Paging the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

a liaison between one of his direct ancestors and a slave woman. Winston had set out to get the whole story and he wanted to know everything regardless of how his ancestor’s reputation fared. Winston subscribes to the warts-and-all school of genealogy and I heartily approve. Otherwise it’s just an exercise in vanity.
    â€œI’m getting somewhere finally,” he said. “I got those papers I sent off for months ago. Remember? From that historical society down in South Carolina?”
    We all nodded.
    â€œAbout Bonaventure plantation?” I asked.
    â€œYeah, Bonaventure,” Winston said, crooking his head to one side, “though I don’t rightly know if it was much of a plantation by the time my—let me see, it would be my great-great-grandfather—by the time he came to own it.”
    â€œLet’s use the ahnentafel chart to avoid confusion, Winston,” I said. “Horace Lovett would be your number twelve, four generations back from you.”
    Esme rolled her eyes. She and I have an ongoing argument about how to reference ancestors and it perfectly illustrates the differences in our approach to our work. Esme is unbothered by the monotonous repetition of a confusing string of “greats” to signify generations. I, on the other hand,prefer the Teutonic orderliness of the ahnentafel, the family table, which handily supplies each relation a number.
    â€œOkay,” Winston said. “So my twelve bought the plantation lock, stock and barrel, including the slaves. Got it at a fire-sale price and looks like maybe there was a good reason for that. It was pitifully rundown by then.”
    â€œDid you find anything about what you really want to know?” Coco asked.
    â€œNothing that’ll stand up to Sophreena’s standards,” he said. “But there’s a list of all the assets that came with the plantation, and, just alongside where they’d put down a plow and a rocking chair, there’s a woman named Delsie.” He shook his head. “Awful. A human being, just another thing in the inventory.”
    â€œIs that her?” Coco pressed. “Is that the one you think might be your—okay let’s see, what would that be? Your thirteen?”
    â€œI don’t know if it’s her,” Winston said. “I thought the name I’d heard whispered about in the family was Della, but maybe Delsie is a nickname.” He hunched a shoulder. “Or maybe I’m remembering wrong, could be it’s a different person altogether. But this is a start anyway.”
    Winston hadn’t understood what the family secret was about when he was a child, but he’d known it was something shameful. When he was in his forties a great-aunt decided she was tired of carrying the secret and told him all she knew. That her grandfather had been the master of a plantation and he’d had children with a slave woman and that she was descended from that union. Winston tried to ask his family about it, but was told never to speak of it again. NowWinston had grandchildren of his own and he wanted his family history to be honest and complete.
    This was the purest of reasons for documenting family history, to leave for subsequent generations the legacy of really knowing their people. Winston’s wife, Patsy, felt otherwise; she hated that he was “dredging up all that old stuff.” But his children and his grandchildren were into it. They trailed along with him when he hit the libraries, courthouses and graveyards searching for information.
    Winston’s scrapbooks weren’t beautiful. He didn’t have an eye for layout or embellishment and his craft was a bit sloppy, but they were genuine and personal.
    I couldn’t help but contrast them to the vanity books we’d be constructing for Dorothy. Then it hit me. Would we be making the Pritchett books? The woman was dead; she’d have no use for them now. Then the second