My
father was an amateur genealogist, which is to say he wasn’t paid for his
research; (but in every other sense of the word, I would have referred to him
as a professional). Henry McDonald began and ended his family research well
before the advent of the internet; spending countless hours in numerous
historical libraries across the southeast United States.
Even
as I type these words, I am sitting just feet away from a room which houses a
large bookcase full to the brim with my unpublished works, as well as several
versions of thick family research binders which my father compiled during the 5th
and 6th decades of his life on this planet.
My
dad often mused that he hoped I would write a book about his great great
Grandfather Isham McDonald; a Scottish immigrant who fought for this fledgling
nation during the Revolutionary War. However, just as often as he mused it, I
reminded him that we had all of two paragraphs of historical information about
our ancient foreign grandfather, and that if I wrote a book, it would be largely
fictional in nature. Well, he couldn’t
countenance such blasphemy.
But
perhaps I did him one better.
You
see, my father left behind eight or ten hours of audio tapes on which he told
stories of his childhood and military life. A few years after his passing, I not
only transferred his voice to a hard drive, but have transcribed every word of
it into written form.
I’m
proud of my dad, and I’m glad I had a part in keeping his memory alive for
those of us who cherish him, and his progeny who never had the privilege of
knowing him.
by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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