Your Invited – RSVP To Your Great Granddaughter

One of the prompts for the 52 Ancestors (2018) was “Which one of your ancestors would you like to invite to dinner?” Who would it be? Perhaps an ancestor I was privileged to know but failed to ask all the questions that I now want answers for. Perhaps it would be an ancestor that’s a brick wall. Maybe the dinner should be a reunion with them all. But a reunion could not be long enough get all the answers. Maybe just a small dinner party with just the brick wall ancestors but that would just push the wall back a few generations.

Charles McMechen would have to come clean about the tall tales he told about his brick wall parents. And what about changing your name several times. Did you leave a wife in Baltimore before coming to Philadelphia and marrying there? Why did you separate from that wife? And in what political riot did your dad die. 

Mary Hayes Mackin (McMechen) why did you sometimes us the name Bridget? Where in Ireland were your parents born?

John Moore, where were you born? Tell me about your parents and when did your ancestors come to America.

Ann Moore, was your maiden name Shoemaker and if not, where did it come from? You lost so many children who died before you. How did you cope?

Andrew Moore, you saw so much of the country before most people traveled very far from there home. You met Gen. Phil Sheridan and Buffalo Bill Cody. You served under George Custer. What were they like? What were you feeling during those two days in June 1876 at Little Big Horn? I want to thank you for serving your country and the sacrifice of your life.

Fanny Elizabeth (Reed) Moore, you died too young. I’m sorry you lost Charles after just a few years of marriage. To have to put your children in a home and later your oldest son in the home of your second husband’s parents because you couldn’t care for them had to be so hard. Then to lose your baby daughter. Is the unidentified picture of a young woman with a baby in her arms you? I think it is.

Edward Corsett, I want to know about your family. Did you meet Matilda in Michigan? How did your families get to Michigan?

For my ancestors that I actually knew, forgive me for not asking more questions about you. What was it like the first time you voted, rode in a car, what did you like to do, and so many more questions? I want to know all about you but then there may be some things that I may be sorry I found out.

I exist because of you. I stand on your shoulders. Thank you

#52 Ancestors Invitation to Dinner, #52 Ancestors 2018