How Did I Not Know That?

 By Marilyn Moore

Like many of you, I have read a lot over the past fifteen months, seventy-five books since March 2020.  Fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, biographies.  Some memorable, some not so much.  But several times, I found myself asking as I was reading, “How did I not know that?”  Usually, I was reading about a period, or event, or character, in history about which I knew next to nothing.  I heard myself saying to myself, “But I studied history, and I’m a reader.  How did I not know that?”  

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate is an example.  She writes of the efforts of Hannie, a formerly enslaved young woman, trying to find her mother and her siblings in the years after the Civil War.  The story is based on the very real practice of formerly enslaved persons, attempting to find their family members (think parents, children, siblings, cousins) who had been sold or traded to other slaveholders.  And just let that phrase, “formerly enslaved persons, attempting to find their family members who had been sold or traded,” rest in your heart and mind for a moment….  A practice that developed among those who were searching for their families was to write to one of several newspapers that would publish the seeker’s story, and these stories would be read by ministers to their congregations (think black churches) throughout the south.  And sometimes, a hearer would recognize a name, and a connection would be made, and family members would be reunited.  How did I not know that families that had been violently and cruelly separated would work through newspapers and churches (interestingly enough, both protected by the first amendment) to attempt to find one another?  But I didn’t….

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is another example.  In this well-researched and compelling story, Wilkerson introduces us to three African Americans who make their way out of the deep south in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s, going north and west to Chicago, to New York, and to California.  All are “freed,” in that they are no longer enslaved, but all are still held in the tight and dangerous bonds of racial discrimination, Jim Crow laws, and complete lack of safety for themselves and without a future for their families.  So, they left…also a dangerous undertaking.  The stores told by Wilkerson are the stories of leaving the familiar and venturing forth to the unfamiliar, which was never easy.  And the north was not the paradise sought; racism and discrimination were present there, too.  Certainly I knew of the Great Migration, the movement north by African Americans in the years encompassing the Great Depression, World War II, and the early years of the Civil Rights movement, but I didn’t know the details, and I certainly had not thought about the impact on both north and south of that huge shift in population during those decades.  

And there are others… The horror stories of the Indian Schools in America, boarding schools where children of Native American parents were forcibly relocated and required to abandon all native and family traditions, including language, stories, religion, and their families. The influence  of Lady Clementine and Eleanor Roosevelt in their husbands' WWII leadership.  Hedy Lamarr,  Austrian Jewish immigrant to the US and known for her roles on stage and screen, who invented the means of secure radio communication between American ships in WWII.  Martha Gellhorn, the third wife of Ernest Hemingway, who became the leading woman war correspondent for decades, from WWII to the 1980’s.  All of them are stories I did not know.  Not surprisingly, they are stories of African Americans, indigenous people, and women….stories that have been ignored or dismissed  or diminished for centuries.  

Which brings me to the photo at the beginning of this blog, Chimney Rock in the Nebraska panhandle, seen through the frame of a covered wagon.  Chimney Rock is known as the most famous landmark on the long journey taken by pioneers, as they traveled westward from somewhere in the eastern US.  And it was that….but the land on which Chimney Rock stands is so much more.  More than 38 million years in the making, geologically, home to large animals we would now call pre-historic.  And for some 10,000 years, before Europeans ever set foot on this land of the high plains, it was home to the native people, the Lakota, the Cheyenne, and the Arapahoe.  Then, in short order, came the trappers, the fur traders, the gold seekers, and the families moving west, along the Oregon and Mormon Trails. 

The story many of us in Nebraska heard was the story of those persons in covered wagons, moving west for a better life.  We heard about the dangers of the trail, the hardships of weather and disease and too much weight in the wagon and people who died and were buried in shallow graves along the way.  We heard about skirmishes, perhaps labeled as wars, with the Indian tribes.  (We probably did not hear about the systematic takeover of native lands and the destruction of generations of native life.). We appreciated the bravery of those who set forward, knowing the way would be difficult, but willing to take the risk.  And that is not a false story; indeed, it’s the story of many Nebraska families, including mine.  It’s just not the whole story. And it’s not the story of every family in Nebraska.  

In my fourth grade Nebraska history class I didn’t learn the stories of those who lived here much longer than Nebraska has been a state, and I didn’t learn the stories of their fate.  That has changed, and that’s a good thing.  Stories are now making their way into the heritage of Nebraska, including the story of Standing Bear, whose statue represents Nebraska in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol, and the story of Suzanne La Flesche Picotte, a member of the Omaha tribe in Nebraska and widely regarded as one of the earliest Native American physicians in the US, whose statue will soon be placed on Centennial Mall.  We are learning more of the tragic stories of the missing and murdered indigenous women, and we are learning of the poetry and the spirituality and the oneness with the creation that characterizes the life and culture of Nebraska's indigenous people. All of these add to the story, the complexity, of this place we call Nebraska…and demand that thoughtful people consider the implications of a bigger story than we first knew.  

“How did I not know that?”  Many reasons….I had never heard the story, or I heard a part of the story but not the whole story, or I heard but didn’t remember, or some combination of all of these.  What I know is that my understanding of the human condition and the human spirit is more complete as I know more of the stories.  And I’m compelled to seek the stories that have not been widely told, to listen to the voices that have not been heard, and to honor the stories, all the stories.