Happy Grandparents Day!

Letter to my kids I just realized how much i failed in appreciating my grandparents while they were around. Its a rare treat to have been able to meet your grand parents.   Have you ever really asked yourself "where do you come from and where are you going?" I am very fascinated with that question. Yet never really looked that far back about where I came from. In the last few years I've increasingly become interested in my heritage and ancestry.  It was when I read my great great grandmother's journal from 1906=1917 that I began feeling a deeper connection to my ancestors.  I am grateful that my parents are still around to give me and those in this generation some kind of contact with the past. My father never met Doris, but her daughter, his grandmother was a true inspiration to him and helped shape who he became. Your great great great grandmother, Doris' journal has three main sections: their time in Germany in 1906; the last several months of her husband's, your great great great grand father, Ferdinand's life; and her last years in India during Word War I and the internment and expulsion of Germans in British India.   In my research about Doris, your great great great grandmother, I discovered she did not know her grandmother. I wonder what sense of heritage she had. Born in 1857 in Holstein, Germany she and her brother went to India in the late 1860s.  She married Karl Fedinand Hahn in 1871 and had twelve children (one died at 2 and one died when he was 18).  It was Doris who  altered the course of our VOSS branch of the family tree. We have records of the generations before her that go back 7 generations to 1632 through the paternal line. The whole line of Vosses lived first in Halsted, Germany (1632- 1766) then in Holstein or Ulstein, Germany (180? - 186?, whenever Doris left home).  One translation of the town where Doris was born is "Utmost End". I found that rather symbolic. Her life was remarkably different from her parochial ancestors.    grandmothers: left your great great right your great (my grandmother)      Beginning with "Doris" Voss we have 3         generations through the maternal line to your        grandfather, Ted.          These three women: Doris, Louise, & Marie all went     out as missionaries to India and then married         another missionary soon after. Historical records     show practically nothing of their accomplishments     during their life long devotion to their work in India.      I hope to alter that. My trip to India is partially to     begin retracing their steps, starting with Doris in    1910 up in Mussoorie. I am currenlty researching     and will go to India in hopes of writing a book about    How Doris and Ferdinand traveled from  the plains to Mussoorie in 1910       this undocumented life. Like any good story it kind of starts in the middle and then tracks back and then forwards.  I begin on the same ground where our paths crossed, up in Mussoorie.  Her time there is a difficult time in her life as she faces the mortality of her partner of 35 years.  In May 1910 she went to Mussoorie, up in the foothills of the Hymalayas, in hopes that Ferdinand's would recover. Sadly, he passed away and is buried there.   In following trips I hope to return to India to piecemeal the holes that we are finding online. It really is a family effort. Grandpa's cousin, translated Doris' journal and works written by Ferdinand (your great great great grandpa). I need to contact  another cousin from that generation, who lives in Germany to get more German details. My sister has done a lot of research about this and all other branches of the family tree with input from a couple of other family members. Who knows there might even be a role for you to play. I'd like to hear your thoughts if any of this strikes a chord, please jot down your thoughts.

EMERGENCE OF VISION

"We find after years of struggle that we don't take a trip, a trip takes us" John Steinbeck

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird, that cannot fly." Langston Hughes


I am very excited that I recently have been inspired with a very specific vision for my trip to India.  Up until now it has been about visiting some dear friends and places, but with no clear agenda. I want to share the vision that is emerging.

From Left to Right: my great grandmother, Louise,
my grandmother, Marie, my great great grandmother Doris,
and a great Aunt (Libele?)
Year: 1900

   A few years ago we found the diary of my great great grandmother, Doris (Voss) Hahn.  I have to admit that it was the first time our family history really stirred me. Even though I've had plenty of opportunity to get inspired in this family, something just clicked with her.  I find myself, perhaps, a little like her.  Her diary was very moving and I learned so much about what life in India was like for them in the early 20th century.   The two stories she recorded that stirred me the most was the Internment of Germans (including the missionaries) in British India during WWI and the hospice and death of my great great grandfather up in Mussoorie.

If I am able to arrange the time with work, I plan to go around October 12-November 12.  My itinerary for this trip includes visiting Mumbai, Delhi, Ludhiana in Punjab (tentative) and Mussoorie in Uttarakhand.  I am looking forward to staying a few weeks in Mussoorie, the mountain town where I went to school for 10 years. Woodstock, the school, is certainly a worthy place to revisit after so many year. However, my main interest is to be up in the mountains again and to learn more about Mussoorie, the town.  With my past experience in community development, political science and sociology I've become keenly interested in what kind of place it has become.  The ongoing community life beyond being a haven from the heat for tourists. How structures, institutions, NGOs, faith groups, and residents relate to each other and outsiders.

A life long dream of mine has been to go to Mussoorie and write a novel, or something.  I've never been clear on what, but just have always wanted to write.  Suddenly, this vision has taken form to track the journey of my great great grandmother's time in Mussoorie as communicated in her journal.  Why not write a parallel journal (kind of like Julia/Julia.)  I just read the journal over and realized that this will be very deep stuff because it's about a man dying!  But there is nothing like facing our mortality to make for a good book!! Researching for a book is always a good excuse for stopping to talk to people and get to know the context of the surroundings. Whatever material I may unearth that is not directly related to this story may provide material for further writing. The horizons suddenly stretch out before me.

Sunset seen from Mussoorie

This will be the first of several trips.  A second trip will be in 2014 or 2015 and will specifically be designed as a Heritage Tour with family: my sister, niece and hopefully my son and daughter.  It will be a huge challenge to find a time that works for everyone. Christmas holidays might work and a good time to be in the region].  On this tour we will visit the places where four (or is it five) generations worked: Bihar, Orissa, Chatisghar. And may well lead to additional chapters to the parallel journal that I begin on this trip.

Writing can be a solitary activity, however, what I'm seeing rise on the horizon is a joint work, a collaborative journey. While I wish to stay focused on this new found vision, I do hope to expand my vision and incorporate the hopes and dreams and desires of those companions with whom I will travel. And as always, to be attentive to and remain in step with my Creator and Lord.

I have to also mention that Lois, my sister, is a huge help as the family historian. She is digging up pictures and details that I've not even begun to wrap my mind around.  My hope is that by focusing on one little slice of life several generations back in a location that was so central to our lives growing up, that we will bring greater understanding of our family heritage. Bringing the past together with the present to cast a new light on our future and our vision of it.

Journey On...

The reason it has been so long since I last posted is because in regards to place I have settled for a bit.  Journey is continuous, and I have been journeying on all kinds of inward paths while settling into this place.  In some ways it is much harder for me to journal transparently about such inward journeying.  

I am comforted with the thoughts that the one who sees in secret, knows the secret journeys of the soul and it never left un-shared, while it may never be articulated.  I am also comforted with the fact that the spirit that dwells within articulates to the greater one without the aches, pains, sorrows, joys, wonder, and lessons learned.  Even in the loneliest of journeys we are never alone, for the constant one who journeys with us is not only the path upon which I journey but the destination.  While I lose sight of that, the wonderful thing about journey is that our memory banks become well stocked to overflowing and what is not remembered today will be remembered when at last we see.

So, why do I put fingers to the keys and start to journal my journeying again?  Because I have a destination clear around the other side of the world and I realized that unlike moving across the country that it will prove itself a challenge even if I were to prepare in every way possible.  For my destination is in many ways "home" and in many ways a land I have never known.  But I am familiar enough with it that nothing in preparation can truly prepare me for the incredibly enigmatic India! 
 
Physical preparation entails things like passports, visas, shots, tickets, agendas, time, money, health, connections/friends, etc.  I'm setting my sights to go in October/November for a month.  But today I realized that mentally, culturally, spiritually I also need preparation.  I came across a book that I began reading of a Hindus perspective on the Gospel of John and that is when I realized that there are so many differences in being between east and west and I don't want to spend the one precious moment in time (just one month) turning and reeling to sights, sounds, smells, rhythms, ideas, language and feelings that have become now completely foreign to me.  Yet, in truth, what I know about India is that there is no escaping it and there are no easy ways to learn the dance but to awkwardly try the steps.  To be present over time will breed familiarity.  

So my question is how much of that can begin before one even arrives. 

Do the difficult things while they are easy and 

Do the great things while they are small. 

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

Lao Tzu 

 And I have heard added:   we must keep stepping.   With this post I again take a first step of many and hope to keep stepping.  You are invited to follow with me at each step that I journal (though countless steps go rightfully unrecorded) in hopes that it will enrich your journey.  But even more excellently, to share together the journey we all have been set on by the Great One and Lover of our Souls who sees it all and walks with us through it all.

The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.

Saint Teresa of Avila