Sunday 30 April 2017

Sleepless Nights

19 July 2019



I am writing this post at 4 a.m. for a variety of reasons and it reminds me of another sleepless night a few years back, just after my divorce. It all begins with my family's relocation to the U.S. Virgin Islands when I was five.

Both of my parents were born in New York. My mother, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, is famous for saying almost on cue - whenever anyone asked - that she was a third-generation New Yorker. She has always been very proud of that. My father was born in Harlem, but raised in Queens. This meant that my older brother and I were fourth-generation New Yorkers -- whatever that really means, because my research has found that some of our roots in New York go back further than Mom realized and that other parts of our family tree were not rooted in New York at all. But I digress.

My parents have always been “free-thinkers,” shall we say. Others probably called them "damn fools." Whichever it is, I will always be grateful to them for giving me the gift of the seven magical years we spent in St. Croix.
We moved there in 1969, the year after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed.
The sixties were an intense period for the country and emotionally draining for many people, including my mom. She wanted something different for us and so after a few scouting trips she and my dad settled on St. Croix.

It changed my life and my outlook on the world in ways that I continue to discover. St. Croix is home. That in and of itself is a gift to someone who has moved as much as I have throughout my life. And I cannot imagine growing up in a more beautiful place. I was aware of its incredible views and vistas even as a child. Sometimes I would just walk along the harbor in town and look out on the blue sparkly water that lapped so gently against the wall. I was mesmerized by it all. 

My brother and I adapted to the new climate and culture and the creole. My love of my new home was such that I desperately wanted for it to really be “mine.” Because truthfully, while we were certainly accepted and welcomed there, we were still “statesiders.” It was desire that would stay with me for many years.

Shortly after college, I moved to the Washington, DC area where I found work at a couple of museums. I met some fabulous people and that is where I first learned about researching one's family history and genealogy.
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A colleague who was also researching ancestors in her family whose last name was similar to that of my maternal great-grandmother passed on a census record (which I must confess I no longer have). That really got me started. To see the past in the present was exciting.

Fast-forward about 15 years, two kids and one divorce later, I was living with my mother in and not sleeping well one night. I got on the internet to research her grandfather that we knew was from the Caribbean. He was probably from one of the smaller islands, my mom used to say. "But he boarded the ship in St. Thomas she would add."

So there I was researching passenger lists from various ships that came into New York at early o'clock in the morning. And I FOUND HIM! I felt like Alex Haley at the end of Roots!

I can still feel the emotion and exhilaration. I cried. There was his name. Last on the list of 22 people (plus the captain) on the S.S. Trinidad. And there in the seventh column under the heading "Native Country" written in Gothic Script  was the name of my beloved island, "St. Croix." 

Photo credit : Denmark National Museum 

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