ASKINGFOR HER FATHER'S BLESSING

ASKING FOR HER FATHER’S BLESSING Dec 24, 2009

My father-in-law, Willie, celebrates his birthday on December 24^th. Probably, that was the date of his birth in Ukraine in 1919. In any event, the ship manifest from his family’s arrival in Baltimore 10 months later corroborates the month, if not the exact date. We planned to see him in Baltimore on his 90^th birthday. So, how to break the news? How would he react?

As in the meeting with the rabbi, my wife once again offered copious precautionary advice, mostly focused on the appropriate answers to the inevitable questions of “Why?” and “Why now?” I listened carefully, but did not commit to a script. I said only that I would wait until that time in the course of the visit when he would predictably say “What else?” after we had gone through a list of things mundane and not so mundane.

After lunch, a game of cards, a recounting of his social calendar (he needs a social secretary) and the usual checklist of things working and not in his apartment, he said, “What else?” My wife and I sat across the table and my father-in-law at the head. Our eyes locked, we smiled and then I turned and said, “What else? Well, remember about ten years ago when we knocked on your door and we said to you and Sophie, ‘We have come to announce a simcha involving a chuppah.’ Well, this time we have come to announce a beth din involving a mikvah.”

On that prior occasion, I had spent the better part of the trip from DC to Baltimore wrapping my vocal cords around the unfamiliar sounds of simcha (literally “happiness”) and chuppah (literally a “canopy” or “covering”). Simcha as a Hebrew and Yiddish noun, means “festive occasion.” Any celebration is a happy occasion, especially a wedding, or engagement. The chuppah in a Jewish wedding ceremony is a covering stretched over four poles which symbolizes the home of the couple to be wed and under which the wedding ceremony is performed. To me, at the time, the words sounded more like a Mexican fast food dish with salsa.

Willie’s eyes welled up immediately on hearing beth din, a Jewish religious court consisting of a rabbi and two observant men which, among other things, presides over a conversion. A mikvah, is a ritual bath designed for one of its purposes to be used for the ritual immersion in Judaism in connection with a conversion. Without doubt, the Christian ritual of baptism can be traced to the mikvah. He glanced at me, and said wryly, “I assume that someone is thinking about a conversion.”

He seemed so relaxed and unsurprised that Sarah and I suspected that either the rabbi or his assistant had somehow tipped him off. This seemed more likely since the rabbi’s assistant, a close and longtime friend of Willie, had been over for a visit earlier the same day. But our suspicions were misplaced, evident by Willie’s reaction when he found out that she and the rabbi had been part of our little conspiracy.

Then Sarah said to Willie, “Any questions?” To which Willie said, “I suppose the obvious one, ‘Why?’”

Sarah had that look she always gets when she knows that I am operating without a script over which she has editorial approval. Returning to the theme of the simcha and the chuppah, I said that we had been talking about our ten year anniversary and the possibility of renewing our wedding vows. That conversation and other things over the last several months had started me thinking about our life together, past, present and future. “But a lot of the decision had to do with my respect and admiration for you, Willie, and my desire to have you be part of the studies leading to conversion. Assuming, of course, that are you willing to play that role.”

At this point he surprised us both. “I had been thinking about this for a long time. I was wondering whether we could all be together. I used to cry about it; I really did. I was so worried that Sarah would be without you in the cemetery and we would not all be together.” Though our eyes were welled up with tears, we all then burst out laughing. So it was about the real estate after all!

MEET THE RABBI

MEET THE RABBI (Dec 23, 2009)

We set out for Potomac at 7:45 am, allowing extra time for weather and traffic. The record-breaking snowfall had not yet been completely cleared from many major road ways, and even the plowed routes had dangerous patches of black ice as well as an over abundance of twittering/cell-phoning drivers with little or no experience with these kind of weather conditions.

My wife, Sarah, had prepared a briefing folder the night before consisting of three of the Rabbi’s High Holiday sermons (downloaded from the synagogue website) and the directions from Map Quest. We made unusually good time, so stopped at the Potomac Village crossroads for coffee and a grain shovel (much better for heavy snow than a standard snow shovel). Even with the stopover, we arrived at the synagogue about fifteen minutes early.

We could see the rabbi in a large meeting room leading his Wednesday morning minion, so we wandered around the synagogue to get a feeling for the place. A fairly new structure nestled in a wooded neighbor hood, the buildings seemed to blend into the surroundings. We learned later that the architect was a member who lived not too far away.

Rabbi MW of my wife’s family’s “modern orthodox” synagogue in Baltimore recommended this place, even though Rabbi SW was conservative and had come to the conservative stance from a reform starting point. The rabbis knew each other well and for many years. Judaism offers, to the newcomer, a bewildering number of variations that, for most purposes, are lumped into three large “denominations”: orthodox, conservative, and reform. I suspect the Baltimore rabbi directed us toward a conservative synagogue primarily because of his close friendship with Rabbi SW but also because men and women do not sit together at orthodox services. That logistical fact would make it impossible to have Sarah’s guidance in many aspects of the service.

After looking into the sanctuary, the library, and reading the names on the tree of life, we found the rabbi’s office and checked in with his assistant. She had been extraordinarily friendly and helpful a few days before in providing information and background on the synagogue. We knew that the rabbi had built this congregation from scratch in 1988 into a politically and socially active group, and that he is highly regarded in the metropolitan area and beyond. We chatted amiably for a few minutes until the rabbi came in from the minion.

We were warmly greeted and welcomed into his study. Other than the referral from the rabbi in Baltimore, he knew nothing about us, so we spent ten minutes on general background – what we did, where we lived, how we met, children, family, our different religious backgrounds – before coming to the point. Why become a Jew? Why now?

Sarah was a little afraid (with probable cause) that I would respond to this question in a semi-humorous way, my usual entre to a more serious discussion, after the modus operandi of Socrates. When she first put the question to me a few days earlier, my deflections consisted of “It’s about the real estate,” referring to the unoccupied burial plots that her father held for the family in the Baltimore synagogue cemetery. This particular family joke owed its origin to a dear, and recently departed, Czech friend when I first met him at a dinner we hosted at our home soon after we married. “So,” he deadpanned while looking around the house, “You married her for the real estate.” It took me two beats to adjust to his very dry Czech sense of humor (two orders of magnitude beyond conditions in the Mojave Desert} before I said, “Sure. That’s it.”

We had, when our mothers passed away a year apart, discussed the fact that only Jews could be buried in a Jewish cemetery, so if we were to be together through eternity we needed to find a Christian cemetery immediately adjacent to a Jewish cemetery, and arrange for plots along the boundary, one on each side. Such places actually exist! Amazing how the marketplace solves problems of this sort.

The joke, of course, reflects a deeper purpose. We were married in Baltimore nine years ago in a ceremony performed by a reform rabbi and having all of the outward appearances of a Jewish ceremony, except for the critical words, “under the laws of Moses.” Another joke could be made at this point: “I wanted to make her an honest woman.” And it would also reflect a deeper purpose.

When my wife’s mother Sophie passed away, my wife assumed the ritual Sophie had long conducted of lighting the candles and saying the prayers with Willie, to begin the Sabbath at sundown on Friday. The observance took place in Baltimore and Washington, with the prayers said over the phone and sometimes, when we were traveling, at points around the world – Prague, Paris, Rome, Rapid City to name a few. I also gained a deep respect for Willie, who seemed to me to effortlessly “to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” This had become my spiritual family.

Inspired by this simple act of honoring her father and the memory of her mother, I began something similar with my mother (at half time on a Super Bowl Sunday), which I called “telephone church.” Starting with Genesis, I would pick a passage, read it along with her, then ask her some questions. This worked, even though she was having short-term memory problems at the time. Talking about things she had learned when young could lead to a current, real-time conversation.

She was curious to know why I was suddenly reading the Bible with her now. To keep her curious, I evaded answering the question for almost two months, when at last I explained to her the Sabbath ritual of Sarah and Willie. Her reaction, without any sense of irony: “I have always loved that Sarah. She will make a good Christian of you yet!” In my mother’s world, being a good Christian had very little to do with theology and everything to do with a nurturing kindness to everyone she knew and an unerring sense of doing the right thing in all circumstances.

I told this story to Rabbi SW, and also described a little of the family history, noting in particular that both of our families spent a century in Czarist Russia, a few hundred kilometers apart in Ukraine. Both families knew the horrors of the rise of Slavic nationalism and as a result, emigrated to the United States -- my father’s family from the Black Sea region near Odessa in the 1870 to 1880 time frame and my father-in-law from a village near Kiev in 1920. The family of Sarah’s godchildren emigrated at the same time as my father’s family from a nearby village outside Odessa to a village less than 10 miles away from where my great grandparents homesteaded in the Dakotas.

Apart from the historic and geographic connection, I was struck from the beginning at the shared values of hard work and high ethical standards that each of us received as our family heritage. In my case it was the natural by-product of at least seven generations of Pietist Lutheran observance and rigorous religious instruction. In Sarah’s case, innumerable generations of Orthodox Jewish observance. I was also struck by the fact, but did not mention, that most of the Yiddish expressions I had heard were variations of the German dialect and the idioms of the language that my grandparents and my father spoke.

The rabbi summed it up by saying, “Pretty much the same history, except for the anti-semitism.” I did not respond, though I could have recounted to him the horrors visited on the 1,000,000 or so Black Sea and Volga Germans whose lands were confiscated, whose woman were raped, whose families were exiled to slave labor camps in Siberia and literally worked to death, whose villages were pillaged and whose leaders were executed prior to and during World War I and World War II. See, The Great Terror by Robert Conquest. I could also have told the stories of those Black Sea Germans who took into their families and sheltered Jewish families from the even greater atrocities visited on them by the invading Germans, or the horrors that followed World War II when Black Sea Germans and Jews alike were forced to return to the miserable and hostile conditions in Russian controlled territories from which they had just fled. But, of course, nothing compares to, or should be compared to the incomprehensible evil of the mass genocide that was the Holocaust.

The rabbi then moved to the attention grabber of the meeting. “It is my duty as a rabbi to shun you, discourage you from converting, and to refuse you three times,” he said, “And then embrace you, if go ahead anyway.” I could not resist. “I have had experience with this, having proposed to Sarah three times, before she stopped objecting to the form of the question.” “Then you know what I mean,” he said, enjoying the joke.

First, he raised the issue that most deeply divides and defines the difference between Christianity and Judaism: the divinity of Jesus. The divinity of Jesus, as special and distinct from the divinity of all mankind as the children of God, had always perplexed me, so much so that it came close to derailing my confirmation when I raised the question with the wife of our Methodist minister in confirmation classes. I had noticed very different formulations among the four gospels, with Mark being the closest to what I perceive as a continuation of one strand of Jewish theology in the teaching of Jesus: namely, the recognition that, since all men are children of God, the love of your neighbor as yourself is essentially equivalent to the love of God. I told the story to the rabbi.

Second, he turned to the observances of Judaism, notable among them the attending services (Shabbat) and the ceremonial circumcision for men who are already circumcised (hatafte dam bit), and the purifying immersion in water (mikvah)-- the antecedant of Christian baptism.

Third, we discussed the logistics and the time required for completion of conversion classes and learning some rudimentary Hebrew, the involvement of the rabbi as my sponsor, working with my father-in-law on some of the material, and other practical aspects. We decided that Sarah would attend classes with me and that we would attend Shabbat services in Potomac, except when attending in Baltimore, with conversion classes taking place in conjunction with another synagogue in DC.

The rabbi gave us a list of books to get started with, and we were on our way in the next journey of our lives together.

IN SEARCH OF PETER BELL: THE SCOT HYPOTHESIS

IN SEARCH OF PETER BELL: THE SCOT HYPOTHESIS

A comment was recently posted on the piece Obama and the Bells:

Mark said...
I've noticed that you're a descendant of captain Peter Bell and was wondering if you could give me your take on what I've heard. I heard a few years ago that the brothers Peter and Anthony Bell were actually from Scotland and were only residing in Germany just before coming to Maryland. I haven't been able to verify this but it could be plausible if they were part of the thousands that left Scotland after "the '45". This was the last of the Jacobite rebellions and the one in which the movement was utterly crushed at the battle of Culloden, resulting in the exodus of tens of thousands out of Scotland and northern England. Most ended up in Europe and a lot ended up in Germany. A huge portion of these people had military experience and that could explain why Peter Bell became a captain in the revolution so quickly. I always thought it unusual that two not-so-young unmarried brothers would just pick up and leave Germany for America. Also the Bells have a very long history in Scotland. I hope to find some evidence of the history of these two brothers some day but am becoming very discouraged.
June 20, 2009 1:13 PM

As far as I have been able to tell, the first statement of what I call the “Scot hypothesis” was advanced by Colonel Fielder M.M. Beall in Colonial Families of the United States Descended from the Immigrants: Bell, Beal, Bale, Beale, Beall (1927). The putative genealogical basis for this claim involved, among other things, the undocumented assumptions that: (1) the father of Anthony and Peter Bell was also named Anthony; (2) they also had brothers Daniel and Joseph; (3) belonged to a family that had settled in Old Sommerset before 1700. Fielder Beall’s work in this and many other areas has been severely criticized by professional genealogists for the obvious reasons.

Setting aside the faulty work of Fielder Beall, I think that the Scot hypothesis suffers from several major difficulties:

Religion: Peter and Anthony Bell are associated in every aspect of their documented history with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. They took communion as a condition of naturalization in that church. Peter Bell married the daughter of Johann Friederich Vogeler, one of the constitutional founders of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hagerstown, under which Peter Bell was buried. (The signature of a Johann Friederich Vogeler also appears earlier in 1747 as a founder of the Monocacy Evangelical Lutheran Church near Frederick, Maryland.) Anthony Bell and Peter’s oldest son Frederick were prominent contributors and officials within the Evangelical Lutheran Church founded in part from their contributions in Leitersburg. Frederick Bell also contributed to the establishment and maintenance of other Evangelical Lutheran Churches and even the churches of other dissident protestant sects, such as the Mennonites. It seems unlikely to me (though not impossible) that soldiers formerly fighting for a Catholic king would be so deeply immersed in the establishment of an evangelical protestant sect.

Language: The language of church, school and partly the business community of the Bell brothers and their descendants continued to be German until the mid-1800’s. The signatures of Anthony Bell, Johann Friederich Vogeler and Frederick Bell all follow German orthography. I have not yet found an exemplar for the signature of Peter Bell. We know that Frederick Bell had, for the time, a rather extensive library and subscribed to a German language bible.

Marriages: Anthony took to wife Maria Schneeberger (Snowhill), the German speaking Swiss daughter of Hans Schneeberger, described in Swiss records as a religious fanatic. As noted above, Peter was married to a Vogeler daughter, the other two Vogeler daughters being wed to Leiters, whose father had converted from the Mennonite sect to Evangelical Lutheran. In the next several generations, the offspring, male and female, made marriages within the German speaking community whose ancestors trace back to the Rhineland Palatinate and to the German speaking regions of Switzerland. As far as I have been able to research the other lines, very few marriages occur among the Scot, Irish or English population in the second, third and fourth generations. I would expect a different distribution if the Bell line originated in Scotland, Ireland or England.

Military Experience: Keeping in mind that captains of militia were elected and the ability to outfit and recruit followers often trumped military training, we should not feel compelled to find a military background in either of the Bell brothers. However, if such training existed, it might have come from a closer and more relevant conflict, the French and Indian War which ended almost exactly when the Bell Brothers first appear in colonial records. We know that the Swiss born British mercenary, Colonel Henry Bouquet, recruited his countrymen both at home and after arrival, and then trained and marched the assembled army through Virginia and the western parts of Maryland before engaging for the decisive battles in Pennsylvania. Another notable colonel, George Washington, was also involved in this action and came to have a fairly high estimation of the German speaking soldiers in the command, which carried over to the Revolutionary War. Another tantalizing possibility stems from the existence of a Bell family line descending from the 1709 Palatine migration to the Mohawk Valley in New York. Part of that group was also involved in the Canadian expedition of the French and Indian War. Some of the 1709 families eventually ended up among the Monocacy congregation near Frederick, Maryland, and were among the signers on the constitution of that church. Incidentally, several of those Mohawk Valley families were also involved in the Pennsylvania-Maryland border skirmishes that preceded the establishment of the Mason-Dixon line, which marks the northern boundary of the Bell brothers original homesteads. Perhaps they were part of the felling crew that created the vista through the woods in which they came to reside.

Land Purchase: The Bell brothers purchased their land from Peter Scheiss, another German speaking immigrant who preceded them. Where did they get the money? Anthony Bell may have had access to the proceeds of his wife's Landreit from Canton Bern. Peter Bell bought a larger tract for a larger sum of money. It is also clear from the inventory list of his probated estate that he was some kind of tradesmen and, perhaps, operated a mercantile establishment in addition to his farm, also located adjacent to a major trade/migration route for German speaking populations landing at Philadelphia and moving west and south through the Shenandoah Valley.

Family History: None of the documents contemporary to the Bell brothers hint of any non-Germanic origin or strong association with Scotland or Ireland. The muster rolls for Peter Bell’s and Anthony Bell’s companies are almost devoid of any names that are not clearly traceable to the Palatinate. Those militia companies were adjunct to and may have been subsumed in the German Regiment in the Battles of Brandywine, Paoli and Germantown in the year immediately preceding Captain Peter Bell's death, presumably because of the rigors of the campaign. Subsequent family history prior to 1900 by one descendant points to Alsace. The best overall (though sometimes mistaken) account by Herbert Bell in The History of the Leitersburg District refers to Peter Bell as coming from Germany as a young man and says that Anthony Bell learned his trade in Weisbaden, but neglects to mention the name of the trade.

Bell Pottery and Housing: Shenandoah red ware, a variation of which at least three of the Bells in the second generation significantly advanced, had its origin in the Palatinate. It seems doubtful to me, but not impossible, that Scot soldiers of fortune or exiles might have picked up the knack and become sufficiently skillful to advance and pass on the technology to the succeeding generations. More likely, given the similarity to pottery glazing techniques associated with the Strasbourg area, the craft was learned there at some level, and came with the Bell brothers to Maryland. As to the original home of Peter Bell, which still stands on Bell’s Choice just south of the Mason-Dixon Line, it embodies the classical German stone construction found in the Rhineland and throughout Maryland German settlements. The house was, according to Herbert Bell, begun by Peter and completed by oldest son Frederick.

OBAMA AND THE BELLS

OBAMA AND THE BELLS

In connection with Barrack Obama’s primary season sojourn abroad and mass rally in Germany, genealogists got busy. They traced his ancestry to a certain Peter Gutknecht, a German-speaking farmer who emigrated to Pennsylvania from the Alsace region in 1743. So did the Bells, probably sometime between 1750 and 1755. If only he had known when Hillary used her Pennsylvania connection to out maneuver him in that particular primary!
So are the Bells and Obama related through Peter Gutknecht? Probably, but not close enough to get excited about. Think about the math and you will see why. Dick and Doris had five children. Dick’s parents had 5 (excluding 6 step-siblings and 1 half brother), and Doris’ parents had four. In the next preceding generation, Elizabeth Guelff came from a family of 14, with 9 surviving to adulthood and having children. Dudley Bell came from a family of five children (four living to adulthood), but his parents, Albert Bell and Elizabeth Metzger came from families of 5 and 11 respectively. The Metzgers were Pennsylvania Dutch, i.e. their ancestors (Repogles, Neffs, Koernig and Hummels) came from a German-speaking region before they emmigrated to Pennsylvania and northwestern Maryland. In all cases this region happened to be along the lower Rhine River, i.e. Alsace. Albert Bell was the son of Samuel Bell and Elizabeth Smith, who moved to Hagerstown, Wayne County, Indiana from the Hagerstown area of Washington County, Maryland. In the next Bell generation -- Frederick Bell and Susanna Emerick 11 children blessed their marriage (in addition to 3 from Frederick first marriage). This series of “begats” in reverse gets us to the founding Bell generations -- Peter Bell and Elizabeth Vogeler. Friederich Vogeler, Elizabeth’s father, also probably came from the Rhineland. The Emerick, Repogle, Koernig lines? All Pennsylvania Dutch and the typical family size of surviving children in the 5 to 10 range.
From this point back, assuming child-producing families in accordance with the norm, we are looking at 5 to 10 children per generation that survive and have children of their own. Given the math, and assuming the math is the same for Obama ancestors, it would be hard not to find a link with Peter Gutknecht. Not surprisingly, the gene pool includes such other notables as the ancestors of Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson and Herbert Hoover. All three family names connect at some attenuated point with the Bells and the families that they married into.
Some who do family histories become obsessed with these tangential connections to historical figures. Many feel that such provenance gives rise to some kind of bragging rights. From my point of view, the ordinary people are far more interesting, and in certain respects, far more heroic. After all, they were the ones called upon, more often than not, to make the heavy sacrifices. Those who history remembers are the survivors and especially those who leave behind a trove of written records. Presidential candidates (successful and not) fit this category.
On a second note, much in the campaign was about identity politics – more about who is like us than who is likely to lead well. That is the politics of division, unfortunately practiced with a vengeance by both political parties. At the same time both candidates postured as uniters. In our history, politicians who have transcended political division have been quite rare. Uniquely, George Washington remained above the fray for his entire presidency. Lincoln nearly got to that point (but only for half of the divided country) near the end of his life after leading us into and through the most violently divisive time in our history. No others, in my opinion, have a legitimate claim to such a mantle. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, it will be extraordinarily difficult for anyone to make it a list of three.
We know that Obama finds inspiration in the words and actions of Lincoln. Indeed, Obama may be a match for Lincoln as a wordsmith and quite likely will surpass him as an orator. Will time and press of events allow a great leader to emerge and withstand the inexorable erosion of the political process? Will he continue to draw support from all of his genealogically connected groups?
A final historical note on identity politics: Benjamin Franklin had a decisively negative view of German speaking immigrants. In part, his prejudice arose from some frustration in raising troops to protect the Pennsylvania frontier during the French and Indian War from a population that included a large number of Quaker (and other sects) with firm pacifist beliefs. Washington had a different point of view, serving under Colonel Bouquet (German Swiss) in a highly successful military operation consisting mostly of German speaking soldiers that, among other things, rescued Washington’s military reputation from a stain that it received in a failed prior expedition under the command of General Braddock. In the Revolutionary War, Washington’s personal security and honor guard consisted entirely of Germans. He did not entirely trust the English speaking population.

PALIN EFFECT II: BY GEORGE, I THINK SHE'S GOT IT!

Political theater will imitate Broadway musical (and London stage) this week as my fair lady, Sarah Palin, will meet and greet heads of state and world statesmen, including (I kid you not) Hamid Kharzai, Henry (Higgins) Kissinger and Bono. These tete-a-tete's will take place off-Broadway at the United Nations following on the heels (peep toe Red Monkey's for the fashionista) of a 60,000 strong turnout in Florida. Summa bonum!

Will Eliza Doolittle emerge from these meetings, her social class undetected and speaking with a Harvard accent? Let's hope not!

The great and continuing appeal of Sarah Palin is the unvarnished authenticity of her personality, roots and vernacular. She's folksy, down home and politically astute. No one seriously thinks she is ready to decorate the oval office tomorrow, but a large and growing part of the electorate appreciate her moxie, work and family ethic and want to see her succeed. This leader has followers who are also believers.

Nor can one seriously think that Obama has the chops to lead. Those who drank communion Kool Aid at the church of Obama sense that the tent revival crowds have moved on to another attraction. Those who had church-envy when the Obama crusade dominated the media now throng to the thrill of the Palin event. The rain for McCain comes mainly from Palin.

But for the incipient collapse of world financial markets and the resurgence of Islamic Terrorism, this would be great entertainment. Clearly, neither Presidential candidate (perhaps no imaginable candidate) has the depth of knowledge and the range of experience to handle the complexity of these daunting problems, or others that will soon emerge.

So the choice is yours: do you want Sarah Palin, a novice in training, a heart beat away from the Presidency, or do you want Barrack Obama, the novice to be trained on the job? Come to think of it, didn't we do that on the job training thing with Jimmy Carter?

THE PALIN EFFECT

THE PALIN EFFECT
For the most part, my personal political points of view (note the plural) have not been expressed in this blog. Like most of the folks in my clan, I am highly opinionated, but eclectic on the major social-political-economic issues that are so hotly and mindlessly churned in the various infotainment media. What follows is not a paid or unpaid political advertisement.
Unless you have been lost in a remote and uninhabited portion of the planet for last couple of months, you must be aware of two meteorological phenomena that have dominated headlines (for those few who still read print media), web blogs (for those that read pixels) and leads to the various and incessant talking head programs (for those that don’t read at all). One is the string of hurricanes – Gustav, Hanna, Ike and Josephine – marching through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico – and the Chinook from the Arctic known as the Palin effect that has turbocharged the McCain-Campaign.
On September 6 and 7, the remnants of Hanna drenched the Washington, DC metropolitan area. On September 8 – a rare sunny but moderately cool day – the Palin effect swept into Fairfax County, just across the Potomac, and turned out a record shattering crowd of 23,000 red shirted supporters.
I wanted to observe, first hand, the Palin effect. My day began, as usual, at 5:00 a.m. in a tree covered northwest section of Washington, D.C. less than a quarter mile from Rock Creek Park. Rock Creek Park flows from second base (DC looks like a baseball diamond) to the west of the pitcher’s mound (Capitol Hill and various monuments) until it flows into the Potomac. Home base is Arlington National Cemetery. Rock Creek Park also serves as a wildlife superhighway (although it was not invented by Al Gore) bringing an abundance of deer, fox, squirrels and other critters into the neighborhood. Frequently, between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m., military helicopters fly over headed to or from disclosed and undisclosed locations with various executive level officers aboard. All of this activity often spices-up the morning walk with our two Australian shepherds.
On Palin day, I drove first to Dulles Airport in northern Virginia to pick up an equally adventurous cousin who was arriving by red-eye from Los Angeles. My cousin had agreed to drop in on the Palin-McCain Rally on the way back into the city. The rally organizers recommended that all participants wear something red to visually reinforce the rally theme – Keep Virginia Red (Republican). Serendipitously, my cousin has a deep loyalty for the Anaheim Angels, so I took along the Angels baseball cap from my last visit to the west coast and Angels stadium (Angels 7, BoSox 4!).
By e-mail late the day before, the McCain Campaign sent an alert changing the venue from a high school auditorium (capacity 6,000) to a nearby city park (capacity 30,000). The media buzzed, first that Obama supporters had objected to the rally in a public school, even though Obama had used several such venues in Virginia during the primary season, and then that the McCain Campaign had voluntarily withdrawn because the auditorium could not accommodate the anticipated crowd.
Our instructions told us to park in a shopping mall across from the high school where buses would then take us to the nearby park. We got to the mall at 8:30, about half an hour after the buses started ferrying supporters to the park. About 200 people were ahead of us; within 15 minutes about 500 people were lined up behind us. We then learned that similar bussing operations were underway from other satellite parking lots.
By 9:00 a.m. we were on board and underway to the park, about 3.5 miles from the mall. The crowd was lively, talkative and about 60 percent female, aged 9 months to 90 years. There were many noticeable 3 and 4-generation clusters.
Our bus rolled up to the park and then kept on going as we looked out on a line extending from the park entrance for about a half-mile. The bus stopped, we filed out and then walked up a side street looking for the end of the line. Another half-mile and we found it!
The line moved steadily forward as new bus arrivals continued to stream past us in the other direction looking for the new end of the line. One of the new arrivals – a woman in her 80’s – fell while walking down the sloping street. After helping her up, the line spontaneously and collectively decided that she need go no further toward the end, but should instead join the forward moving ranks. I was privileged to be her escort.
She seemed a bit unsteady from the fall, so I asked her, “Who are you going to vote for?” She immediately brightened, got the joke and said strongly and emphatically, “Palin and McCain!” in that order. Cheers from the crowd.
It turns out that Shirley had survived both cancer and a stroke, so she was not even a little bit daunted by the long walk or the trip from Richmond that morning (about 100 miles south of Fairfax) to get to the rally. Looking around the crowd, I think I saw the same excited and steely determination among the rest of the marching sisters of Sarah Palin. This was a remarkably tough, capable and well organized cadre of grandmothers, mothers and daughters from church groups, PTAs, medical offices, small businesses, executive suites and every other walk of working, professional and domestic life.
Just before 11:00 a.m., when the introductions were to begin, we finally filed into an already crowded outdoor amphitheater. Several prominent democrats and former supporters of Hillary Clinton told the crowd why they were now backing McCain-Palin, as the excitement and anticipation continued to grow. Finally, former Senator and candidate Fred Thompson took the microphone to introduce Palin who would then speak and introduce McCain. No one of the 23,000 or so present was sitting down, both because there was no room to sit down and because no one wanted to sit down.
I will not go into the speeches. If you saw the conventions or any of the reports, you already know the applause lines. This is about the “Palin Effect,” not about Sarah Palin herself or even her political views.
When the speeches and chanting ceased, this very orderly crowd moved slowly through the funnel created by the narrow exits, still chattering, excited and energetic after four hours (not counting travel time or the bus trip) they had spent that morning to hear a self-proclaimed hockey mom speak for 15 minutes. When we finally poured out of the enclosure and onto the four-lane road where the busses were parked, about 75% of the crowd decided to walk the 3.5 miles back to the mall – Baby Bjorns and baby strollers, mothers and fathers and an awesome number of daughters.
Luckily, the Fairfax Police station happened to be right next to the park. They immediately turned one of the lanes going away from the park toward the mall into a very wide walkway. The river of red shirts and placards (“We Love You Sarah”, “Drill, Baby, Drill”, etc.) flowed out toward Main Street and past isolated clusters of forlorn looking Obama acolytes.
When we turned the corner onto Main, traffic was backed up as far as we could see, the 3.5 miles (my cousin had a pedometer) to the parking mall and beyond. The drivers of the idling cars, for the most part, seemed to be enjoying the spectacle and many were actively participating in it, mostly supporters but also some mostly good-natured folks from the other side.
And the rally kept going in the mall! The McDonalds that we filed into for something to drink was wall-to-all in red shirted people. You could tell from their conversations, they did not know each other, but had probably learned how to network at an age even before they knew what the term meant. If the Palin effect takes hold, we will see very soon how it will spread.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES

Good genealogy depends on good sources. In the cut and paste internet age, bad genealogy reproduces faster than computer viruses. For that reason, accept no substitute for primary records personally examined. To illustrate the point, consider the following list of citations for Captain Peter Bell (1734-1778) followed by a critique of the quality and accuracy of the source:

1. Marriage Name: Peter Bell Year: 1765 Place: Annapolis, Maryland Source Publication Code: 321 Primary Immigrant: Bell, Peter Annotation: Marriage, birth and death notices taken from Maryland newspapers. Names 139 persons who must have arrived as ship passengers. Source Bibliography: BARNES, ROBERT W. Gleanings from Maryland Newspapers 1727-1775. Lutherville, Md.: Bettie Carothers, 1976. 72p. Page: 5

In the form appearing above, the citation came from a popular genealogical search engine. The compilation authored by Robert Barnes was also available in the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Library, a few blocks from my office at the symbolically apt address of 1776 D St. NW. The book does not identify the newspaper from which the information was "gleaned" or explain how the author deduced the date of marriage, the place or that Peter Bell "must have arrived as a ship passenger." You are thinking, no doubt, "Well, how else did he get here? Swim the Atlantic? Walk the Siberian land bridge?" Not likely, I suppose, but I want to know exactly what Robert Barnes found in what issue of what paper that warranted the assignement of a marriage date and the conclusion that he arrived through Annapolis.

2. The following is excerpted from History of Leitersburg District, Washington County. MD, Herbert C. Bell (1898) 3rd Ed. 1985, Caslon Press, Waynesboro, PA 17268, pp193-95:

Captain Peter Bell was probably a native of Germany and emigrated to America in early manhood. Definite information regarding his personal history begins with the year 1767, when he purchased from Peter Shiess a tract of 248 acres, part of the larger original survey called All That's Left, to which he gave the name of Bell's Choice. Its location in the northern part of the District adjacent to Mason and Dixon's Line and the Hagerstown and Waynesboro turnpike; the present owners are Daniel S. Wolfinger and Joseph M. Bell.

Although a secondary source, the beginning gets immediate attention and respect. It's a cautious start, alerting the reader that Peter Bell was "probably a native of Germany" and then transitioning to "definite information regarding his personal history." From other parts of the book we know that that author is a direct descendant and also that he reads German and that German was the language of the church and schools that the children of Peter Bell attended, all pretty good grounds for surmising that Peter Bell was probably a native of Germany as it came to be by the time the book was written. The definite information arises from a land record which the author had researched up to the time of writing. Confidence in the author increases when the land record is easily located in the Maryland Archives and when the stone house described is viewed and photographed at the location adjacent tot he Mason-Dixon line.

Near the turnpike on the Wolfinger farm there are several springs and here at the first settlement of the District there was a marsh, south of which on the slope of a hill near the line that separated his land from his brother Anthony's Peter Bell erected the improvements that constituted his residence. The main road from Hagerstown to Nicholson Gap passed through his land and the travel over this thoroughfare doubtless gave him advantages not enjoyed by his more isolated neighbors.

About the year 1775 he removed to Hagerstown, where he owned the lot at the corner of Franklin and Potomac streets now the location of the market house in that city. It is probable that he engaged in merchandising here, as the settlement of his estate shows that 225 persons were indebted to him in sums ranging from 1s. 3d. to 65 pounds.

Once again a primary source, the land record, is invoked followed immediately by another primary record, the estate inventory, both of which are located int eh Maryland archives.

On the 25th of November, 1776, he was elected a member of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, and during his connection with this body he served as a member of a subcommittee of seven appointed for the purpose of "licensing suits." It appears that the judicial functions of the Committee were intrusted to this sub-committee. On the 30th of December, 1776, the Committee ordered the militia of the county to march to the assistance of General Washington. Some who had served in the Flying Camp claimed exemption from this order, and it is entered in the minutes of the Committee under date of January 4, 1777, that "On motion of Captain Bell it is resolved that the Flying Camp are by no means exempt from marching with the militia." The following entry occurs in the minutes for January, 6, 1777: "On motion, Resolved, That Matthias Need serve as a committeeman in the room of Captain Bell, who hath resigned." His resignation is not difficult to explain.

In a letter from Colonel John Stull t0 the Maryland Council of Safety, January 11, 1777, he says: "The militia of my battalion have marched almost generally. * * * There are some of the former commissioned officers who have gone in the German battalion whose places are vacated in the militia; others have been elected to serve in their room, viz., Captain Peter Bell in the room of Captain William Heyser," etc. He requested the Council to forward commissions for these officers to Philadelphia. The following entry occurs in the minutes of the Counsil of Safety under the date of January 15, 1777: "Commissions issued to Peter Bell, appointed captain, Jacob Ott, first lieutenant, Michael Ott, second lieutenant, and William Conrad, ensign, of a company of militia in Washington County."

Their commissions were duly forwarded to Philadelphia, and Thomas Johnson, the first Governor of the State, writing from that city on the 29th of January informed the Counsil of the arrival of Stull's battalion. There can be little doubt that it proceeded to New Jersey, then the scene of Washington's operations. [The facts regarding Captain Peter Bell's military record have been obtained from the minutes of the Committee of Observation for Washington County, now in the custody of the Maryland Historical Society, and from the published Archives of Maryland, Journal and Correspondence of the Counsil of Safety, 1777, p. 42, etc.]

Once again, Herbert Bell has accurately quoted from source documents.

No roster of Captain Bell's company is known to be in existence. The names of the commissioned officers have been given; John Eyerly was the drummer, and many years after the war with Private Black, Schultz, and Lock he visited Peter Bell, Jr., the Captain's second son. Eyerly was then living at Green Spring near Bath, W. Va. Frederick Bell, the Captain's oldest son, used to relate that he rode in front of his father on his horse when the militia marched from Hagerstown. It was called out to serve until the 15th of March, but probably continued in the field beyond that date.

Since the writing of the History of the Leitersburg District, several muster rolls have come to light and are now held at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore Maryland.

Captain Bell did not long survive the hardships of the campaign. He died at Hagerstown in the spring of 1778, probably in February, as his will is dated January 21st and was admitted to probate on the 2d of March. The inventory of his personal property was the first to be entered upon the official records of Washington County.

All true and corroborated by the source documents cited.

Peter Bell married Elizabeth Leiter, a member of the family that has given its name to Leitersburg District. Their children were Juliana, who married Francis Bittle; Frederick; Elizabeth, who married Peter Krauth; Maragaret, who married Barnhart Lowman; Peter, and Daniel. Bittle and Krauth removed to the Shenandoah valley in Virginia; Lowman located at Middlebrook, Augusta County, Va., in 1880, and there he was engaged in business as a tanner until his death in 1846. He has numerous descendants in Shelby County, Mo. Peter and Elizabeth Bell were members of St. John's Lutheran Church at Hagerstown, and here the baptisms of several of their children are recorded. He was buried in the graveyard adjacent to the old church building; his grave is unmarked and its exact location cannot be determined, but it is supposed to be under the west wall of the present church edifice.

The first line of this paragraph has led many amature and professional genealogists into error by identifying Peter Bell's wife as the daughter of Jacob Leiter. No primary document supports that conclusion. Jacob Leiter does not refer to a daughter by the name of Elizabeth in his will. Johann Friederich Vogeler, on the other hand, names all of the children of Peter and Elizabeth Bell as his grandchildren and beneficiaries in his will.

3. Archives of Maryland, Volume XVI. "Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Safety, January 1, 1777" and "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, March 20, 1777- March 28, 1778." http://www.mdarchives.state/. Hardcopy at DAR Library, 1776 D St., Washington, DC
p. 42: Gentn Washington County January 11th 1777.

The militia of my Battalion have marched almost generally. Colo Smith's Battalion are now ready, there are some of theformer Commissioned officers who have gone in the GermanBattalion whose places are vacated in the Militia, others havebeen elected to serve in their room, viz. Capt. Peter Beall in the room of Capt. Wm Heyser, Jacob Ott, 1st Lieut. Michael Ott2nd Lieut. and William Conrad, Ensign: likewise the followingGentlemen were advanced in Capt. Fackler's company, viz.Leonard Shryock to 2nd Lieut. in the room of Adam Smith and Michael Tomer, Ensign.It is earnestly requested that Commissions may be madeout for the foregoing Gentlemen, each respectively and sentby the Bearer Melcher Belsheever, who will meet the Bat- talion at Philadelphia. The men are spirited in the defenceof Liberty, and hope no delay will be made in forwardingtheir Commissions, otherwise I doubt confusion may arise intheir companies as they are agreeably elected, and havepledged my honour to be assistive in procuring their respec- tive Commissions, and send an express for that purpose. Ihope my request will be comply'd with, and am,Gentlemen,Your most obedt & Humbl ServtThe Honble Council of Safety John Stull.of Md at Annapolis

4. Archives of Maryland, Volume XVI. "Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Safety, January 1, 1777" and "Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, March 20, 1777- March 28, 1778." http://www.mdarchives.state/. Hardcopy at DAR Library, 1776 D St., Washington, DC
p. 50: C. S. J.

Wednesday, January 15. 1777. Council met. Present as on yesterday.
Commissions issued to Peter Beall appointed Captain, Jacob Ott, first Lieutenant, Michael Ott, second Lieutenant, and William Conrod, Ensign of a Company of Militia inWashington County. Also to Leonard Shryock, second Lieut. and MichaelTamer, Ensign of a Company in said County. Also to James Smith first Lieutenant of Captain William Brown's Company of Matrosses. Copy of Letter No 106 was sent to Col. Stull, and Copy of No 107 to Plummer Williams. Ordered That the Western Shore Treasurer pay to Mrs Sands (of John) three Pounds five Shillings. That the said Treasurer pay to Oliver Whiddon four Pounds ten Shillings. Whereas the odious Practice of forestalling and Ingrossing is more particularly at this Time prejudicial to the State by enhancing the Price of Provisions, so that neither the Army,on which the Fate of America depends, nor Individuals can be supplied on reasonable Terms, and the honorable Congress having recommended to the executive Powers of this and the neighbouring States to limit the Price of Provisions, It is there-fore earnestly recommended to all Committees of Observation, and other well disposed Persons, Inhabitants of this State, to enquire after and take notice of such as are guilty of the Offences aforesaid, and return their names, together with the names of the Witnesses who can prove the Charge, to the Council of Safety, or to the Justices of the several CountyCourts, that such Delinquents may be proceeded againstaccording to Law. Adjourned till next Day 10 O'Clock.