Weekend canoe trips were a part of my childhood growing up in Kansas City. Whether with family, friends, or youth groups, I frequently made the trek to the Ozark region of southwest Missouri, which is filled with ideal canoeing rivers. Establishments renting canoes and gear and offering portage services dot the area.
One place I remember patronizing for canoeing supplies was a little general store along Highway 181 in Dora, Missouri. Dora's total population was, at most, a few dozen souls. It was near the White River, a tame but scenic river, which made it a great place for amateurs like me. I have fond memories of canoe trips there, but I never thought much about Dora. A few years ago, that changed.
About ten years ago, I became intrigued with family origins. My father's side of the family was known to me, but my mother's roots were more mysterious. My maternal grandmother died more than a decade before I was born, and my grandfather died just shy of my fifth birthday. My mother didn't know much about her parents' lives, so I began to do a little digging at the library. Using census records, I could establish my grandfather's whereabouts in 1910 at the age of three. He lived in Dora, Ozark County, Missouri!
Further research established that my great-great-grandfather had moved the family to Dora in the early 1880s. My great-grandfather was a child when they moved to Dora, and he lived there until moving on in search of work about 1915. My grandfather was born and spent his first eight years there. Various records show numerous cousins, second cousins, and other relatives living around Dora. Less than two miles west of the general store where we rented the canoes are the gravestones of two great-great-grandfathers, a great-great-grandmother, and other relatives. All the time we had been canoeing at this out-of-the-way location, I had been walking in the footsteps of my ancestors, and I didn't know it.
Stories like these stir a mixture of emotions. I had an increased sense of being rooted in the past. It is intriguing to imagine what my ancestors' lives might have been like as I walk where they walked. But stories like these also suggest something quite disturbing. They remind me of something most of us would rather not reflect on.
One day we will die, and before long, even our blood relations will have no memory of us. There will be photos, recordings, and other remnants from our lives. But the substance of our personhood, which authentic human relationships can only appreciate, will be no more. Someday some descendants may walk where we walked and speculate about our existence, but it will be just speculation. Within a few generations, it is possible no one will remember our existence. It is possible that our entire culture will have died out, and us along with it. Looking at the longer view of millennia, it is conceivable that the human race could disappear.
Shakespeare wrote:
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." William Shakespeare--From Macbeth (V, v, 19)
Was he right?
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