May 22,2022 (early draft of opening paragraphs) Dear Grandmother Sarah, I recently wrote a letter to your Grandfather, Henry Taber, my 3rd great grandfather and father of your mother Abby Taber. Very recently I found some interesting information I hadn’t known about our family’s much longer-term connection to Little Compton. You may well have known it and I will get to that soon. But first, the naming conventions of the colonists and early Americans have long fascinated me and your name is a very good place to start, incorporating as it does pieces pointing to the extended family’s past and interconnections.
Category: Letters to the Dead
Backstory: I am in the early stages of a large project that involves researching my ancestors, who arrived in the 17th c., their descendants, and their intertwined lives. I have also been studying creative non-fiction, where one suggested exercise is to write a letter to someone now deceased. I knew immediately who it would be and so I composed a letter to my 3rd great grandfather, Henry Taber. Subsequently, as I move forward with this project, I expect to find other ancestors whose story warrants a preliminary approach to their inclusion in the larger work and letters to them will also provide an opportunity to draft some initial thoughts on their stories. For me, the first letter, to Grandpa Henry, provides a gateway to my new project. For a reader, it and subsequent letters may provide continuing interest in the extended family whose roots were planted in the 17th century in what would become the United States in the late 18th century.
February 2022 Dear Grandpa Henry, Please excuse the informality—I write from the 21st century where life is much less formal. For some years I have had a small photograph of the wonderful oil portrait of you near me and wished so often we could speak. As I explore more about our extended family, I’ve been given an exercise that suggests I write to someone with whom I cannot speak. So, I took up the challenge. Let me introduce myself: I am your 3rd great granddaughter (you to Abby, to Sarah, to Constance, to my mother Sally). After retiring from full-time employment