What You Leave Behind

I wasn’t planning this article last week when I wrote about grave stones.  Then I received a note and pictures from my third cousin (per Legacy Family Tree’s relationship calculator) and I just knew I needed to share it with all of y’uns.

I’ve said before that the novels I write are fiction (of course, that’s what a novel is) based on truth.  My extended family often reaches out to me in one way or another asking how I knew these details of our ancestors’ lives and I have to remind them, it’s fiction.  Because of that, I do slightly change names – to protect myself more that any innocent party, I think.  Still, folks root out the inspiration for the characters. 

My Great-Great-Grandparents, Daniel and Lottie Todd, had a Great-Granddaughter, Wilma, who read and shared Margaret’s Faith.  She had bought her son a copy of the book and when she passed away recently, he found notes she had left for him that detailed the family connections she saw in the novel.

I can’t tell you how honored and humbled I was to see that this dear lady would not only buy the book but would leave notes on it for the next generation.  And perhaps even more exciting is that her son appreciated the gift she left him!

So we’ve talked here before about journaling and sharing your own stories.  I’m not a good hand at writing about myself – I guess I’m spending too much time writing about all these other people and they do seem so much more interesting.  This is a point I mentioned in an article here a couple of years ago.  And, I’ve shared with you my Great-Great-Grandmother’s journals here (and a couple of other times I’m pretty sure). 

Those journals seem to chronicle rather mundane days and yet so many members of my family have enjoyed and learned from her writing.  And now I use them as a valued reference tool.

I feel like we are losing so much history with every passing day.  Every memory a dear soul carries into eternity without first sharing it seems like such a huge loss.  Maybe you have great wealth to leave to the generations that come after you, or prized possessions that might be converted to great wealth, businesses or lands – all of that pales in comparison to the gift of your memories and family history. 

Remember, if The Lord has brought you through something, He’s spared your life so you can strengthen someone else in a similar trial!

Grave Markers

These days, folks plan ahead for the time when they will pass from this world.  Well, I guess that’s not a new thing, the wealthy in ancient Egypt planned for years – long enough to have giant tombs built.  And, the Bible tells us that Joseph left instructions for his bones to be carried into the promised land.

I’ve been helping my aunt choose and buy a tombstone – a project my young children don’t quite understand, Ruthie declared, “But she’s not dead.”

I suppose it’s both natural and understandable to think about the next steps as we see ourselves coming to the end of life.  While the ‘commandment concerning [your] bones’ (as Hebrews 11:22 puts it) is a minor issue eternally, it is nice for families left behind not to have to deal with final details.   And those final details comprise a $16 billion industry in America.

That wasn’t always the case.  For many, many years, death snuck up on our people.  From accidents to unseen natural causes like strokes and heart attacks, loved ones often passed without warning and bodies had to be interred unexpectedly.  A Christian burial demands respect of the body that previously housed the Holy Spirit, and no one would want to put away their family member without a marker. Yet the granite monuments we buy today and the skill to permanently mark them weren’t always available.  And that leaves the mountain peppered with blank gravestones and people like me with endless questions.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m on a quest to locate the site of my Great-great-great Grandmother’s grave.  She died of Tuberculosis – that mysterious plague of the 1700’s and 1800’s.  The source was unknown for decades and even dead bodies had to be treated as contagious.  So when she passed, she would have been very quickly laid to rest.

Moreover, as we’ve paved roads on new paths and small settlements were reclaimed by woodlands, many old graveyards were just forgotten.  I suppose as children moved away or passed on themselves, those unmarked graves were no longer visited, maintained or decorated.  It doesn’t take long for their very existence to become a mystery.  And if you’ve ever happened upon one of these fields of stone, you’ve seen their upright slabs competing with saplings to dominate the land. 

Every time I see nameless graves, I’m reminded that there lies someone’s father or mother son or daughter.  As I’ve researched where this grandmother may be buried I’ve often remembered another Great-great Grandmother who had lost infants who were buried in either unmarked graves or marked only with a plain stone and she would often say, “Only God knows where my babies are.”

Well I hope to do better by this aging aunt so that we will long know where she lies when finally she needs the grave.  And I will continue to search for these lost graves so that generations after me may better or more easily remember their ancestors.

The Dobro An American Instrument

Lately, we’ve been talking about The Mountain Dulcimer and many believe this instrument was invented in the Appalachian mountains.  As I was researching that question, I bumped into the origins of the Dobro. 

As I read the origins of the Dobros, I was so fascinated that I wanted to share it with you.

Think back – before amps on instruments and microphones - think about barn dances and purely acoustic shows. Musicians of that era and those inclined to play in those venues were always on the lookout for a loud instrument – not because their music needed increased decibels to be appreciated, but because the crowd couldn’t hear a soft instrument.  I bought a used fiddle from an old musician and one of his selling points was, “it’s really loud”.   Turns out, when you play like me loud isn’t really a great thing – but that’s another story.

The dobro has come to mean a guitar-like instrument with a resonator built into it.  However, originally mandolins, fiddles and ukuleles were also produced with these resonators.

The sound of any stringed instrument must resonate against a sound board – in a piano it’s a large piece of brass, in a fiddle or acoustic guitar the sound resonates against a wooden sound board.  And as you might guess, the type of wood produces very different sounds – Fender) has a great article here that lists 7 different woods and the variations of sound to be expected from them.

There is, however, a limit to the volume of sound from a wooden sound board.  And then there was metal – aluminum to be specific.  Mr. George Beauchamp worked as a musician in Vaudeville shows and was looking for a way to amplify his stringed instruments. In the early 1920’s, he asked John and Emil Dopyera to turn their established, innovation skills to creating “resophonic” instruments.  In 1927 Mr. Dopyera filed a patent request for a guitar with three aluminum cones with a wooden saddle between them.

Even as amplified instruments became available, the dobro’s unique sound kept it on stages in the hands of country, bluegrass, jazz and blues musicians.

A Dulcimer by any other Name

If you’ve been reading The Stories any time at all, you know that my research often leaves me with more questions than answers and I’m always asking you readers to help me out.  So you can just imagine how excited I was to have a reader correct me on the origins of the dulcimer.

On December 18th I wrote that the Mountain Dulcimer was created in the Appalachians.  But one kind reader reminded me that the dulcimer is named in the Bible – in the Old Testament actually.  So that’s a long time before settlers arrived in these mountains.

The Dulcimer was played in Babylon more than 500 years before the birth of Christ.  Daniel 3:10 refers to a band which included, “…the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick…” J. Vernon McGee says, “…this must have been a very famous orchestra…” because the instruments are listed three different times.

When three brave Israelites stood in defiance of the king’s order to bow before a great statue, the Babylonians had been playing dulcimers for about 20 years.  Maybe that’s part of why the famous orchestra was sure to name the instrument and why it’s remarked upon several times. 

I read my favorite Bible commentator who suggested that the “dulcimer” in the Bible was actually a pipe – maybe something like the Scottish bagpipes.  I found a really interesting article here at Britam.org that talked about Hebrew bagpipes used in Temple worship. This article names he instrument the “nabal“, but a search of my digital Bible returns Nabal only as the name of Abigail’s first husband.

Now, the Hammered Dulcimer is actually a very old instrument as well, and one that is common in the Middle East – the lands of the Bible. The Smithsonian Institute says the hammered dulcimer dates to 900 A.D. However, it is believed to have come from the Psaltery which is also mentioned in the Bible (in that same text in Daniel as well as numerous times in Psalms).  Moreover, that group of zither instruments are known throughout history across both the Middle East and Far East.

Based on the research I did for the Mountain Dulcimer article, the basis for claiming it was invented in the Appalachians lies in the origins of the mountain musicians.  No one would have been surprised for a Scottsman to make a slight change to his beloved bagpipes, or an Irishman to add a string to his fiddle for a slightly different sound.  (The dobro is a prime example of this – hmm, maybe we should look more closely at that instrument.)  However, neither culture has an instrument similar to the little mountain dulcimer, held on your lap (sometimes it’s actually called a lap dulcimer) and strummed or picked like a guitar.

This is very confusing, isn’t it?

Once again, I find myself with more questions than answers.  Today we live in this show-me culture where you can find a video to explain everything from childbirth to tying your shoes.  That’s not what God chose to give us in His holy scripture.  In fact, there are things mentioned there that we can’t exactly define – like this dulcimer that played in ancient Babylon.  However, neither the individual instruments nor the band playing them are the focus of Daniel chapter 3.  Instead, it is the faith of three young Hebrew boys who refused to bow before a heathen statue and were rewarded by the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ joining them in a fiery furnace and eventually delivering them from that death sentence!  Whew, that makes me want to shout!

If you have any thoughts on this instrument, I’m always eager to hear them.  Just click “comments” below.