The freighting company just came and picked up three family portraits. They're going to where they should go, according to my mothers wishes...the DAR museum in Washington D.C. However, this is not so easy.

These portraits are very old. Katherine Piercy Romney halls portrait, with her sister, dates from 1843. It was painted by a very talented, but little-known American artist, Ane. Gibert. it is a truly lovely, exceptionally well-done piece of work.

Her grandmother portrait, Christiana Crocket (who married Robert Hall, there's my
clan Hall connection) probably dates to about 1800, possibly between 1800 - 1810. It's my personal favorite of the paintings, although artistically it's not the best of them.
The last one is of Christiana's father, Samuel Crocket. Samuel was about 30 years old in the painting, and it was likely done right around 1800, in Philadelphia. The artist that painted Samuel may have also painted Christiana, though Samuels painting is rather better quality than Christiana's is. Those two paintings are unsigned.

This is a $16,000 donation to the museum. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? I'd better get a job soon so that tax write off actually compensates me for the costs of having the paintings restored, having the appraisal done (outrageously expensive) and shipping them to washington DC.

But you know, all of that is really irrelevant.

You know what's hard? I grew up with these paintings in my house. As long as I can remember, they are there. When I look at photographs taken when I was a baby, they are there. They hung in my grandmothers house, I can show you the photos from the 1950's. My mother treasured these things. In fact she was downright obnoxious and horrible about them as I got older. She used to threaten me with withholding them, as well as a mess of other family stuff. She really did not like my wife, and actually sold off or had melted down all of my grandmothers and great-grandmothers jewelry so that my wife wouldn't get it. In the family trust document that I read after Mom died...Dad let me read it a few weeks after mom died...it says right there, to have the family paintings destroyed, sell the frames and give me the money. The MONEY.

Isn't that a great, loving final gift to get from your mother? I was so shocked that she'd write that...actually DO it, that the gravity of what it really meant didn't sink in for months. She did that largely because I didn't have children and she could never understand that. Mom was a very conflicted woman. She loved me very much, but I wasn't what she wanted and expected, and the world changed around her while she never did, and I was a disappointment to her in many ways. So be it. This is my life, not hers.

So you see, these paintings are very much wrapped up with, and symbolize the difficult relationship I had with mom. To her, these painting WERE HER FAMILY....I mean they were not just "paintings". The ring with the Hall coat of arms on it was not just another ring. Katherine Piercy Halls jewelry was not just jewelry. They were, to her, like her DNA, part of her psyche, spirit and soul. They were tangible proof that HER family, unlike my fathers, had aristocratic origins...that HER family was part of the founding of the United states. That was part of her identity.

To me, these things, especially the paintings, are beautiful things that I cherish. They are a link to my family, a reminder of where I came from, a visible, tangible look into the past which makes me think about where I am going. I love them. When I look at them, I feel the continuity of time, and a glimpse into the interrelatedness of all of us. The silver tea service..no, and there were two of those. Who serves tea anymore? But these paintings, and all the geneological information...the letters from my g-g-g-grandmother to her son, the photograph of Uncle Reynold as a young naval officer at the turn of the century...that stuff? That's where I come from, that's a vision into the past.

But that was never good enough for mom.

Mom died in 1993. Dad did not carry out her wishes, and kept all fo the stuff in a locker in his retirement community. I knew it was there, he showed it to me. I think he did it because in his heart, he knew that mom had gotten bitter in her last years, and that the stuff was not "his'. I mean, she had made it plain to him, hundreds of times, that these things were HERS, not his. SHE was the one with Revolutionary War ancestors. When dad died in 1999, I brought the paintings and the silver and the geneological information home with me. I had my cousins (whom Mom hated) over a couple of years ago and I gave them a lot of the silver. What was I going to do with it? It's 150 year old silver for God's sake, it should stay in the family. As for the geneological information and the letters; here they sit. . Those letters and the family tree that grandmother and g-g-uncle Reynold drew out are on my desk right now. For years the paintings sat by my desk. I did some little damage to them over the years. One day, I knocked over Christiana's painting with my foot and put a 6-inch tear in it. I just about died when I did that. It felt like I'd kicked myself in the gut. I decided, right then, that I had to do something with them..they couldn't stay here any more.

So I spent a mint having the paintings repaired, cleaned and restored. They were always wonderful, they are now absolutely stunning. They are beautiful, heart-breakingly beautiful. They are fantastic. I had a good friend take both digital and medium-format color film photographs of them so that the images would never be lost.

And now, they are gone. The freighters took them an hour ago.

It's like Mom dying all over again. Does this all make her sound horrible? She wasn't. She went to every Boy Scout Court of Honor, she went to every band concert. She had milk and cookies for me at home every single day after school until I finished eighth grade. She loved me the very best way she knew how. She could never forget and never forgive...I could tell you stories, but she did the best that she could, and she loved her son.

You know, about two months ago I finally started looking into my fathers family background. Dad's fathers side has all been worked out back to 1610, or something..nothing much to do there. However, Dad's mothers side was a mystery. Turns out that there's a woman in North Carolina who's done a huge geneology of a set of families in her area, and there's Myrtle Viola Snyder, right smack in the middle of it. You know what? Go back a few generations, and three of dads ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. Dad has a Scottish ancestor that emigrated from Ulster in 1730. His sons fought in the war. I wish that both Mom and Dad were alive to hear that. She wasn't the only one with roots.

I'm rambling. the paintings are gone, though the images remain. I will give copies of them, as well as the photographic negatives, to my cousins on Sunday. I will keep two sets, as well as digital copies of course, and frame them and put them up in my room. If my wife doesn't like that, then too bloody bad....it's MY room. But the paintings are gone.

Mom is gone. I only have memories, now. When I die, they will be gone, and those paintings will be another addition to a museum collection, and nothing more. Children who hate art field trips will stand in front of them and want to go outside to play kickball. Nobody will understand, and nobody will care, and the museum curators will appreciate them for their historical value and their monetary value, but they will not KNOW..

Goodbye, Samuel...samuel of the starched collar, and the gravestone in woodlands cemetary. Why is your lady referred to as your 'consort" on her headstone? Did you have another lady, were you married before? Is Maria really my g-g-g-g grandmother? Did it hurt you and was it horrible to bring your family to the city when yellow fevr swept the land, so long ago?

Goodbye, Katherine and Martha. I have photographs of you, Katherine. My god, but you were a beautiful girl, and an elegant woman. I know that my mother actually met you. Yur handwriting speaks of a different time; fountain pen on small paper, and a strong stroke to it.

Goodbye, beautiful, beautiful Christiana. What did the man who fathered your children do to you, that you had them when you were 16, and he was gone by the time you were 50? Why is he nowhere to be found in any of the records of Phildelphia or Alexandria? Did something awful happen to you? How is it that your son is listed as "fish inspector" in the 1850 census, and yet your family could afford portraiture when you were a young girl. I wish I could have spoken to you, had dinner with you, held your hand.

I will not forget, I promise.