Tag Archives: generational trauma

those unfamiliar pings…

Posted on by
5

MILDRED…

Sometimes I notice a feeling, an unfamiliar ping or see a fleeting image in my mind’s eye and I ask myself, does this belong to me? These sensations drive my ancestral research and creativity now.

She died before I could call her Grandma, so she is forever Mildred to me. The elusive woman who raised my mother and uncle on a farm in southeastern South Dakota and died in her late forties.

What would she have been like as a grandmother? On the left she is holding my Uncle Larry. I imagined me in her lap on the farm.

The mystery of Mildred’s life haunts me…there’s a time in the mid-1930s that she’s in Santa Cruz, California. I’m tugging on that thread to see what I can unravel.

Mildred’s Mom—NORA…

Nora Kyte Millette (1885-1940) was my great-grandmother. I layered my image over Nora’s…I think she’s rockin’ the big silver hoop earrings.

I’ve learned a lot about her life and her heartaches in the last few years. Nora has come alive to me through research, interviews, and Ancestry.com. During the mid-1930s, she made big sacrifices for Mildred, allowing her to leave the farm, go to high school an hour away in town, and live with her aunt and uncle.

Nora’s Mom—TERESA…

This is my 2nd great-grandmother Theresa Ringley Kyte (1858-1939). The resemblance is evident, we’re both in our late 40s in these photographs.

My mother always thought I resembled her side of the family. I didn’t think so when seeing pictures of Mildred, clearly I had to look further back to my great grandmothers.

When I see myself next to her I think about the commonalities of womanhood regardless of the time period. What did she dream about while hanging clothes out on the line for her family? She had ten children in eighteen years, that’s a lot of windy prairie clothesline time to be dreaming or worrying.

“She is not the child that mirrors me, and yet when you put us side by side, there are definite similarities. It’s not in the shape of the mouth but the set of it, the sheer determination that silvers our eyes.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

Grandpa’s grandmother—EMMA…

This image below is half my face and half that of my 2nd great grandmother Emma Agnes Nash Piersol (1871-1939). I didn’t think I resembled her until I layered these images.

She died just a few months after my grandparents were married in May of 1939. The depression, dust storms, and the lead up to the war must’ve taken quite a toll on her. These photos of us are separated by over 100 years. Emma’s far away gaze looks like someone who doesn’t want to be photographed or maybe she feels exposed somehow.

While researching Emma’s line last week, I discovered this about Emma’s grandfather.

I was born on October 12th and named my son, Ellis.

DNA

metabolizing generational trauma…

Posted on by
Reply

“Once the seduction of taming and conquering never seen western lands took root, homesteading men must’ve been often blinded by their brave proclamation. The planning of their upcoming adventure, I suspect left little room for dissent of any kind. Homesteading wives just had to get on board, regardless of any fears or sorrow they felt about leaving everything familiar behind. They did what determined women have always done throughout history, they relied on their ability to make something out of nothing.

It seems likely to me, the descendants of homesteaders just might hold some ancestral unsettling, some vague restlessness of that migratory gamble. I know I feel some ancient unsettling myself, and I always have.”

Excerpt from Personal Homesteading—a work in progress

Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands has confirmed many feelings I’ve had about generational trauma make sense to me. I’ve often wondered how my ancestor’s emotional landscapes have affected me. I don’t want to be at the mercy of emotions that were never mine in the first place—and now have lost any appropriate context. Sorry prairie ancestors, it’s time to cut you loose.

“trauma is also a wordless story our body tells itself about what is safe and what is a threat.”

―Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands

“All of this suggests that one of the best things each of us can do—not only for ourselves, but also for our children and grandchildren—is to metabolize our pain and heal our trauma. When we heal and make more room for growth in our nervous systems, we have a better chance of spreading our emotional health to our descendants, via healthy DNA expression. In contrast, when we don’t address our trauma, we may pass it on to future generations, along with some of our fear, constriction, and dirty pain.”

—Resmaa Menakem

We all possess some generational trauma to varying degrees. Right now our collective unhealed traumas could be part of what’s tearing families, communities, and our nation apart. I believe we can heal by learning ways to let trauma move through our bodies (metabolize it) and not keep us in a perpetually hypervigilant, anxious (fearful), and distrustful state of being. I’m an optimist AND a realist. I believe we can heal AND it’s gonna take a lot of heart, humility, and hard work.