Going Home, Coming Home

I’ve been traveling this spring—like I haven’t traveled since I was in my 30s. It’s been fun and its been exhausting, as I knew it would be. The travel had a serious purpose this time—it wasn’t for leisure as much as to learn about my roots. I used some of my inheritance to travel to the birthplaces of my maternal grandparents and great grandparents in England and Sweden. Here’s a bit of my diary reflecting on what’s changed since:

The two grandparents whose past I was seeking to learn about: Bill and Eva

I feel like I’ve got the perspective to say what the most meaningful moments of both of my trips have been, now. Mostly, of course, it was the people who made an impact on me—in Sweden their calm, quiet, generous spirits were impactful.

The home of my great grandmother’s family, still in the family!

Seeing each of my family members at the family reunion, and getting to talk just a few minutes to everyone was very special. So much of who I am started there—I saw in my family the desire to have quality over quantity in life—they want only the most solid, reliable and healthy things, and they value tradition. They live simply and don’t seek to change things too much. Modern excess isn’t tempting to them.

My two cousins, discovered in Sweden, in their traditional village garb

In England, I keep thinking of my one day alone, in which I took the train to the center of my grandma’s little neighborhood of “Mill Hill” and wheeled my luggage around through rain bursts and sunbursts and ducking into a thrift store and a cafe to get out of the rain while I walked between so many of my grandma’s special places that were all within a block or two of each other.

The two homes on the end here were owned by my family and run as guesthouses in the 1800s and early 1900s.

The sidewalks weren’t smooth—many were still cobbled, but the people were so down to earth that I didn’t feel self conscious at all with my bumpity-bumping luggage in tow.

In the cafe I was struck with the candor and extreme neighborliness of the patrons. There were about six people sitting at different tables when I entered. They clearly didn’t know each other well, but they spoke as friends across the space of the cafe for the entire time I was in there. I didn’t always understand them because of their thick Manchester accents, but I enjoyed how lively their chatter was and how they found people in common that they each knew and updated each other about. This was the friendliest cafe I think I’ve ever been in. Only I and one other person sat in silence, and when the chattiest guy got up and left, I too said goodbye to him—of course. It was as if entering the cafe, I had joined a club of sorts. It felt right.

It was a delicious breakfast of poached eggs, hash browns and sausages, but I scarfed it down as quickly as I could so that I’d have time to later explore the big cathedral that so many of my grandparents were married in, in the center of Blackburn.

It took a few false starts to find a bus stop that actually had a bus line running past to the center, but it was fun to explore the places where I got turned around too—a little bridge over the “Leeds and Liverpool Canal” which my hosts had told me was not being used any longer. It led across to the Albion Mill which I’m sure I’ve read was a place my grandparents worked at some time—it was fully restored as a bank of modern apartments now.

Grandma’s little church, the Elim Gospel Hall, was still in operation, apparently, with just a little ivy growing over the verses inscribed in the outer walls. The sign looked bright and new, which made me think that the Plymouth Brethren are actually still meeting there each Sunday morning.

Being in the big cathedral there was also really special. I enjoyed the art and the splendor of it—it was extremely well cared for. They had a huge statue of Jesus on a cross that was made to look like a loom. It was called “Christ the Worker”. My hosts told me that the mascot of Blackburn was the bee—a tireless worker. They also told me about the Weavers Uprising that happened in 1826. Doubtless, my folk were all in the middle of that story.

Thousands of hand weavers marched all over Lancashire, between all of the towns that are in my ancestry charts that year, destroying the new steam powered looms that were putting them all out of work. When I got home I looked to see if any of my folk were weaving back in the 1820s and many of them were—one was my third great grandfather, John Smith, who was a hand weaver, or a “cotton weaver” and not a power loom weaver as his son John Jr. was in the census of 1841, which may mean John Senior was affected by the 1826 resistance to power looms. For whatever reason, he was never listed as a power loom worker as others in the family transitioned to be.

Lasting habits that I have taken from my two trips are the Swedish tradition of slicing thin strips of cheese to go with each meal using a special cheese slicer, and the English tradition of “proper tea” which I now remember is much more satisfying when you use good black tea such as PG Tips, and not American black tea. From now on I think I’m going to keep a supply of PG Tips in my pantry.