A Good-bye of Sorts

Okay – Tilman P. Curbow – enough is enough!   You know that I’ve spent the better part of the last three years getting to know you and your family.  But now it’s time we parted ways for a time.  The other ancestors are clamoring for my attention.  Your life has been dissected and your story has been written.   The reports have been generated and  the notebooks have been compiled and mailed to your descendants.   I’m closing my binder and putting you on the shelf for just a little while. 

Over the last three years, you’ve given up many of your secrets – we know about your wife and all your children and their spouses and their children.  We know you lived in turbulent times and that you fought for what you believed in during the Civil War – right or wrong cause – you did what you thought you had to do.  We know that you struggled and faced hardships.  But we also found out that you were a survivor.  To be sure, you  didn’t give up all of your secrets.  I still wonder –  Where did you come from?  Who were your people?  We don’t know.  When and where did you marry Elizabeth?  We don’t know.  When did Elizabeth die and where is she laid to rest?  We don’t know.  When did you die?  Where are you laid to rest?  We don’t know that either.

Don’t be concerned though - at some point in the future, I will once again pull that binder off the shelf and take a look at your life story with fresh eyes.  I’ll begin by tracing you in Mississippi through the deed records of Itawamba County.  (You never should have told that census taker way back when that you owned land!)  Maybe those deed records will be the key to exposing some of these secrets.  In the meantime, rest well dear Tilman…..it has been an adventure and a pleasure!

 

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