I was drafting and researching what would become my historical novel Brookhaven, and I looked at the census records for Pike County, Mississippi. I’d been having trouble finding my ancestor Samuel Young listed anywhere in Confederate rosters. The only one clue I’d previously found was a listing for S.F. Young, who joined a Mississippi rifles unit late in the Civil War and was sent to Texas. And I thought the census record might have another name by which he was known.
I found the list of Youngs. And the family I’m looking for. There he – Samuel F. Young, age 13. My eye travels up the list to his father, Franklin. And the occupation listed was farmer. The same occupation was listed for Samuel’s two older brothers.
Something was wrong. My father always insisted we came from a long line of shopkeepers, that the family had never owned slaves. Yet here they were, listed as farmers. I checked the census for 1870 and 1880 and found Samuel listed as – a farmer.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Photograph: The 1885 (first) edition of The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, published by Mark Twain's publishing firm.
Some Thursday Readings
The Unofficial Inking: Dorothy Sayers’ Influence in C.S. Lewis’s Imaginative Apologetics – Andrea Glover at An Unexpected Journal.
A Deep Longing: On embracing Romanticism – Andrew at The Saxon Cross.
Poet Laura: The Consequences of Cats – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Another Ash Wednesday – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.
“In the Wilderness,” poem by Robert Graves – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
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