Page 12 - People & Places In Time

I had no idea of the participation in slave ownership by several members of both families, and yet as I read their letters, I have seen them as thoughtful, sensitive and caring people. I don’t condone slavery, but I’m moved that in at least two cases on the Duff-Mitchell side their slaves were freed and given land. As for my fifth great grandfather, Strongman Hutchens a staunch Quaker on the Smith side, he freed twelve of his slaves by Manumission. Each family had men fighting for both the Confederate and Union sides in the Civil War, all of whom I’m a direct decedent.
So, what prompted me to write of my heritage as an odyssey, for these two families, taken independently to cross the country? It was the realization that each unbeknown to the other, had settled little more than one hundred miles apart, each on one side or the other of the North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia borders. Little more than a generation later they took separate, parallel paths leading into Tulare county to settle again this time only fifteen miles apart.
The addendum at the back of this book is important to the heritage I’ve written about, as it contains addidional background, letters and stories not included in the book itself.
I’ve kept a journal for some time now, writing as much about what I’ve observed as I’ve experienced. Not so diligent with entries, my irregular routine left no discernable timeline to follow. Often as I would start to write, my thoughts began to drift in time, a recent thought prompting another from long ago. This process seemed to require longer entries, becoming more like short stories. In fact, the chapter on Yokohl Valley was published in The Fresno Bee as just that. The next best option became, expanding some of these stories into the chapters in this book.
Still there is not an obvious timeline reading through this book, I‘ve not written a memoir. The chapters are drawn from my first forty years or so, as my journal has taken me back in time. As a result, I’ve come to some understanding, as to how the events within those years brought me to this point in time.
In reading you will find some occasions when I’ve repeated an account. Sometimes the same event becomes part of more than one aspect of my life, but in a different way; still, I remain central to these experiences.
There are some things I can’t forget, some people I refuse to leave in the past. These are most often the people who have meant the most to me. If there are any regrets, and indeed there are and not as Frank Sinatra sang in “My Way . . . too few to mention” it’s because I owe so much to those who have loved and encouraged me, those I can never stop loving in return.
I suppose at times it is possible to say I’ve become too personal in recounting these relationships, but it’s all I have left.
As for the continuing struggle to gain my footing, to eventually find my way back to the only thing that I do well this is perhaps my biggest regret. After I abandoned, for two decades, my pursuit of
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