Have You Ever Been to Cracker Barrel? Random Thoughts on Genealogy.

Have you ever been to Cracker Barrel? It doesn't matter what state you live in, they all look kind of the same. You walk by the rocking chairs on the outside then enter into their little store and then into the dining area with the fireplace (which is going on cold days). And they are all decorated basically the same way. There are old artifacts of yesteryear hanging on the walls. And if you look carefully you will notice old portraits hanging on the wall. But do you ever think about the people who's portraits are on the wall?

Some of these portraits may be 100 years old or perhaps even older. The people in the portraits have long since passed on and these portraits on the wall may be all that is left of the memory of their entire life on earth. Who is that man on the wall? Did he have a name? Certainly, but what is it? Did he have children? grandchildren? Perhaps, but who are they? And how did this portrait end up hanging on the wall of a modern day restaurant?

I'm sure originally, the portrait hung on the wall of the persons house. But what happened after they died? Did their children inherit the portrait? Perhaps, but what happened after their children too passed on? Was the portrait passed down to a grandchild? Perhaps, but somewhere along the way someone no longer wanted the portraits. Was it the great grandchildren who never really knew their great grandparents? I'm not sure, but somewhere along the way, these portraits were given away or perhaps sold to someone more interested in them as a nostalgic item rather than kept as a treasured family heirloom of a families heritage. And then they end up as nameless people on the walls of a restaurant.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually applaud Cracker Barrel for saving these portraits and displaying them. If not for them, what might have become of these priceless artifacts? I'm sure some (many) family portraits have ended up in a landfill somewhere. How do I know this? One of my distant cousins showed me portraits of what she thought were her grandparents when they were younger (she wasn't even sure!). She told me she found them in her mother's trash! She wasn't exactly sure who they were, but thought they should be saved. I remember when she took me down to her basement to show them to me. I instantly recognized them as my great grandparents, Fred and Marie Bey. Another of my cousins sent me some portraits of another of my great grandparents. She said she had been storing them in the attic for years and didn't know what to do with them and thought I might be interested in having them.

So think about life on earth 100 years from. All of you reading this now will no longer be here. What will your great grandchildren know of you? Maybe you think it's egotistical to think of that? O.K. then think of the people that meant something to you in your life. Your parents. Your grandparents. Maybe even that special aunt or uncle. Will you let their memory be forgotten? Will you toss out their portrait so that it may hang as a nameless person on the walls of a restaurant 100 years from now? Or will you tell your children and grandchildren stories of your parents and grandparents and then give them the pictures of them?

Some people think of genealogy as a bunch of names and dates in a chart, and to an extent, it is. But it should be more than that. It should be the memory of the lives of those that paved the way for all of us.

So the next time you go to Cracker Barrel, look around. Look at the portraits on the wall. Take just a moment to think about the people in these portraits. They were somebody's children, somebody's parents, somebody's grandparents. Maybe, just maybe they were even your grandparents grandparents.