Things I Have Inherited from my Mother

Okay, hang onto your brain.

My mother's mother's mother's mother was widowed young, and to support her little daughter she went to work as a housekeeper for a family of uptight Baptist salt marsh farmers and sometime mariners, most of whom were named Zebulon.

If one were ghostwriting the biblical begats, it would go something like this:

And it came to pass that Benjamin Lufkin didst upon Abigail beget Zebulon in 1722; and Zebulon lay with Sarah, and begat Zebulon II in 1745, who was espoused to Martha; and they begat Zebulon III, who with Betsy begat Zebulon IV.  And Zebulon IV, together with his wife Mary, did beget Zebulon V and Frank (along with three other sons).  Zebulon V took to Sarah to wed, and in 1875 and 1879 they begat Will and Clif, respectively.

From at least Zeb IV on down they all lived right in the house where my grandmother is living now, the house where her young, attractive, widowed grandmother went to work as a housekeeper to that family of bachelor Baptists.  Given the choice between young Will and his equally amorous (for a Baptist) Uncle Frank, my great-great-grandmother plumped for Will.  They got married in 1901 and everyone lived happily ever after.

Now, around the turn of the century there wasn't much for teetotaling young Baptist men to do of an evening except sit around and doodle with fountain pens.  At some point Will drew a portrait of Clif.  Or maybe Clif drew one of Will.  Or maybe it's someone else entirely.  I should ask my grandmother.

Whoever it is, it meant enough that someone put it in a heavy oak and gilt frame, and Clif kept it in his house (which he built next door to Will's) for the rest of his life.  Clif's house passed to my mother, who shoved this drawing in a shed for forty years.

Here's a closeup of the subject.

If it's a picture of Will, it's the only one I've ever seen with a hint of a smile, so maybe it is Clif after all.

My step-second-great-grand-uncle.

It will be kind of a fun addition to the gallery of ancestors I have in my stairwell, but that frame has got to go.

Bonus inheritance: this hand-made bucket.

With the initials "ZL" carved in the lid.

Those intrepid Zebulons...