Editorial
Front Page - Friday, September 10, 2010
Southern Style
Colorful roots
Randall Franks
I recently ?attended my family reunion and I am still full as can be. One thing I have learned is our folks know how to cook.?This was our 23rd since the passing of my father Floyd Franks. He loved to spend time with his family. That joy he passed to me as a child was a desire to know more about our history. As I began my search for ancestors, I never knew what wonders the stories would open to me. Seeing history come to life through people to which I am related helped to make historical events more than just words upon a page.
I am sure that some of the tales have grown with time and the accuracy of some would not hold up in a court of law, but for a ten-year-old and avid history buff, reading about an uncle who traveled with the Lewis and Clarke expedition or discovering a long lost branch of the family that no one knew existed gave me such a thrill.
My search carried me to homes where members of my family have lived since the country was founded. I have stood with a musket in hand on the battlements where my ancestors staved off the Cherokees when the United States was still British colonies. I have touched the soil that once ran red with their blood as they fell fighting the Red Coats and Indians.
Among the lineage I have come to know presidential candidates, congressmen, governors, state legislators, sheriffs, soldiers, cowboys, farmers, businessmen, lawyers, educators, preachers, moonshiners,?outlaws?and even royalty who left their titles behind to become part of the American experience.
With each turn of the page through another generation, my search became more fascinating.
A distant cousin enlightened me to an aspect of our family I never knew, about how some of our ancestors from Portugal came to the Americas even before the Pilgrims settled in eastern North Carolina in the late 1500s. Their settlements were destroyed at some point, and survivors intermarried with Native American tribes and eventually migrated to the mountainous areas in Western North Carolina and Southern Virginia, remaining together as a tribe. These folks became known as the “Melungeons.”
What young boy does the tales of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett not fascinate? To find a link to one of these larger than life frontier men was a delight to me. One of my ancestors apparently was the mortal enemy of Daniel Boone. While that may seem a weak link, it only says to me that at some point in their lives these men were on opposite sides of a fight. Two other ancestors served Boone as scouts on the frontier of Kentucky and Tennessee.
I am told one of my Confed-erate ancestors, Robert Shields, came to the fight when he was already in his 50s. He left behind a wife and 13 children, some of who were already grown and had families of their own.
Shields was captured and sent to prison in Rock Island, Ill. Upon returning, he discovered that his death had been reported to his family earlier in the war.
His wife had re-married and re-settled in Alabama with a new husband. He then went in search of his wife. Only the wind now knows what transpired when he found her, but following the meeting, Robert returned to Georgia and started over. He married again. His second wife also gave him 13 children. He became a minister and started a church where he and his wives now rest.
Yes, both wives. After the death of his first wife’s second husband, he brought her home and built a place for her. He looked after her until his death.
I stood at the foot of their graves only wishing I could hear the real story told.
Once our loved ones are gone, however, we are left with only the paper trail and some remnants of memories in the wind. One of my quests of finding the graves of my great, great grandparents William and Sarah Bandy may never be realized, because too many years have passed for anyone to recall their unmarked graves in the cemetery.
While history is a wonderful place to spend time seeing the colors that make up your family tree, if you would like to know the story of your family, start with those around you. Don’t forget that those stories that are right at your fingertips will one day be history, too.
You might just wish you had written them down. Relish the people in your family. Thousands of stories and lives have been lived, so you have your chance at serving your generation. Honor them.
Randall Franks is an award-winning musician, singer and actor. He is best known for his role as “Officer Randy Goode” on TV’s “In the Heat of the Night” now on WGN America. His latest CD release, “An Appalachian Musical Revival,” is by www.shareamericafoundation.org. He is a member of the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame. He is a syndicated columnist for http://randallfranks.com/ and can be reached at rfrankscatoosa@gmail.com.
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