Intertwining Family Trees

Proudly hailing from the South, I’ve heard a lot of jokes about family trees with no branches.  I often counter those with some comment about intertwining families. 

While researching genealogy I often see marriages where siblings from one family married siblings from another family.  These relationships often get an odd expression (or even that “no branch” comment), especially from people who haven’t looked back at their family tree or who are unfamiliar with the large families that were the norm a century ago.

A member of my own family recently mentioned with both downcast eyes and a bit of a smirk that “Uncle Ernest married Mama’s sister”.  Since Ernest was her father’s brother, there’s certainly no legal, genetic or obvious moral reason for the embarrassment.  In fact, as we talked through these marriages the path seemed clear and logical to me.  And since I’ve seen these marriages not only on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau but also in Southeast Tennessee, Northern Georgia and Alabama, they were surely widely accepted in days gone by.

When families had a dozen or more children and limited transportation, joining families at multiple points seems convenient in the least.  If you further consider the role parents traditionally played in choosing a spouse, the logic works out even better.  Certainly if parents found a family of like faith and good character, choosing more than one match would seem very valid.

As with so many topics this history blog addresses, it can be difficult to look at these marriages in the proper, historical context.  Today, we are connected to people all around the world; can virtually ‘meet’ people from almost any nation and walk of life.  And certainly, the social barriers to marrying across socio-economic, racial and cultural lines have decayed.  So when you think of these sibling connections, try to imagine the day when handwritten letters were not just the preferred method of communication but usually the only method.  Even those letters took days and weeks to reach their destination with the time doubling before a response could be received. 

I’ve heard of many romances that blossomed across the miles as letters were exchanged.  I can think of two example couples who met, saw each other once or twice, the man left town (both were soldiers) and courted his girl solely through the mail.  One of those married the day after the fella’ was discharged and returned home and the other sent a bus ticket to his girl who traveled across the country to marry him.  While war-time romances are unique, both of those examples lasted until they parted in death.  I present them to show the difference in courtships over the ages.

Even without the threats and passions of war, young people of earlier generations were serious about marriage with both boys and girls seeking a life partner.  As young adults left large families to start their own families, it was very common for a younge sibling to join them for a time to help with home and babies which introduced them to a new family and perhaps to a new church congregation.

Church has always been a choice location to look for a spouse.  After all, Christian parents teach their children not to be unequally yoked to unbelievers.  While church attendance wasn’t a sure test it surely seemed a good start. 

I’m just trying to paint you a picture here that the “modern” idea of picking up a stranger-date online or at a social gathering would have been pretty foreign in the small towns of 19th century America.  As I so often ask you on this site, whenever you hear of these intertwined family trees, try to imagine their circumstances and the vast differences in their lives as compared to ours.

Now I have a question for you…I tried to do a little internet research and found lots of famous (and royal) people who married their cousins.  But can you think of any well-known instances where siblings-in-law married?  Just click “comments” below and SHARE.

Puttin' By

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about winter foods.  On New Year’s we ate hog jowl and black-eyed peas.  Then a bunch of readers mentioned you always eat cabbage too, so last week we talked about that delicious vegetable.  Well those articles got me to thinking about all the work mountain folks usually do in the summertime to prepare for the cold winter months when nothing much is growing.  Really, I have realized anew that “an idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Proverbs 19:15b).

As I write this article, I have a meatloaf ready to go in the oven for tonight’s supper, the potatoes are peeled and I’ll open a Mason jar of green beans to round out a fine wintertime meal.  Of course, all of that is food you might’ve found on my grandmother’s table – as far back as her earliest years of marriage.  We’ve discussed before that she taught me to cook and I find more and more that I cook just like her!  But yesterday we had breaded chicken nuggets – a decidedly modern and convenient food – and earlier in the week there was a pasta dish on my table.  Of course pasta isn’t a traditional Appalachian food as we’re partial to dumplings. 

As I researched and wrote the Cabbage article last week, I couldn’t help but think about what meals would’ve looked like on the mountain a hundred years ago.  In one way, winter was good because meat could be kept and cured.  However, the veggies were always the problem.  I’m going to make a list below of the foods Appalachians-of-old would’ve been eating this time of year.   I mentioned several of the vegetable choices in the last couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to y’uns leaving a comment to tell me what I’ve missed.

Meat:  Any Game
              Smoked Beef
              Cured Pork
Chicken

Break:  Cornbread

Vegetables:  Potatoes
              Cabbage
              Green Beans
              Carrots
              Dried Beans (I’m including Black-Eyed Peas in this category_
              Sweet Potatoes
              Pumpkins
               Turnips
              Onions
             

As I made this list (with my Mama’s help) I first thought that it’s a pretty limited list.  Then, as I looked it over again, I had to admit it covers probably three-fourths of the food I eat, even today.   The big difference is the planning and preparation – every food on that list requires hours of back breaking work.  Whether stalking prey or fattening a hog, putting meat on the table takes some considerable effort.  Corn is particularly labor-intensive as it has to be planted, hoed, picked, shelled and then ground for bread.  The vegetables seem a little easier, but you’ve gotta’ start planning for winter in about March or April.

Does this give you a renewed appreciation for your ancestors?  It sure does me!

Bile Them Cabbage Down

Fried, stewed or pickled cabbage is a mainstay of the mountain diet.  After I shared my daddy’s New Year’s Day meal last week, I was surprised how many of you commented that you always kick off the year eating cabbage.  But I shouldn’t have been surprised.

For the same reasons black eyed peas and salt-cured pork were eaten regularly in the winter months, cabbage would be too.  Late cabbage can be folded in a hole (whilst still planted on the other end) can be enjoyed pretty much the whole winter.  Just as I mentioned last week, without the luxury of imported foods – even imported from warmer, deep-south states - Appalachians spent the winter months eating those foods they could preserve one way or another.  Then just as soon as you’re safe from a hard freeze, little cabbage plants can be planted – they’re often one of the first things planted in the garden.  So if you’ve eaten up all the cabbage you wintered, hang on, there’ll be more in a couple of months.

Cabbage is a very old food and is eaten around the world.  In fact, one of my personal favorites are egg rolls – this wasn’t a food traditionally found on Appalachian tables, owing to the Chinese immigration patterns not reaching the Eastern US until after World War II, and most likely not until the 1960’s. Yet their ancient food combines pork and cabbage in a bread-like wrapper and deep fried.  What could be more southern?  I had a chance to talk with a couple of Chinese ladies and asked if cabbage is really something they eat a lot of.  They explained that in the northern provinces where the temperatures get very cold, cabbage is a mainstay.  They even knew about burying the heads, just the way we do on the mountain.

Of course Sauerkraut (we universally just call it Kraut on the mountain) is the pickled version of the vegetable and while the word is German, the food is more likely Chinese.  Of course, the Germans do love it and in fact it’s a traditional New Year’s food for them as well for the same superstitious hope of good fortune. 

Today’s kale-eating, smoothy-drinking society probably sneers at hog jowl and black eyed peas – and if they ever smelled cabbage stewing they’d no doubt call the health department.  However, you can’t argue with the wisdom in eating this vegetable which is packed with vitamins and is high in fiber, antioxidants and polyphenols.  (Just by way of confession, I can hardly spell those words and had to look up polyphenols to make sure it was something I could mention in a family-friendly blog.  It seems safe enough to say, but experts seem to still be guessing what these micronutrients do except they’re pretty sure it’s all good.)

Of course, our affinity for frying foods extends to all vegetables and a whole lot of fruits.  Many readers who reported eating cabbage on New Year’s Day were frying it.  Now, I do wish you would tell me why it’s Fried Cabbage but Kil’t Lettuce when the process is about the same – chop vegetable, pour in hot bacon grease? 

Hog Jowl & Black Eyed Peas

Happy New Year Ya’ll!

Did y’uns eat hog jowl and black eyed peas on New Year’s Day?  Now this is one of those meals that I’m careful not to say I won’t eat, but I’m praising the Lord that I don’t have to.  This along with collards, turnip or mustard greens.

But enough about my taste in foods. 

Hog jowl and black eyed peas are the traditional meal for New Year’s Day because it’s supposed to bring good luck in the new year.  It seems the folks of old felt lucky to have this meal on new year’s day and hoped for similar luck throughout the year.

Hog killin’ time on the mountain starts just after the first frost so meat killed in the last month or two and salted down would be just about right for frying at the first of January.  And of course black eyed peas were harvested late in the summer and dried so if you could store them in a good dry place they would be good throughout the winter.

By January, the taste of fresh vegetables is dimming and sallet greens won’t be up for two or three more months.  Families who didn’t have the luxury of refrigeration or nearby supermarkets were making do with cornbread and fried side meat.  Leather britches (dried green beans) and potatoes were on the table almost every day. Of course there would still be plenty of dried apples in the attic (don’t want them in the root cellar for risk of dampness) that could be cooked down and fried into pies or spread over a stack cake. 

The flavors on our tables have radically changed in the last fifty years and some of the foods we have long been known for are almost foreign to our younger pallets.  Even if I don’t particularly enjoy hog jowl and black eyed peas there is a comfort in this age old tradition.