Descendant of Pilgrims

Being a descendant of Pilgrims slipped up on me this week. It’s one of those tidbits that I once knew then forgot.

I was thinking about Thanksgiving, the Mayflower and hardships the early Pilgrims endured just to survive. Then my maternal grandmother came to mind and all that she experienced in her 85 years on the planet.

She did not have an easy life but she sure was tenacious, resilient and determined. No matter what obstacle was placed in front of her, she did whatever it took to get around, over, under or through it to the other side.

Her husband’s wild ideas took the family all over the country, and she never complained. After he spiraled into his own depression after the big Depression wiped out everything in the early 1930s, the family trekked from Los Angeles to Oregon. They eked out an existence on an old shabby ranch with no running water, electricity or gas for heat.

From there, the family moved across the country to Vermont to run a dairy farm her brother had and didn’t know how to manage.

After their six children went their own ways, my grandparents moved to another farm where he alienated a neighboring farmer. They moved on to Front Royal, Virginia, and ran two small diners down the street from each other, living above one of them.

As they reached their 70s, they moved to Columbus, Georgia, across the river from where we lived in Phenix City, Alabama, to run a boarding house. Actually, Grandmama did most of that work plus constantly keeping up with Granddaddy. He suffered with serious dementia – they called it hardening of the arteries back then. He would wander off, get on a bus sometimes and end up miles away. My daddy would go pick him up.

Doing her own thing

He died in 1963. For 52 years Grandmama had stuck by his side, despite his grumpiness,

Gladys Bonney and Edwin Huckabee married on her 21st birthday, Sept. 28, 1911. Her cousin, Jane Morse, on her right helped her with genealogy many years later.

volatility, dalliances in his younger years and wanderlust. Because she never learned to drive and never lived on her own, she was dependent on others but determined not to be a burden.

She moved in with my parents and alternately spent a few months with her other daughter in Florida and a son in Virginia. At 73, she enrolled in a correspondence course with the Palmer Institute in California.

She also took on tracking her ancestry. She had heard stories from her mother and aunts about their heritage but didn’t have all the facts. She knew her grandfather, Samuel Harlow, had come from one of the earlier families in New England.

Way before computers, Grandmama and her first cousin, Jane Morse, did their genealogy search the old-fashioned way, sifting through on-site records. They visited the Harlow Old Fort House near the center of Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was built by Sergeant William Harlow, their ancestor six generations back.

A descendant of Pilgrims

Gladys Huckabee, well into her 80s here, discovered she was a descendant of Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower.

He had married Rebecca Bartlett in 1649, granddaughter of Richard Warren, one of the original 102 passengers on the Mayflower in 1620. Then William and Rebecca’s son, William Harlow Jr., married Lydia Cushman in 1683. She was the granddaughter of Isaac Allerton and daughter of Mary Allerton, two other Mayflower passengers.

So, of the 58 families represented on that voyage, two were direct ancestors. Now I get it – that’s how my grandmother got to be so tough. She came from hardy stock way back, a descendant of Pilgrims.

Not only did our ancestors survive the 65-day harrowing voyage in tight quarters, except for Allerton’s wife who died the first winter in Plymouth, they all lived and flourished. Many of the other passengers were not so fortunate. Even if they survived the trip, they perished in the first year.

Mary Allerton was only four years old on that journey. When she died in 1699, 79 years after the voyage, she was the last of the original Mayflower passengers.

It’s estimated that more than 10 million living Americans and close to 35 million worldwide are descendants of the Pilgrims and the 35 crew members on the Mayflower. I don’t doubt that at all. Sergeant William Harlow, himself, had 14 children with his three wives.

I’m just thankful to be a part of this strong heritage and for the ongoing opportunity to better appreciate those who paved the way for my great life!