A Cultural Encounter In The Middle Of The Covid Crisis

 

 

On Thursday, June4, 2020, I had an appointment in Lexington and my wife, Candice went with me.  I stopped, as I often do, on the way there to hike for an hour plus in Hood's Branch at Natural Bridge State Park.  Then we headed on to Lexington for my mid-afternoon appointment.  We have been absolutely religious about social distancing and complying with the Covid 19 guidelines and directives from Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who is, in my opinion, the best governor in America; but, we had also discussed possibly going to eat lunch at one of our favorite ethnic restaurants because we like the setting, the food, the employees, and the owner. But, now that restrictions are loosening up a bit, and Kentucky has done such a good job of handling the situation under the strong, competent, decisive, and compassionate leadership of Governor Beshear, we had decided we would be willing to eat lunch in this restaurant.  That decision was influenced strongly by the fact that the room is large, open, well ventilated, clean, and run by an owner with common sense and professionalism.  

 

I am not using the name of the restaurant, the particular ethnicity of the food or the owner, or any other identifying data and you will understand that choice better a bit later in this post.  When we arrived, we decided that I would go into the restaurant first, appraise the situation, and make a decision if we would go through with the lunch in light of the fact that Candice has serious health issues and has been in a wheelchair for twenty years.  I got out of the van and as I was walking to the door I realized that the owner was still only serving pickup customers.  The particular food we like to eat in that restaurant is served very hot and Candice particularly likes their soup which is not made to be eaten in a vehicle by a person with mobility and dexterity issues.  As I approached the door, the owner came out to bring food to go to another customer.  I said something or other to effect of "I see you are only serving pickup" to which he replied in his heavily accented speech, "Yes, but I be open tomorrow for dine in.  You can come tomorrow."  I responded, "I live two hours away and I won't be here tomorrow" and started to leave when he recognized me and said, "If you want, I will open for you today.  You can come in."  I agreed to do it and told him I would be right back with my wife.  

 

When I returned from the vehicle pushing Candice in her wheelchair, the owner held the single door he was using open for us to enter and seated us at a table in the dining room which actually had three men ranging in age from probably early twenties to middle seventies who were all of the same ethnicity as the owner and all speaking their native language.  The dining room was all set up for the opening the next day with one row of table eliminated and all the other tables marked in alternating spots to honor social distancing.  There were multiple hand sanitizer stations and all the usual multi-use items and utensils had been removed from the tables.  The owner and one other employee were the only people working so there were five natives of the country in question speaking their native language and Candice and I speaking English.  The owner brought us a stack of paper napkins and served us our usual dishes.  As  he was rushing around covering two, or possibly three different positions, he managed to stop by our table, give us excellent service, and we shared some stories about our previous visits to his business and a story I often tell others about the first person I ever knew from his country.  We had a leisurely lunch which was excellent, had great conversation, and most of the feeling that we were being treated as special customers, regulars, aficionados  of the place.  He gave us the schedule of how he will be open in the future including the days he will be closed and then added, "if you come when I'm not open, knock on the door, I'm usually here and I will feed you if you show up when I'm closed."  

 

After I got home, I told a relative about the incident who agreed with me that it was a special and memorable treatment from a person who probably works more hours in a week than many do in a month; a man who is open, friendly, humorous, and caring; and a fine example of how much this country has and can, in the future, benefit from welcoming immigrants forever just as we always have.  

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Last Day Of School, Faith Hills Mennonite School, Crockett, KY--A Crosscultural Experience

On Thursday, May 10, 2018, I traveled from my home to Crockett, KY, to attend the annual celebration of the last day of school at Faith Hills Christian School, the local Mennonite School.  I had been invited the event the previous year by my friend, Aquila Derstine, but was unable to attend at the time.  I have mentioned in several other posts on this blog that I maintain relationships with many of the local Mennonites for both business and friendship reasons.  I generally use Mennonite workers when I need to do anything major to a vehicle or my home.  But I had never been to the last day of school celebration even though I have known a handful of previous Mennonite teachers. I also wanted to attend this year because I was taking some books to a young Mennonite woman who has just published her second novel.  Her name is Emily Steiner and she is one of the former Mennonite school teachers I know.  I will write more about two of her books on this blog very shortly.

 

Photo Of An Unknown Mennonite School by Pintanderest

 

 

Incidentally, the only requirements, to my knowledge, for a person to become a Mennonite school teacher are that they be a practicing Mennonite, completion of Mennonite school themselves, and worthy of the respect of the local school committee and the community. Mennonite students only attend school until they are about sixteen years old and immediately go to work at some job in the community. Some of these former students might also leave home for a period to attend a church run Bible School. The church receives an exemption to mandated attendance laws across the country under the same Freedom Of Religion protections that the Amish receive. 

Program Last Day Of School-Faith Hills School

When I attend any church related event in the Mennonite, Amish, or serpent handling communities where I have ties, I always wear clothing which is nearly identical to what the men in the that community will be wearing to that occasion whether it is a church service, funeral, or a school event such as this.  The celebration started around noon and was attended by most of the local Mennonite community especially including relatives of the current students.  The event was primarily a religious song fest by the students and teachers with one song, "I Sing The Mighty Power Of God", being sung by the entire audience, students, and teachers.  The school is broken into three rooms each with a single teacher who is usually in their late teens or early twenties and, in most cases, unmarried.  They may or may not have grown up in the local congregation.  A few such as Asa Derstine have traveled out of state to teach school for a year or two.  There are usually three or four grades in a particular room with the lines of separation being roughly equivalent to those you would find in a similar sized public school in a rural community.  After an introduction by Aquila Derstine along with a prayer, the singing began with the opening and closing hymns being sung by all the students and teachers adn the remainder being sung by the students in a single room.  The audience contained several other non-Mennonite members of the community who also have relationships with the Mennonite community.  There was also one non-Mennonite man who is married to a Mennonite woman which usually happens rarely.  It is my understanding that his wife was not raised as a Mennonite but joined the church as an adult.  The men, including myself were almost all dressed in long sleeved blue dress shirts and plain blue, black, or dark grey pants.  All the women and girls wore traditional long Mennonite dresses in either solid colors or mildly muted, small patterns.  They all cover their heads with small, gauzy hats or head coverings of a sort.  

 

Photo Of Anonymous Mennonites by Huffington Post

 

 

During the singing I sat with my friend, Ottis Conley, and his wife.  Ottis and his brother Cletus were both born non-Mennonites and their mother joined the church when they were young boys.  The woman who cleans our house is a cousin to Ottis but belongs to a conservative Baptist congregation.  I was able to also spend time talking with several other members of the community with whom I have relationships and in some ways it was a lot like a family reunion or homecoming ceremony.   

Song For Entire Audience-Faith Hills Last Day Of School

Nearly everyone, or at least every family, brought some sort of food item and everyone ate in same folding chairs which were used for the audience during the singing program.  The food was simple, wholesome, and tasty without a great deal of expense which is how nearly all Mennonites cook and eat every day.  I have eaten on a few occasions in Mennonite homes and I have never seen a meat entree at a meal where every person had a personal piece of meat such as chicken, beef, or other farm animal meats.  Meat is usually included in at least one recipe as an ingredient but not necessarily the main ingredient.  I ate the meal with my friends, the Derstine family and the Bear family.  After the lunch was over and the chairs, tables, and other equipment put away, there was a long baseball game for the young people and the adults and small children spread out in the grass and shady areas between the baseball field and the small cemetery near the church.  The baseball game was quite interesting in that no young person who wished to play was excluded.  During their defensive side of an inning, each team had nearly a dozen outfielders.  During offensive halves of innings, the players lined up in some pre-ordained order and eventually everyone got a turn or two at bat.  Most surprising about the game was the fact that I never heard a single occasion when any player was derided, belittled, or even seriously ribbed about missing a defensive play, failing to outrun a fielder's throw, or striking out.  All these players, many less than ten years old, were naturally respectful of everyone else on the field.  After the game ended, we all walked to our vehicles, shook hands, exchanged pleasantries, and pledge to see each other sometime soon.  To say the least, I thoroughly enjoyed the event and will try to be there next year. 

My Appalachian DNA

For several years, my wife and I talked intermittently about having our DNA analyzed but never seemed to get around to it.  Finally, last summer, we both sent off DNA kits to Ancestry DNA.  After about six weeks, we got the results back and much like everyone else who has DNA analysis done, we found a couple of surprises.  I had heard a far too common Eastern Kentucky rumor, prevarication, and old wives' tale that my paternal third great-grandfather, Aulse Hicks, had been the son of a man named Charles Renatus Hicks, who had been the first mixed blood chief of the Eastern Band Of Cherokee.  There had always been two schools of thought about this purported connection.  Most of us who had done much in depth genealogical research leaned strongly toward the opinion that there was far too insufficient proof to justify the common belief and there was too much geographical distance between the well known homes of Charles Renatus Hicks in Spring Place, Georgia, and the area of Western Virginia from which Aulse Hicks emigrated to Prestonsburg, KY, about 1790 to 1810.  In the misguided attempt to connect Aulse Hicks to Chief Charles Renatus Hicks, various people had tried to change Aulse's first name from Aulse to Austin or Augustus despite the fact that every piece of paper he ever signed in Floyd County Kentucky as a minister and well known man had been signed Aulse.  There has also never been found a list of the names of the children of Chief Charles Renatus Hicks which listed either an Aulse, Austin, or Augustus.  In my own mind, I was clearly convinced that the connection between the two was purely the work of too many overly active imaginations which wanted to fulfill the oft repeated Appalachian fantasy of "being descended from a full blooded Cherokee Indian".  I freely admit that as I learned more about Chief Charles Renatus Hicks I grew to respect him highly as a successful man in a difficult world.  I would have loved to learn that I was descended from a man who was the first mixed blood Chief of The Eastern Band of Cherokee, who was bilingual and wrote and spoke both English and Cherokee, acted as a primary interpreter for the tribe and the US military, served as a primary sub-chief for many years, owned one of the largest private libraries in the country as an Indian, and died as the Primary Chief of the tribe.  But I knew better and my DNA analysis proved me correct.  

My Father, Ballard Hicks, Photo By Roger D. Hicks

At this point, I will burst bubbles of fantasy for many descendants of Aulse Hicks and other Hicks' in Eastern Kentucky that they are "descended from a full blood Cherokee Indian".  My genealogy is Hicks on both sides.  My father was Ballard Hicks, a second great grandson of Aulse Hicks with the documentation to prove it.  My mother was Mellie Hicks, the granddaughter of Hence Hicks, whose name I have also seen misspelled and misconstrued in various ways in order to support the Chief Charles Renatus Hicks fantasy.  I have seen Hence Hicks mistakenly identified as being named Henderson or Hensley when I knew numerous people in my childhood who knew him well. He was a well known ambush murder victim in 1935 and every public record about him calls him only one name, Hence Hicks.  Both sides of my family were in Knott County in the late 1700's to early 1800's.  I have always said that I am lucky I wasn't born with a square head and that I suspect that if the truth can ever be proven it is highly likely that "grandpa" came through the Cumberland Gap alone.  By that I mean that I suspect that our original ancestor to emigrate to Kentucky came into the region very early in the settlement process, had a large family which dispersed widely, and eventually converged again to intermarry a few generations later after all family memory and the nearly non-existent record keeping of the time had completely forgotten about any family connections three or four generations in the past.  

Now let's get to the results of the DNA Analysis and burst some of those bubbles.  The first, and most painful bubble to be burst involves Native American DNA.  I, Roger D. Hicks, well-documented third great grandson of Aulse Hicks and a Hicks on both sides,  have absolutely no Native American DNA.  The major aspect of the analysis that was not a surprise also confirmed what most Eastern Kentucky genealogists have believed for years.  Ninety-eight percent of my DNA came from Europe and seventy-seven percent of it came from Great Britain and Ireland.  That was no surprise whatsoever.  But there were a couple of other minor surprises and two fairly major surprises left in the DNA. I have seven percent DNA from Scandinavia.  I also have two percent DNA from the Iberian Peninsula and less than one percent each from Finland/Northwest Russia and Eastern Europe.  But the bigger surprise was that I have less than one percent DNA from each of Southern Asia and Nigeria.  Since I have learned of the connections to Southern Asia and Nigeria, I have tried to imagine just how that interaction took place at a time which must have been at least eight or ten generations in the past, roughly two hundred years or more.  With most of my DNA coming from Europe and Great Britain in particular, someone in my far distant bloodlines had to be a bit of a world traveler.  Was an ancient grandfather a sailor who followed the canvas to points in Africa and Asia?  Was an ancient grandmother a slave who was raped by a slave trader?  Or did a pair of my distant ancestors both find themselves stranded in isolation somewhere in a place and time where the most logical response for their own good was to assume an interracial marriage?  I doubt that I will ever find the answers unless the religion of some group of my ancestors or another is correct and we all end up in a common hereafter either sitting around a cooking fire in the darkness, sailing a common vessel on seas yet unknown, or sharing iced tea on a shady porch and telling the stories in whichever place of exactly how we all came to be.  Sorry about all those bubbles!  

Woots Hicks Cemetery Photo by Roger D. Hicks