Family History Month

by Miss Shannon

Of all the months in the year, I am almost positive that October is my favorite. I love everything about it: the changes in temperature; the breathtaking beauty of fall foliage; the cheery faces of the late blooming sunflowers; the warm, sweet smell of apple butter cooking in giant pots on the stove; everything! One more thing that is nice about this month is that October is Family History Month. Every one of us has a family history worth knowing about, wherever you are from and whoever your family is. This is the same with my family. For literally hundreds of years, my family has been doing things that have left me feeling like I absolutely need to write a book telling everyone else the amazing stories that I have grown up hearing. Well, here is a chance to give you all a small glimpse into the interesting history of my family.

The first part of my history that I will tell you about is my Dad’s side of the family. His family has only been in America for the past one hundred years. Before they immigrated, they lived in Hungary and Poland. Since they came here, they have gone through and have seen so many important times in modern day America, such as the Great Depression, the Cold War, the “space race,” and much more. My great-grandma, Grandma Betty, is the only family member still alive to have gone through all of those events. Her family immigrated in the early 1900s, who then moved to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. That is where she was born, in March, 1914. She married my great-grandpa, Grandpa Mike, in the early thirties. His family had also immigrated to America in the early 1900s, from Hungary. They were married around seventy years, until he died in 2000. While Grandma Betty lives with my grandparents more than nine hours away from us, we are still very close to her. She writes us letters twice a week, and we always know that we are constantly in her prayers. I do not think I have ever met, or ever will, a greater prayer-warrior than she is. I love you Grandma!

Next, I will tell you about my Mom’s family. They have been in America since practically the beginning of this country, starting with the Mayflower. Out of all the passengers that crossed over and survived the first winter, three of them were my family. Since then, my Mom’s side of the family has had an integral part in many of the major events of the country. We fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War II. One of my family members traveled the Trail of Tears with the Cherokee Indians, and later married one of the Cherokee women that he met. We were some of those Scotch-Irish families who settled in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee in the late 1700s. Also, one of my grandfathers was one of the people who disappeared in the San Francisco earthquake. Along with those events and many others, one of most exciting events that my family took part in was the Oregon Trail. On that journey, they played a role in the notorious Whitman Massacre.

My great, great, great, great, great grandfather (that’s five “greats”), Elam Young, traveled the trail in a wagon train along with his family, destined for “Oregon country.” While on the journey, Elam Young was hired by Dr. Marcus Whitman to work as a millwright and a mechanic for the Whitman Mission on the building of a new gristmill for the Indians. After resting for a week at the mission, they, along with their teams and cattle, headed up to the Blue Mountains to work, twenty miles away from the mission. There, they worked with another family on sawing lumber for a granary, along with other work. Elam’s second oldest son, James, was hired to haul finished lumber and supplies between the camp and the mission.

About six weeks into the job, James came up to the camp one Saturday for a load. When he set out on the return trip back to the mission, it was decided that he would bring more supplies back to the camp on his next trip up there, because the camp was running out of some. A week went by, and James still had not returned. The camp was running very short on supplies by now, so Elam’s second oldest son, Daniel, rode down to the mission to see what was keeping his brother. By the time he arrived darkness had fallen, so he was not aware of anything wrong as he rode in. Upon arriving, he found some people in the kitchen on the mission. It was only until he had sat down with them did he find out what had happened there: a massacre.

Dr. Whitman, Mrs. Whitman, and nine other people were killed in that massacre; his brother, James, had been killed by Indians a day after the massacre, the same day that he had left the camp. It was not until Daniel had arrived that the Indians remembered the people in the camp. The next day, they sent him back to the camp to tell the others to come back to the mission to join the other hostages. He arrived just before sundown with the news; shortly after that, five Indians arrived to escort them back to the mission. The following weeks were filled with much suffering. While no one else was killed, they were put to work and subjected to abuse. However, after those terrible weeks, they were finally ransomed by Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson’s Bay Company. They then left the mission and headed for Fort Walla Walla.

This story, along with the other events named, are just a few out of so many about my history from both sides of the family. My Mom’s family has been here for quite some time; in comparison to that, my Dad’s family is fairly new to this country. I think that this fact makes my family history unique, because it gives me the chance to see history in general from the eyes of people from all over the world. This concept is the same with everybody. Each event, whether big or small, has a giant role in shaping who we are and how we see the world. Each one of us has a story worth knowing. So, I hope my family story has inspired you to look into knowing more about your family history.

Miss Shannon is a home school junior who loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and is striving to follow Him more and more. She blogs at Below the Plateau.