My daughter, Laura, left in early January this year to fly to Seattle to take a new job. It was exciting for her — a new opportunity in a new city. For me, not so much. I was feeling left behind.
January 2020 was the beginning of a new year and a new decade. TIME passing — that’s what I saw and felt. Time passing, getting older. No way to stop that.
My great grandfather, Rasselas Smith Mowry, knew that feeling and he left lots of stuff behind — maybe as a way for him to stop time. A box left in an attic contained yearly journals, photographs of his family — most notably the one with his four brothers taken in 1865, medals from his time in the 1st Minnesota Infantry in the Civil War as a Union soldier, and ninety letters written during the Civil War.
I decided to transcribe the letters that he wrote during the Civil War. Our family passed down the letters over the years, but the ink is faded and frequently unreadable. Too much time has passed between 1861 and 2020. Generations of family and generations of time.
My challenge was to take the snippets of letters that remain and turn those descriptions of Civil War battlefields and campgrounds into a compelling story that could take the reader back in time. What shines through for me are his family characteristics and the minor, yet telling, details he puts in his letters. I think of him in his tent in Fort Snelling. He drew a map to show where he slept and the short walk down to the Mississippi river from his Minnesota camp. He was far from his home in Providence, Rhode Island.
I write this as I let my hair dry and fluff the curls that I can encourage if I don’t pull it straight. Rasselas, too, had curls that he encouraged. I discover from my readings that he studied phrenology and wore earrings. Wow, jaunty. He wrote poetically about nature.
He reached out in these letters to his brothers in a way that reminded me to send a message to my daughter. How is the new place you’re staying? Is your dog OK? Are you safe? Have you been eating healthy food?
Meanwhile, I read the faded words from the letters into my computer, which hears the words and turns them into type. Rasselas Mowry — my transcribing software calls him Restless Morning based on my reading of his signature R. S. Mowry. Somehow that almost works. I’m feeling a bit restless and I think he did too. I’ll deal with the software’s misunderstandings and misspellings later. It’s easy to put off the work. Deal with it later — why do I bother? I guess I do because he bothered to write. And his legacy will fade, like the ink on the letters, to nothing if I don’t.
He always starts his letters with Dear Brother. I don’t know which brother though. The envelopes are separate from the letters now. He had four brothers — Simon, Crawford, Gilbert, and Albert. Gilbert was in the Federal Navy. Albert was home. I’m not sure where Simon and Crawford were. Through the letters, all the brothers meld together like the family they were.
We savored the time together before Laura left to fly to Seattle. We hosted a going away party before she left. It was Laura’s birthday party too. She turned 39 — a time to conquer the world, take a new job, move across the country.
That was before the virus. The pandemic of the coronavirus COVID-19 swept slowly across the world. At first it was hard to recognize the power of this deadly disease and realize how it would affect everyone. Throughout the month of March, life changed for everyone.
It continues to change, but it’s also like a time out. Time standing still, no travel, no plans to do anything. So many things have changed. I used to … go places, greet friends, host dinner parties. Now I stay home. I used to put on lipstick to go to the grocery store. Now I stop myself as I’m reaching for the lipstick. It would just rub off inside the mask. I’m in the elderly category so I need to be careful — handshakes become waves, and always mentally measuring a six foot distance to keep away from other people.
I feel fearful, anxious with inertia, fraught with worry, flat, bewildered, and fine. I worried about Laura in Seattle. That city was hit hard with the virus and she was sent home to work in her apartment with just her dog for company.
Time stretched on. In late May Laura and her little dog boarded a plane in Seattle and flew to Atlanta to come and stay with us and work here. She quarantined in the basement for 2 weeks.
Another restless morning and I turn back to Rasselas and listen to his description of chilling rebel yells. I worry about transmission and avoiding COVID-19 as I listen to the nightly news. We’ve both been scared and careful. He marches on from one battlefield to the next, and I carefully don my mask for another grocery store run.
Standing: Albert, Rasselas
Sitting: Gilbert, Simon, Crawford
