Every year at this time, I am reminded how much fun the microwave is, how great it is to have a toilet, and how fast jets seem to fly. My father's mother, Laura Emmaline Sears, is our link to the Pilgrims. You see a Sears gentleman married an Alden young lady, and well the rest, as they say, is history. (Or geneology, in this case).
My sister and I are the 12th great granddaughters of John and Priscilla Alden. Yep that's my grandma and gramps that are on all those Hallmark cards and little doo dads out with the turkey candles for sale. You'd think there would be royalties or something a girl could be collecting.
However far removed, I know it sounds crazy, but I do think when I am faced with a lot to handle (which has been more the norm than not as of late) that my ancestors had untold hardships and inconveniences. They not only survived, they thrived. I simply can't imagine how difficult it all must have been, especially for the women.
I have a delightful daughter, Mary Alexandria Lee (I call her "Birdie") that I simply adore, but I am very pleased to have delivered her in a hospital setting, not a rocking, creaking, packed-with-people ship (that probably had quite a stench) somewhere between England and an unknown land on the other side of the pond. The 'pond' must have seemed endless. So must the bad company, bad breath and bad food.
So I will remember these adventurous souls, so much braver than I, as I sit to eat a turkey bought at the grocery store, baked in a self-cleaning oven, and served on gleaming white china which will be cleaned in the dishwasher. And I will secretly thank them for getting us here in the first place.
