October 15, 2014 By Debra Woods
I found an old notebook – one of those composition books – without a cover. I discovered it was an old travel journal of my grandmother Beulah Sargent from 1913 while she was on a trip cross country with her mother, Lucy Marston Sargent. They had traveled by train from New Hampshire to California when Beulah was 23.
As I read this record, this young version of my grandmother came to life. When I knew her, she was in her 70′s or 80′s. She was somewhat senile with a . . .
New England accent I found peculiar. She lived in her own little world and hardly acknowledged me. I also read things she had written when she was in her 40′s and 50′s, suffering from paranoid delusions.
I couldn’t relate to her in either of those older stages of her life. But this 23 year old Beulah, the more I read, the more I saw that I was not only a physical replica of her, but in so many other ways, we were so much alike. She had a sense of humor! She was social! She loved to learn! And at the end of her travel journal, she used that notebook to record some other things that she felt after she got home.
I couldn’t relate to her in either of those older stages of her life. But this 23 year old Beulah, the more I read, the more I saw that I was not only a physical replica of her, but in so many other ways, we were so much alike. She had a sense of humor! She was social! She loved to learn! And at the end of her travel journal, she used that notebook to record some other things that she felt after she got home.
I discovered she had had a spiritual awakening that year and joined a church. I found she worried about romance and school, what she ought to study, should it be practical or artistic? These were so very similar to the things I had written in my own journals at that age. I couldn’t believe what I discovered. This raised questions about what had happened to change her into that emotionally unstable, or mentally withdrawn old woman I knew when she was elderly. It also raised my attachment to my grandmother.
The week after Christmas, 2012, my son Max and I drove to California for a little holiday getaway. We went to some of the very same places Beulah had recorded in her journal, attending the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Years 2013, 100 years after my own grandmother and great-grandmother had done so in 1913. We wrote about our experiences and collected picture postcards – to honor them – to commemorate their lives and connect with them. It was awesome.
The week after Christmas, 2012, my son Max and I drove to California for a little holiday getaway. We went to some of the very same places Beulah had recorded in her journal, attending the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Years 2013, 100 years after my own grandmother and great-grandmother had done so in 1913. We wrote about our experiences and collected picture postcards – to honor them – to commemorate their lives and connect with them. It was awesome.