Summoning GRANDMA AT SAMHUINN

Or, The Thinning of the Veil

This post was inspired by anne at “The Gods Are Bored.” Anne’s been shaking her family tree lately.

On the Samhuinn I remember best, I called my great, great, great grandma Elizabeth to come and commune with me. It was a cold, pitch-black night in the country, around a bonfire. All I could see were orange sparks dancing on black bonfire logs, spiraling against the pitch black sky. Grandma came, I could feel her there, and that was enough at the time. But I’ve decided I need to call her again, because I have questions to ask her.

In 1813, at the age of 20, Grandma married a guy who moved lock, stock and barrel from her home in Bedford Co. Pennsylvania to the Ohio wilderness, for gosh sakes! Around 1830 or so, she’d had enough of Ohio. She had a yearning to see her kinfolk in PA again. Apparently no one took that yearning seriously, so Grandma Elizabeth just saddled up a horse one day and struck out on her own. She rode alone through wilderness for twenty days, back to Bedford County. (The women in my family have never let the men forget this.)

I want to know more. Were you scared, Grandma? Where’d you stay at night? Did you attract any trouble – a lone woman traveling over 500 miles on horseback through the 1830s wilderness? How’d you carry things -- saddle bags? Did you take the Old National Road? Were you afraid Grandpa would ride after you? Where’d you get your spunk, Grandma? What made you different? What are your secrets?

At the thinning of the veil this Samhuinn, I’m gonna call Grandma again. Maybe she’ll relate the details of her tale this time. Maybe too she’ll have some pointers on how a woman can be powerful in the world.