History in our Walls

By Becky Nelson
Bramblings
I am surrounded by history.

The fact that men and women in my lineage actually established this farm amazes me every time I look at an old artifact from years past.

My brother became a carpenter/contractor just a few years after a stint in the Navy, and is currently helping our son do a bit of remodeling at the old farmhouse. Our son and his wife are planning a family, and working to make the old habitat friendlier for little ones. In the process, they have made some interesting discoveries, including lots of square top nails and spikes, beams set with wooden pegs and lots of hand-work that must have taken a lot of time. They chose to leave hand-hewn beams exposed and discovered other oak beams cut with an “up and down” saw, still able to see the saw marks in the wood. Each beam in the room they were remodeling was marked with matching marks on the supports attached, with interesting markings that were much like today’s instructions of “part A attaches to matching part A.”

The whole process of building the house amazes me. In a time without power tools, the only power was from human hands, let alone a pair of oxen or horses that hauled the timber out of the woods.

My brother’s contracting partner made an amazing observation that truly boggled my mind. We kept a piece of the oak that was cut out for a new window. We were looking at the tree rings still visible in the piece and could still smell the almost acidic smell of the wood. He noted that the beam, put in place in the late 1700s was probably from an old growth tree right here at the farm, a couple hundred years old at the time, maybe taking the age of the wood back into the 1500s. There weren’t any white settlers in the area in the 1500s, so this piece of wood had been here when only native Americans were moving through these woods. This history and connection to the past stirs something within me, wondering what life was like for those before me. We whine and cry about the economy, the politics, the affairs of the world without truly knowing the fears, angst, hopes and dreams of those well beyond our memory, and it is a shame.

We think we are thinking new thoughts and think we are dreaming new dreams, but I am quite sure those before us had similar hopes and dreams. While these folks are mostly forgotten just a generation after they disappeared from life, their legacies, their bloodlines and their progeny live on and strive for the same rewards…love, peace, happiness. All the other “stuff” around us are so unimportant, yet we grind away every day to hold these posessions.

Little did my ancestors know, or probably even think that the pieces of scrap shoe leather left in the wall, the markings of putting their house together, the rusted tool found in the barn or the silver spoon dug up in an old dump would evoke memories of those unknown faces and hands, toiling on the same land I now work. I hope that somehow, somewhere in some plane of existence they can see me and feel the pride and joy I have in knowing I am descended from their bloodlines and remember them even without knowing them.

I find myself becoming more philosophical and emotionally aware here in my later years. I hope that somewhere down the line, one of my descendants will find a piece of jewelry I treasured, a painting I left of something I enjoyed or a piece of then antique cookware I once used and think of me, think of the struggles I may have endure, think of the joys I may have savored. A hundred years, a thousand years, a million years are just a blink in time as the sun shines and the planets turn. I hope there is someone who sees us from the past and I hope I can see folks in the future. This “life” thing is too quickly gone, and I hope there is much and there are many beyond that will preserve all the moments we now enjoy and endure and pick up a scrap of wood or shoe leather I touched and wonder as I wonder.