husk in fire coals. And he told about visiting Devil Anse in front of Grandmother and she didn't deny it.
Daddy also told me about
my great, great grandfather, Hector Horatio Hess, pictured in the first
photo in this post. Hector Horatio was a butcher, baker, and candle-stick-maker...I mean lawyer and
restaraunteer. He was reputed to be able to write two different
letters at the same time, one with each hand, from dictation.
Are these larger than life
characters actually real? Perhaps because my
grandfather on the other side was an engineer, my forays
into geneology are giving me an uncontrollable urge to go measure
something.
(For family members and
anyone else interested, here are the photo credits: Hector
Horatio Hess is the one in the apron, pictured in front of his
restaurant. The second photo is Daddy as a child with some
friends --- he's the one with the pole. The third photo is my
great grandfather John Hess (the driver on the right). The last
photo is Daddy, Aunt Joyce, and Aunt Jackie in their Easter clothes.)
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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MamaHomesteader --- I actually kinda believe all of them, despite my father's caveats.
John --- We've got some facts too, but they don't go back all that far. I prefer the stories too, and love the old photos my father found for me! I may have to post some of my father's stories about what life was like growing up in the 1940s and 50s in West Virginia --- they're very homesteading related.
Anna, from the surname Hess, are your ancestors possibly Germans from Hesse?
When I was turning into a wild and vulnerable teenager, my father (Errol) taught me a lesson, or a way of life really, that has helped me tremendously through the years to love myself and be true to myself and ultimately to be who I am today. My memory of this conversation is so strong too! I was invited to one too many slumber parties, which really shouldn't be a big deal, but I have that Hess need for renewal in solitude. He suggested that I flat out tell the truth in all cases no matter what. I cannot say I have done that to a T my entire life, but I feel like if I dodge the true at first, I still have a grip on honesty so I can act honestly. I don't tell a very good lie, perhaps because of the fact I rarely bare false witness at all. Honesty comes natural to me; lies wear on my spirit.
I also am an English major, as is Anna and my Dad. From that I know the incredible gift that fiction brings to the frontier of a story. I also, from a recent class in Creative Nonfiction am well aware of the actual LEGAL ramifications of putting over a certain amount of fiction in words you call memoir or nonfiction.
Actually, I adore the gray areas and I think Anna handles those colorful shades beautifully.
Sorry, Anna if this is a tangent...