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Unfinished Biography

I'm thinking tonight of people and their lives. Even as a kid, I wasn't much of a fiction reader. Yes, I did read some silly stories and novels and every early Nancy Drew story written, but they were usually because my friends were reading them, and I didn't want to feel left out. Whenever I went to the library, I invariably checked out something non-fiction, usually either a biography or science-related book. I loved biographies...still do.

For one thing, a good biography reveals a person's brightest and darkest sides of their personality. I always feel better knowning that I'm not the only screwed up person in the world who all too often wonders why my friends are willing to claim me, what my husband saw in me that convinced him to spend his life with me, and whether or not there is anything in me redeemable enough to make a difference in the world.

Right now I am obsessed with a biography that I may never have entirely figured out in this lifetime. Sometime around 1895, a 13-year old walked out the front door of his family home in the West Virginia mountains and never returned. This has haunted me for months now, and I even drift to sleep exploring all the possible reasons why he did this. My best conclusion at this point is that he wanted more than what he had on that homestead.

I can't help but try to imagine his hopes and dreams. What did he think he'd find out there in the world? Did he ever find it? What did he see and experience as he walked through that mountain terrain all alone? How did he feed himself? Where did he sleep? Did he ever wonder about his family? Why did he never go back?

What I do know is that became a detective, a G-Man, and at one point was a steel worker and machinist/laborer. He was renting a room from someone in Youngstown, Ohio in 1900, and he did eventually marry sometime between 1920 and 1925. This man is my great-grandfather. He died in 1946, taking with him the answers to all those questions.

Here I am, 60 years later, thinking about all the blank spaces he left behind and the intriguing idea that somewhere in those green-tipped mountains is someone like me. Someone who is thinking about a blank space in the family history that holds the story of a 13 year old uncle who left home one day and never returned.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You write very well.

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