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The photo below was taken in the shadow of a nuclear power plant in New Berlin, Florida. It’s a hamlet very close to the ocean, outside of Jacksonville, Florida. I’d done some homework to find this place. The air was choked with mosquitos. Each Veteran’s grave at the site was marked with a flag. There must have been a hundred, spread across a cemetery of about two acres. I assumed this was to commemorate Veteran’s day a couple of weeks earlier. My eyes were drawn immediately to one flag above all others. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were swarmed by mosquitos.
More to the point, The Boy and I found the tombstones of my Great Grandfather and his wife. It was the wife’s grave that cemented the legacy. Hans Hansen immigrated to the United States around 1900 and became a mercenary with Teddy Roosevelt’s Roughriders. According to this tombstone he was with the Roughriders at Cuba. Our family legend has always been that he was at the Battle of San Juan Hill.
An Aunt in our family has been devoted to finding our ancestry. She’s always been a “boots on the ground” kind of person. Oral history and legends were never enough. Paper trails and work like this are what builds a lasting history. As serendipity would have it, my motivation and her need for primary sources coincided to verify this tiny bit of family nostalgia. Another interesting fact, this motivated Aunt is on my Mother’s side, and Hans Hansen is on my Father’s.
There has always been good reason to throw some history in to our travels.
Nothing like a Halloween Disney Cruise to introduce The Girl to traveling.
Mickey seemed kind of interested in The Boy’s Darth Vader costume… well before Disney paid a billion dollars to George Lucas to take over the Empire.
History helps us look inwards, science helps us look out.
