SAD ANCESTORS BY DAVE MORRISON 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 04
When Charles Campbell broke his leg and couldn’t fish, his wife and son took his boat out and perished in a storm.
Gunther Highgate could only stand and watch as his barn burned ferociously, his mad daughter inside, shrieking.
Eleanor Ann Peale cared for her sickly and bitter parents, never going to college or marrying, but watching through the yellowed lace most days as her childhood beau whistled past.
Archie Lloyd borrowed money from everyone he knew to buy the small mill, but drowned in a canal after a night at the pub, leaving his family in debt for two generations.
Donnie MacNeal’s young wife ran away with his brother, leaving him with two angry heartbroken children who wordlessly blamed him.
When I found these people in my mother’s family bible I wept with relief.
Despair had come to me as a boy, as real and confusing as the appearance of a carved stone statue in the front yard. I …