Setting Aside a Wee Bit of Time

(Compiled, and delivered at my dad's memorial service in March, 2012)

It is a privilege to share a memory of my father, Henry McDonald, with you today.

Without doubt, if my dad could be with us today he would agree with me, and on more than one occasion in his later years, he made the comment, that the following was his favorite memory he and I shared together.

I don’t recall what year it was, perhaps the early part of this decade, but daddy and I decided we would attempt to find his original Scottish immigrant Isham McDonald’s homestead, or at least the plot of land it had occupied in South Carolina. Isham came to this country sometime after the mid-1700’s and fought in the American Revolution, like so many of your own ancestors.

Well, we arrived in the little borough we were seeking, and only knew that our ancestor had lived on a river known at the time as Lick Creek. Since my dad was an exterminator by trade, and owned his own business, he decided the place to go was a local extermination company.

We went, and sat down with the owner. We chatted and he recommended we speak to a ninety year old man he knew, and was nice enough to lead the way to his house. Daddy was in his element as he talked history and genealogy with the old gent, and Mr. King told us that he knew the area we sought well. He laughed and said that years before, it had been upwards of 40 feet wide, and he’d fallen into it chasing a raccoon with an old bloodhound.

The old fella told us how to find what used to be a wide, swirling river, and we thanked him and continued our adventure.

We found the place, but the river was no longer a river, nor was it marked as having been a river. By this time, nothing remained but a culvert under the road, and a tiny stream of water, no more than three feet wide. We got out of our vehicle, and walked down the embankment.

There was no way to determine just where our ancestor, Isham, had his homestead. It is thought that during the Civil War, General Sherman’s men had destroyed the courthouses roundabout, and all the records had been burned. But we knew we were close. Somewhere along what used to be a river here, our immigrant Grandfather had built his homestead.

I must wind my tale down now, but suffice it to say that my dad and I never felt closer than we did on that little expedition, that we never had such a good time together, and that we never, before or since, had such an opportunity as we did during those fleeting few days to reminisce about his childhood, to laugh about everything and nothing at all, to share those things which had gone unspoken, to care as we’d always cared, but never dared to convey, and to develop a bond that might otherwise have gone lacking, without our having set aside a wee bit of time, and effort to know one another in a way we never had before.