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Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca A Journal from Spain
April 17 the year of our Lord 1545
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
April 17 the year of our Lord 1545
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
April 17 the year of our Lord 1545
My name is Beatri Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and I must write this in haste before I board the ship tonight. It stands waiting in the harbor. I am to meet Eutropio Ponce de Leon near the dock at midnight and dress as a boy. Together we will work our way on the exploration ship Santa Maria de Belen. No one must discover I am a girl, or I will be returned to my father who has betrothed me to his cousin Don Pedro Fernandez Cabeza de Vaca. His first wife, Violenta de Tebes died last year, leaving him with several children, and he only wants to take a new wife to have a housekeeper and child tender. Eutropio and I planned to be married, but he has not earned enough money to pay a dowrey, and as third son in his family, he will be forced to become a monk.
When Eutropio heard of the betrothal, he told me of the ship sailing to the Amerigus and that if we survive the journey, we can settle in a new land and be married. There we can raise our children and have land for them — he even said we could become nobility with the titles of Hidalgo and wife.
I am so excited to be leaving Spain and my family, but frightened at the same time. I have never known any place except my home in Spain. I can’t even imagine what this Amerigus Land must be like. I have heard stories of golden castles with streets paved of gold, and people who wear gold and silver adornments in place of clothes. Eutropio says my wedding dress will be of pure gold and my hair will be plaited in silver when we arrive there. But before then, I must work like a boy and survive the journey on the sailing ship. I have only seen the ship from a distance, it looks so small with the sails down and setting among so many others. Eutropio says everyone has to sleep together in a very small room at the bottom of the ship, and the food we take with us has to last all the way to the New World. Sometimes there might be storms, but I must be brave and strong to survive the ship so we can start our family in this wonderful new land. I have seen ships come in with the sails billowing in the wind. They move so smoothly as birds flying through the clouds. I cannot imagine it to be so difficult to ride the waters on such a ship as the Santa Maria de Belen, having been named after the mother of Jesus Christ.
Eutropio has arranged for us both to have jobs on the ship; when we arrive in the new land, we will be paid our wages in silver and gold that we can use to buy anything we need to build our home and a farm. I understand we will even have animals on board the ship, and seeds to plant. The soil there is so rich that when seeds are planted they spring up over night and bear fruit within a few days.
My father, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca lead an expedition in 1527 when I was just a child. He and Cabeza de Vaca and the father of Eutropio, Ponce de Leon, sailed to the eastern side of the new continent to explore a land they call Florida. He and his entire crew were captured by savages and kept as slaves for over six years. He was one of the only survivors. They escaped from the savages and wandered for two more years westward across the continent and found the place now called New Spain where many of the explorers are beginning to settle. There are towns with families living in them. He said some of the explorers were even marrying savage women and bearing children. I think these women must be princesses of the tribes that wear the golden ornaments and clothing. Perhaps when my husband is an Hidalgo, I too will be considered as royalty. Once we get there, I will be Dona Beatriz Ponce de Leon.
As I write this with the last smidge of oil burning in my lantern, I know I am looking for the last time on my home. Mama and Papa lie sleeping in the corner, and my brothers and sister are beside me on their sleeping pallets. I gave the last of my evening meal to them, because we have all been so hungry for so long, I wanted them to have something good from me to remember that I love them. I know I will miss them, but the family will have more to eat with me gone, and I will be better even dead than as a wife to Don Pedro.
I must go now. I have only the clothes I am wearing that my brother grew out of last year, and the blanket I sleep on; they are already nearly rags, but they will have to last me until I replace them with my golden wedding dress.
August 25, The year of Our Lord, 1545
We arrived yesterday and I fell on the beach and kissed the sand, so grateful was I to be released from the confinement of the ship and the constant rolling motion of that beastly prison. The rags I wore to begin with are all but gone, and what is left is stiff with the salt from the ocean spray. My hair is tangled and full of lice as is Eutropio’s. My skin is covered with flea bites, and my body smells like the sewage drains of my home town. I scrubbed with sand in the salt water on the beach just to take off the layers of filth that have built up in my hair and skin. It was a relief to be rid of some of the vermin. Some have shaven their heads to be rid of the lice, but I cannot bear to think of that, though it may be the only way to ever get rid of the tangles as well as the lice. All of us have lost any weight we had to begin with, and we look like skeletons rather than human beings. Even though my stomach has been empty for days since we ran out of weevil infested flour and mildewed fruits and the last of the meat filled with maggots, I vomit constantly and have suffered severe dysentery for the last three weeks. It took all our strength to continue the final miles of the journey after we spotted what we thought was in land. It turned out to be a mirage and it took a week more to reach the a bay. I have seen no houses of gold or people dressed in gold, but as we marched inland from the ship we found a jungle filled with fruits of indescribable shapes and colors. I would have thought that when at last I found clean food, I would gorge myself, but the smallest bites were more than I could bear to chew and swallow.
We had all been surprised and excited to see the skyline of a huge city, even before we landed. It looked to be larger than any I had seen in Spain, but the captain would not allow us to leave the ship, instead he insisted that we were too far South, and we had to sail northward along the coast for a full day before we were allowed to dock. He did, however allow a landing party to go ashore and gather fruit and fresh water. He told us that in 1517 Captain Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had landed in that place and the entire crew had been massacred by savages. I wondered if those had been the same ones who my father had found on his expedition.
For the last day on the ship we had noticed the nearly fluorescent turquoise color of the sea, and hours before we reached dock we could see the line of jungle trees for miles along the beach. Fresh water from springs is abundant here, and I am just now beginning to be able to drink more than a single swallow at a time.
The native people look as ragged as we and have made us welcome in their jungle homes for the night. Though ragged, they cover themselves with brightly colored woven blankets and capes. Even the babies are wrapped in beautifully woven cloths.
The homes of these simple natives are in the crevices and openings of rocks built into great pyramids and castles that belonged to another world. The jungle has all but taken over the towering structures, but it is clear that we are now living in a land once inhabited by a great and skilled civilization. As I was able to walk about the city more today in the light of day, I saw evidence of palaces, irrigation ditches, statues and letters carved into stone walls. I found a small stone doll which I picked up and hid in the shreds of my blanket. Then I sat on a stone wall and wept. I wept for a lost civilization that had once lived and played here, that had once watched their children grow up. I wept from fatigue and fear and hunger; and I wept in relief that the journey was finally over, and with joy, anticipating our new life here.
Over half of the crew died on the voyage, and few are willing to make the return trip. I didn’t think it would be so easy to pass as a boy for four months with the skimpiness of the clothing left clinging to my body. Perhaps because near starvation and constant manual labor reduced me to a sack of bones, I could not even count the passage of months in a womanly manner because all functions stopped after the first week on the ship.
Eutropio will confess to the captain tomorrow that I am a girl, and request that the captain perform the marriage ceremony in the absence of a priest. I can’t see how he could even still want to marry me the way I look now, but he says my courage and inner strength made me even more beautiful to him. He has been so kind and if he had not been there with me every step of the way I think I should have surely died the first week. Everyone who has made the trip before assures us that we will be able to eat and drink normally again with in a few days. I look forward to enjoying the tastes of the marvelous looking fruits that grow on every tree and vine in sight. I wish my family could be here to share the wealth of food.
I truly thought I would not live to write this page, but now that Our Lord Jesus has seen fit to allow me and Eutropio to survive this dangerous journey, we will be married and begin a family in this new world, where never again will we or our children fear hunger. This will be a land where our children’s children and their children will live and prosper. Truly we, like Abraham and Sara will be the parents of nations.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Mayan Princess
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Sunday, March 22, 2009
Mayan Princess
Journal of a Mayan Princess
(a fantasy geneology story of the Mayan age when the Conquistadores Came to Mexico.
I sat on the leafy pallet running my fingers through the wet clay, dreaming of the day I could create a vessel so beautiful it would be accepted by the high priests at the temple to burn incense. As a small child I loved the feel of the cool wet clay and pressing it into the molds to make simple bowls and serving platters for our own family dinners. I painted simple images on them and presented them to be fired. I always felt so proud when my dishes were used to serve the family and especially when they were brought to serve the priest of other visitors that came to our home.
The making of vessels was expected as part of all young girls home making skills, but mine were especially admired. Perhaps it was vein of me to be so proud, but even as a small child I knew my pressed vessels and the designs I painted on them were special creations. I was barley old enough to reach the top of the largest vessels when I began to reach down to gather handsful of the slippery whitish, clay and roll it into long slender snakes. Protecting the ropes of clay with damp leaves I formed the bottom of my first coiled vessel, carefully winding the coil in tight spirals with no spaces in between. I guided the clay up layer by layer, each representing Mayan people throughout all generations of time. The coils shape and define the new pot, before my eyes. I wanted to make my very first coiled vessel perfect. I was disappointed when the shape was uneven and it did not match the image I had in my mind.
I continued to try, day after day attempting to match reality with my vision of perfection. Before I was a year older I presented my first perfectly shaped vessel to the fire god. It was perfectly shaped from any view. I had pressed each coil firmly in place with wet hands, smoothing on the inside and on the outside as I build up layer after layer. After it dried for a day in the sun,I scrapped the roughness from it with a stone knife and completed the perfection of its shape by rubbing and buffing every space on it, leaving no sign of the coils used to build it.
I watched the Quetzal bird, his red chest puffed out and yellow and greed back feathers hanging gracefully from his body. How I wished I could find a way to imitate the bright colors of nature even after the pot was baked hard. I painted the designs on my vessel using different thickness of slip to bring contrast and brightness to the color, and used lime pigment to create contrast and brightness. I knew it was up to the fire god to bless my paintings so there would not be strange variarions in the color, or worse yet, black smudges from the changes in heat and smoke.
I used the iron based slip, painting extra layers, and more layers in spots to add contrast and brightness. It would turn the brightest reds and yellows as it baked. I longed for a way to control the process, but I knew that in all the millennium that our people had coiled painted and backed these very vessels that had been nothing created to protect the integrity of the color. Sticks and branches piled above my precious offering were set ablaze and fuel was added to insure continuos hot fire.
I turned to watch my brother carving intricate and true to the traditions of the ceremonial masks. Each individual mask was unique, yet folowed the traditions of generations. He was asked by many to make the masks for their dances and celebrations.
“Do you believe the story of the Quetzal bird?” I asked idly just to start a conversation. Grandfather says before the Spaniards came, the birds had only yellow and green feathers.”
Grandfather lived long before the Quetzal bird turned red. He lived long before the Spaniards came to our land with their metal suits and swords.
“Have you ever seen a Spaniard?”
As children, we knew the dangers the Spaniards brought to our villeges. Whole families and villages had been killed by deadly diseases they brought. Others were killed by their swords in unexpected attacks that were not understood by our people.
When the first Spaniards came by sea through the foggy bay their ship appeared to have come from the sky. All Mayan people know the tradition of Quetzalcoatl, the white god, returning to our people. He would come from the sky. Those seeing his ship believed he was returning as promised and welcomed and worshiped him. We later learned his name was Captain Hernando Cortez and he was just a man, a very cruel and savage man, whose main interest was in the slaves and gold he could ship back to Spain. During one of the Spanish attacks against a village in 1524 a Spaniard struck down a Mayan warrior, Tecum Uman, defending his village. The Quetzal bird then flew down and laded on the Mayan Warrior as he flew away his chest feathers had turned to the color of blood.
Since then relics of Spanish soldiers were collected to ward off the ravages of the tools of war and disease. Many of the shields were colorfully painted. Colors not seen except in nature. I wondered how they could paint the metal with such colors. I traced th zig-zag pattern in the lightening symbol as Tx Chel, goddess of rain hurled a lightening bolt with such power through the rain.
“If we could find out where they get the colors or how they make them, I might be able to paint my pottery with the colors as bright as weavers use in weaving hulitas. We set out on a journey to discover the origin of the brightly colored paints used by the Spaniards. We were found and taken prisoners by Spanish Soldiers. I became the slave of Captain Cabesa de Vaca and bore three of his children. I learned the secrets of color and now I make beautiful pottery for our family.
The Captain returned to Spain or died at sea, but I have not seen him for many seasons. My children do not know him, only of him. I teach them the art of coiled pottery and carving masks, and we use the magic of color the Spaniards brought; the most beautiful in all the world. Besides my children and my freedom, Captain De Vaca brought me a kiln. My colors are no longer at the mercy of the gods of fire, but depend only on my talent for painting a story and selecting true colors and images to adorn the vessel.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
W. H. Seaward, Lincoln's secretary of State
Brent carefully stacked the blocks of firewood he had brought in
for the fireplace. As he built a log cabin type tower he grinned
up at Mom who was resting in the recliner.
"That reminds me of the little cabins my brothers used to
make from the wood blocks Daddy brought home from a box factory
in St. John. My earliest memory is of my brothers allowing Marie and
I to play with them. I think sometimes Mother made them.
"Anyway, they would place the wood blocks in a huge circle,
well, I was three, what can I say, it was huge to me. There were
spaces between each block and then they stacked the next layer
between the blocks resting on the bottom row. The let us go
inside when we promised to be very careful. I remember the sun
making little squares o the ground inside the wooden igloo as it
shone through between each block."
"Both of them are still really good builders. Uncle Glenn
built his house in Eagar and Uncle Duane has changed this
whole house around."
Lynae joined the conversation. "I sure like how he made
this apartment for you in the basement of his own house.
"Yeah, my big brothers have always been my heroes and my
rescuers. I don't know how I would have lived without them. It's
funny when we were still in school I didn't get along with them
much and they weren't around much when I was in high school.
Duane went into the Navy and Glenn went on a church mission to
Central America and then into officer's training school in the
army. The they got married and it was just us scraps at home in
Scottsdale.
"Scraps?" Lynae questioned her choice of words.
"When Cheryse was about ten she and I were home with
baby Monte, before you two were eve thought of, and I suggested we
go to the swimming pool for family time they had a special
family rate. Becky and Monte were off somewhere with their dad,
probably at the pig farm.
Cheryse asked me, "are you sure they'll count us as a
family, just us scraps?"
I loved the expression so I use it when referring to just a
part of the family. She even painted me a little plaque that I
have hanging upstairs inn Aunt Jean's sewing area because she
makes theses fabulous lone star quilts for all her kid's
weddings.
It says, "When life gives you scraps, make a quilt."
"That's pretty much how you've done the last ten years, Mom,
you've been given some pretty tough scraps, and have turned it
into a beautiful quilt of adventures and education for us," Brent
admitted taking a break from the block house that now nearly
filled the floor of the Orem apartment living room.
"I've enjoyed the stories you tell us about our family
history, Mom," Monte added. "You kind of make the whole thing
seem real."
and Lynae were talking later as they cleaned the
kitchen after dinner.
"I guess we can never go back to the past now, Lynae, the
apartment in Las Vegas seemed to hold the magic carpet to travel
through our New Mexico History, and now that Dad moved us to
Henderson, everything is different.
"At least you didn't have to change schools because you were
already into your Aerospace academy at Rancho. I had to leave
all my friends at church and school and go to a strange school.
Everyone says your eighth grade is the best year of your life,
but I had to move right in the middle and it's a harder school,
so I'll probably get all C's instead of straight A's like I
usually do. And the school can't even give me a grade for last
semester because they can't give me a grade for fifteen days, and
I've only been in school twelve days."
"Even though both schools are in Clark County School
District? that seems strange." Mom asked rhetorically, having
overheard the conversation on her way in.
"And besides all that, the day after we moved to Henderson I
called my friends Meredith and Luanne in a three way phone
conversation and they said that Terry said that if he would have
known I liked him four months earlier he would have asked me
out."
"Well, you cant even date til your sixteen anyway, so what
the big deal? Mote questioned his little sister.
"Well I would have said no but it would have been nice to
know and be friends." Lynae countered, forcing the ring she had
fashioned onto Mom's ring finger.
"What's that thing?" Brent asked catching a glimpse of the
ring. "Lynae made it from the scraps of the glue gun when you
used it on your project.
"Well, even though I didn't change schools, I had to learn a
new bus route from Henderson down town to Rancho and I had to get
involved in a new scout group just after I was inducted into
Order of the arrow, and I have to make new friends at churchªwhich we actually haven't been to yet because we've been here
during Christmas vacation. One thing is the same, I'm never at
home because I have to leave at five a.m. and don't get home til
after five thirty, then I find something to eat and go to bed."
"Oh I thought you'd be closer to your school in Henderson."
"I am, but the bus route is longer so I actually have to
leave earlier.
"Well Monte has had some big changes in his life too. You
guys abandoned him to live with his Grandma and finish up his
senior year©©so he basically lived on his own that year, the wet
down to ASU in Tempe to start college. Now he's here with me
until he leaves on his church mission to Spokane Washington on
tax day.
"Yeah everyone life has changed this year. You moved here to
Orem, We moved to Henderson, Cheryse got remarried and is
expecting her fourth baby, Jenny and Aaron got married.
"Stop stop," Brent shouted. "You're giving me a headache. I
feel like the world is just spinning too fast for me."
"Well my sons the world is changing rapidly for our people. "
Lynae imitated the ancient ancestor Cristobal Baca that they had
met on their first journey through time over a year before.
"You sounded just like him," Brent laughed, and added, I just
wish we still had the magic."
Mom was talking to Monte and missed the exchange. The following afternoon the weather was unseasonably warm due to the El Niño phenomenon, and Monte had taken Brent's
hammock and strung it up on the swing set. The hammock actually
had been given to Brent by his oldest brother Doug who had served
a church mission in Brazil some years before. He was married a
lived near their home in Las Vegas.
Monte was enjoying the warm sun, reading as was his usual
pastime, the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln
"Come on Monte," Lynae whined, tugging at Monte's hand and
pushing his book away with the other. All you have done on this
vacation is read that book. What's so interesting in that book?"
"Leave me alone, Lynae." Monte gripped.
"I'm on vacation. Besides someone has to read in this family. You
act like you're allergic to books. I just want to read and get
some rest. Just back off."
"You could come on an adventure with us. You are always away
when Brent and I go on adventures. You do know that we have been
traveling through time and meeting our ancestors, don't you."
"Yeah, right.” Monte said, a pulling the book closer to his
face to block out the sight of anything else.
"Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 of 3, The war Years." Lynae read the
title, "by Carl Sandberg." she continued, determined to get
attention from this big brother she saw so seldom.
"Brent! Help me get Monte out of the hammock. Let's take him on
a history adventure with us."
Brent glanced at the cover of the book Monte was holding very
tightly and very close to his face. Behind the book, Brent could
see the grimace that he knew so well. Monte was not to be
disturbed.
"Oh come on, Lynae, leave him alone. He probably doesn't even
know that he is holding onto an element of our time travel."
Brent lowered his voice to a confidential tone, and said, as if
only to Lynae, "he doesn't know that we could take that book and
go right back to John Hoblit, l861." Brent caught a movement
from Monte in his peripheral vision, and noticed a losing in his
grip on the book. As if at a signal the two younger teens leaped
on Monte in the hammock, the ropes holding it up broke and the
three fell to a pile on the ground, which opened up and in a
spinning whooshing sensation, the laws of time and space
suspended and the three found themselves in Springfield, Illinois."
John Hoblit kept the halfway house between Lincoln and
Springfield. Abe Lincoln often stopped there on his trips
between towns and was a good friend of the Hoblit family." Brent
whispered, quoting from the Jacobs' genealogy history book.
"That was written on one of the divider pages in great grandma
Grace Hoblit's book in her own writing. "that must be 'Uncle Sam ‘look, there's the cane Lincoln
gave him when he was inaugurated as President. "
Millicent Seward walked into the room and greeted 'Uncle Sam',
"I don't want to lose this invitation to the inauguration. That
was such a wonderful affair, in spite of the (describe
inauguration and conflict in the country using Sandberg's book
with Monte's help. . . . ( elaborate: Millicent Seward was
a cousin to W. H. Seaward, Lincoln's secretary of State. Their
father's were brothers. John and Millicent are buried in the old
Clear Creed cemetery, John had donate the land for the cemetery
he was the e first to be buried in it. Many Larisons and Hoblitsare buried there as well as in the Atlanta Cemetery."
for the fireplace. As he built a log cabin type tower he grinned
up at Mom who was resting in the recliner.
"That reminds me of the little cabins my brothers used to
make from the wood blocks Daddy brought home from a box factory
in St. John. My earliest memory is of my brothers allowing Marie and
I to play with them. I think sometimes Mother made them.
"Anyway, they would place the wood blocks in a huge circle,
well, I was three, what can I say, it was huge to me. There were
spaces between each block and then they stacked the next layer
between the blocks resting on the bottom row. The let us go
inside when we promised to be very careful. I remember the sun
making little squares o the ground inside the wooden igloo as it
shone through between each block."
"Both of them are still really good builders. Uncle Glenn
built his house in Eagar and Uncle Duane has changed this
whole house around."
Lynae joined the conversation. "I sure like how he made
this apartment for you in the basement of his own house.
"Yeah, my big brothers have always been my heroes and my
rescuers. I don't know how I would have lived without them. It's
funny when we were still in school I didn't get along with them
much and they weren't around much when I was in high school.
Duane went into the Navy and Glenn went on a church mission to
Central America and then into officer's training school in the
army. The they got married and it was just us scraps at home in
Scottsdale.
"Scraps?" Lynae questioned her choice of words.
"When Cheryse was about ten she and I were home with
baby Monte, before you two were eve thought of, and I suggested we
go to the swimming pool for family time they had a special
family rate. Becky and Monte were off somewhere with their dad,
probably at the pig farm.
Cheryse asked me, "are you sure they'll count us as a
family, just us scraps?"
I loved the expression so I use it when referring to just a
part of the family. She even painted me a little plaque that I
have hanging upstairs inn Aunt Jean's sewing area because she
makes theses fabulous lone star quilts for all her kid's
weddings.
It says, "When life gives you scraps, make a quilt."
"That's pretty much how you've done the last ten years, Mom,
you've been given some pretty tough scraps, and have turned it
into a beautiful quilt of adventures and education for us," Brent
admitted taking a break from the block house that now nearly
filled the floor of the Orem apartment living room.
"I've enjoyed the stories you tell us about our family
history, Mom," Monte added. "You kind of make the whole thing
seem real."
and Lynae were talking later as they cleaned the
kitchen after dinner.
"I guess we can never go back to the past now, Lynae, the
apartment in Las Vegas seemed to hold the magic carpet to travel
through our New Mexico History, and now that Dad moved us to
Henderson, everything is different.
"At least you didn't have to change schools because you were
already into your Aerospace academy at Rancho. I had to leave
all my friends at church and school and go to a strange school.
Everyone says your eighth grade is the best year of your life,
but I had to move right in the middle and it's a harder school,
so I'll probably get all C's instead of straight A's like I
usually do. And the school can't even give me a grade for last
semester because they can't give me a grade for fifteen days, and
I've only been in school twelve days."
"Even though both schools are in Clark County School
District? that seems strange." Mom asked rhetorically, having
overheard the conversation on her way in.
"And besides all that, the day after we moved to Henderson I
called my friends Meredith and Luanne in a three way phone
conversation and they said that Terry said that if he would have
known I liked him four months earlier he would have asked me
out."
"Well, you cant even date til your sixteen anyway, so what
the big deal? Mote questioned his little sister.
"Well I would have said no but it would have been nice to
know and be friends." Lynae countered, forcing the ring she had
fashioned onto Mom's ring finger.
"What's that thing?" Brent asked catching a glimpse of the
ring. "Lynae made it from the scraps of the glue gun when you
used it on your project.
"Well, even though I didn't change schools, I had to learn a
new bus route from Henderson down town to Rancho and I had to get
involved in a new scout group just after I was inducted into
Order of the arrow, and I have to make new friends at churchªwhich we actually haven't been to yet because we've been here
during Christmas vacation. One thing is the same, I'm never at
home because I have to leave at five a.m. and don't get home til
after five thirty, then I find something to eat and go to bed."
"Oh I thought you'd be closer to your school in Henderson."
"I am, but the bus route is longer so I actually have to
leave earlier.
"Well Monte has had some big changes in his life too. You
guys abandoned him to live with his Grandma and finish up his
senior year©©so he basically lived on his own that year, the wet
down to ASU in Tempe to start college. Now he's here with me
until he leaves on his church mission to Spokane Washington on
tax day.
"Yeah everyone life has changed this year. You moved here to
Orem, We moved to Henderson, Cheryse got remarried and is
expecting her fourth baby, Jenny and Aaron got married.
"Stop stop," Brent shouted. "You're giving me a headache. I
feel like the world is just spinning too fast for me."
"Well my sons the world is changing rapidly for our people. "
Lynae imitated the ancient ancestor Cristobal Baca that they had
met on their first journey through time over a year before.
"You sounded just like him," Brent laughed, and added, I just
wish we still had the magic."
Mom was talking to Monte and missed the exchange. The following afternoon the weather was unseasonably warm due to the El Niño phenomenon, and Monte had taken Brent's
hammock and strung it up on the swing set. The hammock actually
had been given to Brent by his oldest brother Doug who had served
a church mission in Brazil some years before. He was married a
lived near their home in Las Vegas.
Monte was enjoying the warm sun, reading as was his usual
pastime, the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln
"Come on Monte," Lynae whined, tugging at Monte's hand and
pushing his book away with the other. All you have done on this
vacation is read that book. What's so interesting in that book?"
"Leave me alone, Lynae." Monte gripped.
"I'm on vacation. Besides someone has to read in this family. You
act like you're allergic to books. I just want to read and get
some rest. Just back off."
"You could come on an adventure with us. You are always away
when Brent and I go on adventures. You do know that we have been
traveling through time and meeting our ancestors, don't you."
"Yeah, right.” Monte said, a pulling the book closer to his
face to block out the sight of anything else.
"Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2 of 3, The war Years." Lynae read the
title, "by Carl Sandberg." she continued, determined to get
attention from this big brother she saw so seldom.
"Brent! Help me get Monte out of the hammock. Let's take him on
a history adventure with us."
Brent glanced at the cover of the book Monte was holding very
tightly and very close to his face. Behind the book, Brent could
see the grimace that he knew so well. Monte was not to be
disturbed.
"Oh come on, Lynae, leave him alone. He probably doesn't even
know that he is holding onto an element of our time travel."
Brent lowered his voice to a confidential tone, and said, as if
only to Lynae, "he doesn't know that we could take that book and
go right back to John Hoblit, l861." Brent caught a movement
from Monte in his peripheral vision, and noticed a losing in his
grip on the book. As if at a signal the two younger teens leaped
on Monte in the hammock, the ropes holding it up broke and the
three fell to a pile on the ground, which opened up and in a
spinning whooshing sensation, the laws of time and space
suspended and the three found themselves in Springfield, Illinois."
John Hoblit kept the halfway house between Lincoln and
Springfield. Abe Lincoln often stopped there on his trips
between towns and was a good friend of the Hoblit family." Brent
whispered, quoting from the Jacobs' genealogy history book.
"That was written on one of the divider pages in great grandma
Grace Hoblit's book in her own writing. "that must be 'Uncle Sam ‘look, there's the cane Lincoln
gave him when he was inaugurated as President. "
Millicent Seward walked into the room and greeted 'Uncle Sam',
"I don't want to lose this invitation to the inauguration. That
was such a wonderful affair, in spite of the (describe
inauguration and conflict in the country using Sandberg's book
with Monte's help. . . . ( elaborate: Millicent Seward was
a cousin to W. H. Seaward, Lincoln's secretary of State. Their
father's were brothers. John and Millicent are buried in the old
Clear Creed cemetery, John had donate the land for the cemetery
he was the e first to be buried in it. Many Larisons and Hoblitsare buried there as well as in the Atlanta Cemetery."
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