Contrasts

Getting back to the stories of my ancestors, what are the differences between these two accounts—“Ancestors” and “Elizabeth”—and what do the differences say about the people who own the stories?

Three contrasts jump out at me. First, Sarah’s version focuses on the male characters—in particular Jean and Peter Bert—while the German version puts a woman, Elizabeth Pastre, front and center. The gender focus goes further in the German version by portraying Elizabeth as the victim of a male–dominated community, a victim who resourcefully finds a way out.

Secondly, in Sarah’s version, Elizabeth married twice, and her sons were orphaned when her husbands died. In the German version she never married so both of her sons were illegitimate. The latter version has the ring of authenticity. I believe it is based on research in church and civic records. Furthermore, it’s easier to see the details of the latter version as the source for the first version than visa versa.

Third, religion has a different character and plays a different role in the two versions. In Sarah’s version, religion produces heroic martyrs and eventually provides Peter a home. In the second version, while religion is capable of heroism and hospitality, it also alienates Elizabeth from her home community and later divides her from her son.

So in one version we have a male-dominated moral tale in which a man leaves a religious community in the old world and finds new faith in the new world. In the other version a woman whose unfortunate romantic alliances put her at odds with a stodgy religious community flees her home only to encounter another rigid sect in the new world, one that absorbs her son.

It’s not difficult to see why Sarah, a frail Kansas farm girl and committed church member who lost her beloved father and went on to found a rescue mission for working-class immigrants in Chicago, would find inspiration and strength in the ancestral story she believed and passed on to others.

Why do I find the second version a source of personal power and pride? What does this story, that I believe, tell about me? Perhaps it says that I value drama. It suggests that I believe victims can be heroic. It suggests that I don’t see the world in comfortable black and white as much as in disquieting shades of gray, that along with my religious faith I also harbor a deep suspicion about religious institutions and practitioners.

We tell our stories, and our stories reveal us.

Had I learned what I know about my ancestors twenty years earlier, I believe I would have named my daughter Elizabeth.

Treatment count: 36 down, 9 to go.