Hiram

By Grace and by God, our family has lurched forward through the generations. Through tragedy and dysfunction and bad luck. So I really don't recognize my so-called "White Privilege". It has been only through perseverance, bullheaded determination and hard work that we have survived.

William H. was left behind when the family packed up the saw mills in 1860, hitched up the oxen and struck out for Minnesota. William was 17 at the time and was working in a saw mill in Orono when the Civil War erupted and he mustered out with the Second Maine on a three year hitch. Cannon fodder. He survived some of the most brutal battles of the war including Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg only to come home, marry and work in a pulp mill in Gardner. Another brutal environment. Should I demand reparations for his pain and suffering and our families long term lost financial standing all for the cause of ending slavery and maintaining the Union?

William had 6 children, but my great grandfather, Arthur, was the only child to reach adulthood and procreate. He was the last namesake. Arthur  married, bore 6 children with wife Carrie, then died at age 40 from a fall in a paper mill in Oxford that ruptured his appendix. Carrie, for some reason, gave up her three youngest children to the state. 

My grandfather Hiram,the youngest child, ended up at 9 years old as a foster child working on a farm in Shapleigh, Maine. He married the farmer's granddaughter and had two sons. In the picture above he is holding my three year old father and my grandmother is holding my Uncle Bob. Hiram died 8 months later at age 28 from a blood disorder. Hiram's older brothers either died young or did not produce male offspring to carry on the family name.

My father, Frank, was the hardest working, most dedicated man I have ever known. He succeeded in working our family into the upper end of the lower middle class and sending my two sisters and I to college. Uncle Bob had no children.

As the last remaining male namesakes, Frank and I celebrated the birth of my sons, his first grandsons, twin Foss boys. Finally the tide was turning for our family. The Foss name might yet continue. I followed his hard work ethic example, added a beautiful daughter to the family and climbed the financial ladder. Tragedy revisited with the death of son Eric in 1999. Son Ryan bore a son, Davis, in 2014 before his marriage tragically ended. 

Davis is the most recent end of the line, end of the family name. He is magnificent. If the name ends here, it is enough. But it won't be for lack of effort. 

Seven generations. From tragedy to misfortune to dysfunction. We have survived. 

Tell me again about this "White guilt" I should be feeling...