Several days ago, A.N. asked me what led me to create a Victory Garden-centered blog. That's actually a pretty good question, considering that there's no easy, simple answer. There are several impetuses: an appreciation for gardening that, like my love of writing, increases in intensity with each passing year; an inborn interest in history as much for its wonderful, vivid stories as the very real lessons it offers us; a belief that citizen journalism is as essential as civic journalism in informing us about our world and empowering us to take action; a desire to help my elderly mother record her thoughts and memories for my son; and a strong belief that bipartisanship and patriotism can (and should) go hand and hand, starting literally at the grassroots level.
And then there's my grandfather's diary.
My grandpa, G.B.J., died when I was very young. I have no memory of him. There are a couple of pictures in my family's albums...pictures that show him as a very old man when I was a mere toddler. But my mother, now in her seventies herself, kept my grandfather's presence vivid in my mind, mainly through her own love of gardening (he was quite accomplished in that activity) and the stories she tells of his character, spirit and intense patriotism. Some of her words about him have lodged in my head so deeply that I almost forget that I know them…which I guess accounts for my experiencing a thrilling shiver of recognition when she pointed out that he, like me, insisted on growing zinnias with his vegetables. Yes, oh, I must have known that…he did it…and he is part of me…so that must be why I do the same.
I'm not exactly certain how we came to inherit my grandfather's WWI journal. (I'll make a point to ask Mom.) However the precise chain of events worked themselves out over time, there came a moment in my college years when the notion that I could hold in my very hands the words that my grandfather wrote--when he was my age and half a world away several decades before--became profound and moving. Suddenly, books like All Quiet on the Western Front and all that history I was studying in lecture halls and libraries seemed more real, more immediate. More essential.
There is a local professor who holds that all history is essentially family history—and vice versa. I've only heard her remarks secondhand, via my husband who heard her speak recently, but I embrace the notion fully. Indeed, that is an idea that bubbled up for me, but remained unarticulated, when I was in grad school, studying the Medicis and Renaissance Florence. Sometimes your family's story is an epic fable stored in vast, marbled libraries with grand paintings. And sometimes your family's story…or a chunk of it anyway…is found on the pages of a tiny notebook your mom keeps tucked inside a bright blue binder alongside photos and postcards from the time period.
For a few years, the diary was in my own possession (it has been returned because my mother missed it). During those days, I opened it often. I even wrote about it a bit on my own…noting how the neat cursive letters deteriorated as the war (and his time on the frontlines) wore on. I shared it with a couple of professors who humored me by directing this girly-girl to grainy war movies and esoteric, high-minded, post-modern meditations on the expressive immediacy of handwriting. In time, the little book eventually inspired my master's thesis (on the influence of WWI-era aerial photography on Edward Steichen); in fact, that work was even dedicated to my grandfather's memory. The diary also played a role in how I met and fell in love with my husband, but those details are too precious and personal to post online.
Late last year, I spent a fair amount of time researching my family's genealogy. That's one of those things one does, I guess, when you have a young child and you realize not only that there are far too few family members around to write all this stuff down, but you won't be around for long either…so better get your facts straight. In addition to discovering that Tater Tot is related to Elvis, Johnny Cash, President Carter and possibly Barack Obama and Dick Cheney (talk about a gene pool), I rediscovered my grandfather's story of growing up in Hastings, Nebraska…playing tennis on a homemade court…trading postcards with sweethearts…attending business school…marching off to war…coming home a corporal only to find his family's cattle stolen…trekking to Texas…meeting my grandmother in a turtle cannery…raising a family…working for Brown & Root…growing vegetables…aging, aging, aging…and eventually returning, like we all do, "dust unto dust."
This is not to say that I'd forgotten all of this information. We keep a photograph of him as a young man displayed prominently in a heavy silver frame. But I'd lost touch with the particulars of his existence in pursuit of creating a career and family of my own.
Last night I faced the daunting filing cabinet drawer where a lot of my old grad school papers reside. Nestled in among the slides of ancient Roman busts and various papers and my notes on Steichen, I found what I sought: a simple black binder filled with a few sheets of computer paper that bear my transcription of his diary. Thumbing through it, I was struck again by my grandfather's clarity of thought, the vivid imagery…and several remarks about the plants and flowers and people he encountered during his tour with Company F 355th Infantry. Some of his entries are short, some are long. Some seem quotidien, some are illuminating…in fact, in their brevity and directness, they remind me now very much of good blogging—the very kind of clear, compelling writing I hope to practice here on most days.
For: G.B.J.
From: your granddaughter
May you rest in peace, assured that your memory lives on forever…in the blogosphere…and in my garden
For Further Exploration:
• WWI Experience of an English Soldier - The text from the collected letters of William Henry Bonser Lamin in a blog format.
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