Schwenkfelders and Me and Everyone We're Related To...Week 51

Plus The Gable Grip & Iowa's largest frying pan

I’ve posted often that everywhere I go, there’s something named Waterloo. But I guess things work the opposite way too. Even when I’m in Iowa —as I was this past week— California pops up.

Who knew there was a Hollywood Blvd. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa? It’s near The Blind Pig, which serves pork tenderloin sandwiches (an Iowa staple) and Dan Gable Golden lager (crafted for the wrestling legend, a native of Waterloo, IA). My son was impressed by the Dan Gable connection because he’s familiar with the Gable Grip from jiu-jitsu classes.

The Rest of the Story

Sounds like we’re going to be hearing a lot about Hillbilly Elegy in the next few months. This is sort of the end of my elegy (aka family story). Previously I wrote about working class roots and having family members and others die too soon and too often in what people call deaths of despair. I’ve talked about drugs nearly wiping out a generation. But the last couple of weeks I also mentioned what I discovered through research about the many previous generations. We were descended from people who didn’t broker in despair. Many of my ancestors came to what would become Rhode Island, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in the late 1600s or early 1700s. For 200+ years they were founders, military leaders, a famous writer, a mathematician, a college music instructor and religious folks (can’t forget the Schwenkfelders or our connection to the ministers in the Emerson line). Of course, we also had farmers and lots of people I know little about. There are fascinating details in everyone’s history and it’s difficult often to understand them. I have one grandmother who was listed on a census as “mulatto” and then deemed white on her death certificate. I still haven’t figured that out. So I have some work to do.

But how does a family do well for a long time and then not? By piecing together the research I’d guess that on one side at least things started to take a turn in Ohio when a grandmother died at age 29, leaving two kids behind. Then two generations after that also lost parents way too early. In one family three children were wiped out in a week with a diphtheria outbreak. There were also wars, a pandemic, the Great Depression and moving deeper into the Midwest, where previous family connections frayed and opportunity likely became less plentiful.

In particular I think my grandfather’s loss of his father probably left him adrift. My brother reminded me that he moved to Waterloo to open a music store, which didn’t fare well. He had four boys when he and my grandmother were too young and things got chaotic. And then more chaotic with their kids. They all ended up in factories and other blue collar jobs. Probably it was a combination of time and place. And of course the whole story is much more complicated than what I’m saying here, but everybody’s story is more complicated than you think. In short, though, drinking got heavier (maybe this started as a rebellion even of being raised amongst the pious). And then the drinker generations gave way to the more recent drug user generation — and the drugs got stronger and then the deaths of despair. It can happen to any family (that’s why I cringe when I hear someone talk about a “good family” or a “bad family”. Who can really tell?). When you take a longer view, you see different families in possible various stages all the time. I say “possible” because of course you never know how any person or generation will turn out until you have the ability to look back.

In researcher speak a lot of what I’m mentioning could be connected to “adverse childhood events”— a really interesting area of study. I’ve been listening to The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s about traumatic stress, adverse events and the impact on society and family. Van der Kolk is a trailblazer in the area and his stories are sometimes hard to hear but also needed. I urge you to check it out. Here’s a little bit about…

But also I want to say that as someone who grew up white working class with union folks in a factory town there’s no effing way I put any stock in JD Vance. In case you wondered.

Backpack is the New Wheelie (at least for us)

Lastly, a travel tip. After being forced to check our wheelie suitcases a few times and even having them lost once, we’re now on to backpack suitcases. You can fit a lot in these and they are much easier to carry. We’ve used them on three trips so far and they’re great. You have to pack light, but you’d be surprised how doable that is. These el cheapo ones are so far holding up! Just thought you might like to know.

And just because this is kind of fun…

Gabe flanked by his cousins inside Iowa’s largest frying pan.

You do know what next week is, right? It’s the one year mark!