This is just, I think, an interesting little tidbit. I promised to tie in the
journey to find my roots, and how it also involves, albeit in a small
way,
the quest for a life in the country and how I ended up in Georgia.
Dad was always in a hurry "to make good time"
[whatever that is] when we traveled. Being a kid, I desired to linger in the beautiful woods that went whizzing past the car windows. On one trip home from western Pennsylvania (early 1960's and pre-Interstate), I have a vague memory of begging
Dad to stop in Georgia. I wanted to touch some of that lovely red clay
that lined the roadsides in my hands. Red clay was fascinating to a Central Florida girl who grew up with thickets of flat scrub pines, palmettos and sugar sand. Most of the time, he would just
shout he was in a hurry. But this time he stopped at a clay embankment,
scooped up the clay putting it into a bag, then slung it at me in the
car. "Here!" he mumbled, as he mashed the pedal of the Chevy and it heaved itself down the road. I was so pleased to have that silly clay! I kept it for a long, long time.
From the very start, something drew me to the Georgia countryside. Was
it the natural beauty or was it something deeper?
Back
to the Big Land Hunt: we just couldn’t find anything suitable in Florida in our
price range. I suggested to my ever patient, understanding husband about
venturing further North into southeast Georgia. The siren call of the
red clay was still there, little did I know why.
After finding the maternal side of my birth family, we settled into the
time consuming part of getting to know each other. That went over fairly
well for
people who are basically strangers. We had so little in
common, though. Even with satisfying my curiosity about my birth-mother,
I still felt empty, disconnected, and left with a hunger to learn
more about my family. I still wanted something that would help me feel like I too
belonged on this planet and had a purpose. So, I resolved that I would go further back in the family tree.
In the interim, we had moved to our current location in southeast
Georgia, in the Spring of 1993. By that time the Internet for public use
was coming into it’s own. For us country mice, it was dial-up and very
slow, but it almost always worked. Communications where opened up
between history researchers. FamilyTreeMaker software for home use premiered.
Many Courthouses and Genealogists now had their public info on-line. All this made
researching for the Financially Impaired so much easier. I took up the
reins of research with the greatest of ease. To aid in the search I ordered the customary Marriage Licenses, Birth
and Death Certificates, visited courthouses for documents with my family‘s
name on it. Photographed cemetery tombstones hoping for connections. From one of the documents I had ordered I learn my grandmother,
Bessie Moore, first wife of
George Baxter McMahan and mother to
my birth-mother,
Marian Estelle "Mary" McMahan, was born in Axson (Atkinson County), Georgia before her parents moved to Florida during the first Great Depression. “Oh, my goodness”, I thought, “I’ll never find her parents, let alone her grandparents. She
might as well have been a Smith!”
Oh ye of little faith! I was worried
over nothing. Thanks to
Folks Huxford and his Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia books, to whom many of us owe much, and
his cursory research of the Moore Family in Clinch and surrounding
countries, I made all kinds of connections. It was so exciting
to find more of my blood kin. At that point I at least had a basic
outline of Who's Who in part of my Family Tree. And the further I dug into the
research, I was shocked because
I had moved into an area where I must be related to
a good three quarters of the population. I belonged here! I had truly
moved HOME.
So not only had God “adopted“ me spiritually when I first believed in Him, but in His wisdom He gave me more
family than I can shake a stick at. He knew I needed this physical connection. It
satisfied the deep seated yearning for an association to something or someone
deep in my soul. It has brought me comfort and peace that I never had
growing up. My Lord is indeed forevermore loving and kind to even the least of His
servants. Thank you Lord!
But even there, the story does not end. All the information I had gleaned up to that point was
relatively easy compared to how I later found my birth-father from a
woman whom was deceased, that I never met, that didn't tell her sisters nor was his name on any of my
adoption documents. (I know because I had the records opened by court
order.) That story is a
novelette from which I will spare my readers.
[smile]
The Lesson? Life can take a lot of twists and turns but when we trust Jesus, He
will indeed take care of us "exceedingly and abundantly above all we can ask or think" [Ephesians 3:20-21]. He truly will carry us Home whatever that "home" is that we all need. Just be sure you enjoy curvy roads.
