Real Talk!

Again, it has been a long time since I posted something here, to my blog.

It’s been a wild time in “Jody’s” world. Business is busy, flu bugs have been rampant and amongst the office, we’ve recently lost too many family members and friends… and found ourselves embroiled in the chaos that seems to be engulfing the planet… but that’s life and we’re a tight group… and we still find time to share a laugh or two.

I also find that things seem easier to handle, if you take a very long walk and have some time to clear your head.

And there have been good things happen, too.

In my quest for family information, I’ve started to unravel some of my father’s family history… and I’m absolutely fascinated.

There are many things that we studied in the Ontario school system, about the history of this nation- but somehow, learning more personal stories about the people connected and knowing that I descend from them, well… let’s say it makes the history far more understandable… and rather than the strategic elements you begin to see the political/social manipulations.

I have just learned about my 7th gr-grandmother- ancestors of my father’s father’s mother. It’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Little Abigail Nims was taken captive during the Deerfield massacre- a 1704 raid in which French soldiers and Christian Iroquois attacked an English Fort in Deerfield, Maine. She was 3 or 4 years old and the youngest hostage to survive the snowy February walk over the Green Mountains and into Montreal.

Abigail was adopted, learned the Iroquois language, was raised by the native peoples with the native traditions of this country and chose to maintain her native name “T'atog'ach”.

I know that this isn’t an isolated story and it isn’t all that uncommon. It’s just that when I read accounts about events such as these, it’s horrifying to think of the conditions that existed in this country, at that time- from so many different perspectives, it was a strange and difficult time.

Hmmm, perhaps the chaos that is engulfing our planet is not all that new.