Family Reunion

I went to an Allen family reunion near Lewisburg, TN, recently, and I've been meaning to write about it. It was a great experience. I saw my great-grandfather's and great-grandmother's farm, where they tilled the soil and raised dairy cows for decades. I saw the old country church, Cumberland Presbyterian, which I'm pleased to say is still in the country, to which my paternal grandfather's family walked two miles to worship every Sunday. My grandfather told that my great-grandmother (Big Mama) usually sat with the choir, and my great-grandfather (Big Papa) sat on the "gospel side," in the pews facing the pulpit opposite the choir. My Big Papa helped dig the cellar for that church, and he built a couple of the pews too.

I also got to visit the gravesites of several of my deceased relatives. They lie in "Short Cemetery" (named after the Short family, to whom I'm related, I learned) beside Cumberland Presbyterian. Now nobody told me there was a cemetery beside the church, let alone that I'd be visiting my dead relatives there, so it took me by surprise when my father, great uncle, and I began strolling into the plot of headstones. I have to say: it affected me to see a large stone bearing the word "ALLEN." I teared up not from grief (after all, I did not know these family members) but from the weight of realizing, in just that moment, that I came from somewhere. This weighty slab of granite stuck in the earth, engraved with my family's surname, told me, "You have roots. You come from a people."

All accounts are that these were good people too, by and large. Oh, there was one fellow on the family tree who had something like six wives, which perhaps can help me make sense of some of my own base tendencies, but all in all these were good farm folk--hardworking, thrifty, and good with their hands.

One memory stands out in particular. Soon after arriving on the farm my dad told me to follow him. We walked to the barn my great-grandfather built, a large A frame that is still in remarkably good condition, and entered. My father instantly became emotional: so much of the interior remained unchanged, the refrigerator room, where Dad recalled a certain watermelon had been ruined by freezing, and the twelve stalls where dairy cows stood for milking.