Dear Thomas – Part I

A Fictional letter to the late Thomas Moore of Maberly, from his 3 x Great Grandaughter, Krista Moore…

 

Dear Thomas,

This is your great-great-granddaughter, Krista Moore, writing to you in the year 2012, about a hundred and twenty-five years after you lived. I bet you didn’t know I existed, did you?!  Well, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you and your brave father, William Moore, and your dear mother, Winnifred, who braved even more. So I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done, and braved, and won.  None of us would be here without you.

But more than that, I wanted to apologize for not thinking of you enough when I grow selfish and impatient and ‘want to know more’. My hunger for knowledge has led me to you but has also kept you at bay because I didn’t allow the real story to shine through.  There is so much more to you than historical facts, that I beg your forgiveness for not seeing the miracle of your existence sooner. Now I long to know you as you really were and are. Simply to feel your presence, what you went through, and feel I have come closer to my great-great-grandfather and mother and shared time together, all these years later.

Krista Moore on Thomas Moore land, Maberly

Did I tell you I stood on your land last fall?  I believe this was the land you purchased likely with your own money, because you worked hard for it, that is for sure.  I noticed there was a trailer on it now, and some smaller houses, but most of the land is still there, clear as ever, and your original fence, too. I stood next to it, and Steve, my husband, took my picture. I was holding my book of information, all about you and your children and grandchildren, a little white binder of facts, clinging to my chest. I was proud of you and proud to be standing on a big rock outside the farm that you once knew, and once knew you!   Did you work hard on it, or did you have your sons to help you? Did you hire other help as well? Or did your wife Margaret lend a hand? What about your daughters? Did you see that they were useful as well? Or did they sew and cook and clean inside? I’d love to know more about them as well.

Thomas, I am so sorry about your loss of Margaret and David. I can’t even imagine the pain you must have went through when you lost them. I have a daughter who is 9, and this very night she has a fever and has gone to bed early. In those days, I am pretty sure you did not have children’s Tylenol or a warm bed unless it was the heat of summer. In which case the bugs must have been merciless.  How you bore it, or your child Margaret, when your little Margaret died, and then ten years or so later, David too. Or was it the other way around?  I do not want to report facts to you, because I feel I would be insulting you to pretend to know more about you than yourself. I would rather ask you, and see if I might be surprised, and realize I know very little about you after all. That there is so much more to know, that this is a real adventure we are on, again, in revisiting the past, only to bring my own dear father, John Harold Moore, closer to you, his own great-grandfather. Can you believe it?  He didn’t even get to know his grandfather, your last son, Lawrence, who was lost to his own family at the age of 44. I am sorry to report, but I’m sure you already know.  He too left a whole brood behind him with dear Emma leading the way, a hearty Deacon girl.

End of Part I

Continue to Part II