I’m not sure when I became such a lover of history.  I didn’t love history in school. Certain periods, yes, classes in general, not so much.  Living and visiting the places I have, I wish I had understood the significance of those sites.   I know my parents emphasized the significance of visiting Pompeii, and I was a little awed by those ruins, even though I had not fully comprehended the historical impact of what had taken place there.  While living in Maryland, the tall replica ships we boarded at Fort McHenry meant little to my five year old brain.  When our relatives visited us in Hawaii, my upper elementary-aged ignorance passed up an opportunity to go to Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona, its oil still bubbling from underneath.  I am thankful to have been given a second chance when my husband and I visited Hawaii years later.  I’m amazed at the many places I’ve had the privilege to visit before I turned twenty.  Yet somehow, my connections between the places and the historical events were slower in coming.

Recently, my boys and I visited a local Civil War battlefield.  I don’t know if they will appreciate the significance of what all took place there  (we are fortunate to live close, so there will be opportunities for future trips), but I tried my best to make connections.  I know my parents did this as well, though I was slow to grasp them, or I lacked the context to know how to process the information.  I claim the second excuse for my snubbing of Pearl Harbor.  I had yet to learn about World War II, so even though my Dad explained the historical impact, I didn’t fully realize the relevance.  When I realized later, (after a few courses in American History) I can tell you, I beat myself up a lot about not seizing that opportunity.  More so, when I learned that one of our ancestors was killed there, his name memorialized on the wall.

Where then, did this sudden love of history come from?  I can’t really pinpoint an answer.  I loved World History my sophomore year of high school, even though my teacher’s reputation preceded her as the toughest in our school, and her own admittance of keeping her broomstick well hidden. That she was tough was no lie, ending our year with a 20 page essay final exam.  I worked harder in her class than I did in my entire four years of high school. But I remember the most from her class because she made connections.  Instead of just assigning memorization of all the countries on the African continent, we were required to fashion them into a puzzle that we would assemble at her discretion.  Instead of just lecturing about Israel/Egypt during the Begin/Sadat era, our class was split in two, taking each side of the question and creating a mock summit of these meetings.  Her approach helped me understand why we were learning about these events.

The next time I remember really loving History was during a college class that covered the time period between the Old and New Testaments.  I had never learned much about that time period, and my professor always showed how they connected to Scripture and how God was still working, even though He chose not to include these events in Scripture.

As I matured, and learned more about History, I was able to better realize that I had been to some important places.  Having visited Mount Vernon often, I could have been a tour guide for George Washington’s home, and yet, little did I realize that the same Potomac River that runs along the backside of his residence carried more than the modern ships that sailed.  As breathtaking as Michelangelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel were, I didn’t realize then, the back-intensive labor that went into each stroke.  Nor did I have enough Biblical context to recognize that the Apostle Paul had visited in nearby Pozzuoli, mentioning the city in the book of Acts. As a child, I had been to the ruins of the place he was purported to have visited.

When my interest in history developed, I can’t exactly say,  but I can tell you when I see an ancient artifact, or take in an exhibit of a time gone by, I am enthralled.  Historical fiction has become my favorite genre to read and my favorite to write.  Recently, our local art museum had a display of textiles through the ages.  I’m not generally a tactile person, but as a writer, I have become one.   I more accurately incorporate all of the senses into a scene when I experience them firsthand.  And this is perhaps why, when I learned my Mother had some past family history that she was no longer able to house, I jumped at the opportunity to store them, rummaging through the items first, of course.

In forefront: My great grandmother’s? or great aunt’s? autograph book, some signatures dating back to 1887; Back right: As of yet, unidentified pictures of family, or friends of family;  Far left:  A great, great, relative that I have yet to define his relationship to me, with a Civil War era inkwell (Thanks Cousin Debbie!) that I believe may have been his.

So, probably not everyone gets the same thrill I did when uncovering these wonderful finds (and these are just an itty bitty fraction of what we went through.)  But I love the touch and smell.  Instead of settling for glass-reflected photos of museum exhibits I’ve visited, I can hold these in my hand and study the slope of the beautiful handwriting from that era, and guess at the color of the clothes, the comfort (or discomfort) of the furniture.  I can imagine the loving letters written as I hold the inkwell in my hand. These are primary resources.  And for a writer of history, fiction or non, it doesn’t get any better than primary resources.  And though most of these discoveries are a few decades later than the project I’m currently working on, they still give me a sense of time and place, and even inspiration for a future project.

My middle son (almost ten) shares in my joy of all things historical.  He made me promise not to sort through the items without him.  His eyes lit up as we delicately pulled out card-stock pictures of long-gone relatives and their keepsakes.  Framed tintypes and stock photos of former Presidents and other important figures of the time must have held significance to our kin.  I hope I’m helping him make the connections and giving him a context for learning these things.  Who knows?  Maybe he too will write about them someday.