Digging Deep and Discovering Joy

One of the things I struggle with when I'm writing up a profile of an ancestor is tiptoeing along the line between history and historical fiction.  Each new record provides a window into a person, not just a list of facts.  I find myself wondering why a person did what she did or how she felt about it -- but no record can tell us that.

Take, for example, my great grand aunt, Mary Ann (Davis) Tabor, and the hints about what kind of person she was that can be found in her census records.  I know -- census records?!??  Aren't those boring lists of who lived where on what day?  But there is a fascinating story that can be unearthed if you dig into those records and see who lives next door . . . the relationships among household members and neighbors . . . who had joined the household and who has left (and why!)

In Mary Ann's case, she was born to a large and prosperous family in Macon County, North Carolina.  (Digging in to the census, you see that her father had $1000 worth of real estate and $825 of personal property in 1860.  These are both far above the county averages of $150/real estate and $218/personal property.)  She lived in a large household -- in 1860, there were five children and the parents there.  Now that's all history -- when I cross the line into historical fiction, I wonder if she loved it or hated it?  Her households going forward are usually large and supplemented by extended family.  Did those large families bring her joy?

In 1870, she is one of eight children -- herself, six full siblings, and her half brother Alford.  The time between 1860 and 1870 had been full of change.  Three older siblings had married and left the household. Tragically, her mother had died and a step-mother has joined the house. A new baby had been born.  Her new step-grandparents had joined the household as had two children from her step-mother's first marriage. The family had grown and changed and was now a complex, blended family.

More changes came -- in 1871 Mary Ann married Nathan E. Tabor.  For a short period of time, Mary Ann lived in a smaller household.  In 1880, it was just Mary Ann, Nathan, and their first child, Amanda.  That might seem quite the change from the boisterous households she had grown up in.  But again, digging into the census revealed Mary Ann's deep connections to her family were still in place.  Family members lived nearby. 

This pattern continues throughout Mary Ann's life.  In 1900, Nathan's brother joined the household (which Mary Ann and Nathan were also filling with children).  Relatives remain in the neighborhood.  On the 1910 census, we see that Mary Ann and Nathan had taken in their widowed eldest daughter and a grandchild.  Right there on the census records are the webs of extended family that formed the fabric of Mary Ann's life.

The one exception is the 1920 census -- Mary Ann's last.  Now it is just her and Nathan.  Two of the children had moved out of state and grandchildren were a distance away.  One was still in the area, but not in the home Mary Ann and Nathan had opened to so many throughout their over 50 year marriage.  Again, I am tempted to step over the line from history to historical fiction.  Did Mary Ann and Nathan enjoy the quiet?  The opportunity to sit at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and smile across at the person who had been there for so long -- knowing that no rambunctious kid would run through or call for help or make a mess?  Or did they miss the hustle and bustle of the large and blended family they had housed for so long?  Did they write long letters to their children and grandchildren?  Did the family reunite on the old farmstead for Thanksgiving and Christmas, drinking in the beauty of the mountains and delighting in each other's company?  

I'd love to know the answers to those questions.  I'd love to have the whole story.  While I can't have those answers, I can see so much more about the joys (and the tribulations) of Mary Ann's life, by digging into the census records and finding the glimmers of that larger story within them.