In my ventures as an amateur genealogist I am always willing to test any new avenue of research. One of the recent ones I have begun to utilize is the newspapers.com archives. A modern virtual take on the microfiche of old, Newspapers.com allows you to search your ancestors names and comb through years of newspaper content. Newspapers back then had much more genealogy information than they might today. They included descriptions of parties with guests listed out, visits to relatives, and even announcements of illnesses or hospital trips. Some of these pieces were often paid for as social announcements – something one only might do now for an engagement announcement, wedding announcement or obituary.
After searching out the specific stories and subjects I was looking for, I broadened my search to any and all family members I could think of. One of the results that came up was the record of an anniversary party held for my great great grandparents, Elbridge & Mabel Lovejoy from 1948, a record that left me a little shocked.
Elbridge and Mabel’s anniversary was given two dedicated columns. With 11 children and numerous grandchildren they had an abundance of guests. What was surprising to me was how the anniversary announcement ended “Their oldest son served in World War I and they have a son in the Navy. Nine of their grandchildren have served or are still serving in the armed forces, one giving his life.”
Elbridge and Mabel were Jehovah’s Witnesses – a religion very much against participation in military service. The first in my family to be part of the religion – Elbridge held a high place locally in the religion. According to family lore, Elbridge joined the religion prior to 1914, and was involved with the production of The Photo-Drama of Creation, a film produced by the head of the religion Charles Tase Russell when the religion was then called Bible Students.
When I knew family member’s in the religion, being a conscientious objector in World War II was celebrated and held in reverence. A great uncle by marriage was mentioned often as refusing to serve and was jailed and then used to build dams as part of an extension of the work begun during the New Deal. The head of my grandmother’s congregation, and an old family friend Murray Mayo, was lauded for his bravery for his refusal to serve during World War II and being jailed instead. One of my mother’s cousins made his exit from the religion by joining the military, a choice that meant he was cut off from the family. How did the experiences I knew in my lifetime make sense with the two sentences paid for to tout my family’s military service?
Here is where like most genealogists I have to begin making guesses and assumptions. Sometimes these guesses can be right, other times after you find more and more information you realize you might have been wrong. My guess today at this moment is that one of Elbridge and Mabel’s daughters wrote the announcement. In large families it was often hard to convert every member of the family to one religion, especially a religion as extreme as the Jehovah’s Witness religion. My great grandmother Alice, Elbridge and Mabel’s daughter, was a convert, but some of her siblings didn’t get involved in the religion at all.
In putting myself in one of my great great aunt’s place, I see those two sentences as protection – a propaganda – to keep my family safe. In 1940 a Kingdom Hall (what Jehovah’s Witnesses call their church) was burned down in Kennebunk Maine by a mob upset that Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to salute the flag. In 1945 the FBI arrived to the small town where my family lived, Milo Maine, to arrest a family friend, and member of Elbridge’s congregation who Elbridge converted personally, Murray Mayo (mentioned before for his refusal to serve). Murray’s arrest and the proceeding court case played out in the media for almost 6 months. In 1948 America was at the height of post World War II American Patriotism, and at the start of the toxic side of that same Patriotism – McCarthy’s investigation into communism and anything else deemed Un-American. Un-Americanism had tangible and real consequences.
And I see myself in this propaganda, pushed into the world as a small means of social protection – a truth to hide behind. The facts but no belief system to back it up. My family was using the same tools in the newspaper that I would use years later as a closeted gay man on social media.
Facebook has become the modern day replacement of the social announcements section. People often work to present their best possible self to their friends and acquaintances. For me, for many years I thought that meant presenting as straight.
Attempting to present as straight offered the same protections to me, that presenting my great great grandparents as patriotic offered my family. It was a flimsy protection at best, where a little probing would have revealed the truth, but for the people who didn’t probe and accepted what was said at surface level it allowed them to point at something and say “what are you talking about? Didn’t you see the thing that was written?”
Recently I spoke to another gay man who grew up in Maine, about the use of shame in New England as a weapon. While others talked about shame in the abstract, we understood shame, as something real that had a solid shape, and sharp edge. A society built on puritanical values, their belief systems pushing that public punishments are encouraged, and alienations of people who were othered is right and just, the concept of passing has it roots not only in our gay ancestors – but our straight ancestors too. In order to avoid the judging eye, passing was a tool that has passed on from generation to generation, and discussed privately on how to utilize. How you present yourself, and the situations in life you go through, can decide how the world is to treat you.
Prior to coming out I was posting often on Facebook of women I hit on when I was drinking, actresses I found attractive, hell even just random thoughts on boobs. I tried (and honestly failed) to cultivate an image of myself as one thing, a man who was single not for lack of trying, as privately I began questioning why I couldn’t picture a future where a relationship with a woman was part of it. But the perceived and real dangers of being gay – losing friends, losing family, being relegated to a second class, were so overwhelming I had to maintain the image.
After reading these archives, I’ve started to think about social media, not only for what it presents today – but what it will present to my future descendants? What image will future genealogists take from my social media accounts – will they understand the difference between the truths that were never truths, the systems in place that mandated them, and real truth that lies beneath?
Maiden Name Unknown 