It’s the Little Things That Count

Another interesting article by my Friend, Tom Fiske:

Genealogy turns up the strangest things, and suggests others. Two oddities were found in my line, which proved to be important.

Late last year a man emailed me, wanting information about my cousin who died in 1967. The cousin was a very wealthy gay man who, I was told, had the same cancer as his father and who died at about the same age his father died. The emailer was writing a book about that family and its lumbering interests in the Northwest. He pointed out that both father and son had Huntington’s disease, and that is probably what killed them both (and not cancer at all). Others in the father’s family also had Huntington’s disease. I never knew it nor did I feel threatened by it since I was not related to the father, but I was related to the mother. Anyway, I pointed out to the emailer that Huntington’s disease seldom resulted in death, so it probably was actually cancer that killed them or possibility of a complication of Huntington’s that did them in, such as pneumonia.

The famous Arlo Guthie was a son of the equally well-known Woody Guthrie, a protest singer of the 1930’s. It was determined that Woody had the symptoms of Huntington’s disease, a little-known ailment of his time. He died from complications related to the disease. His son Arlo (of Alice’s Restaurant fame) had a fifty per cent chance of inheriting Huntington’s. He lucked out. He and his children are active today in Huntington’s awareness programs.

This exchange of emails about my cousin got me to thinking about a nuance in the stature of my grandfather.

“A subtlety or fine detail” is one definition of the word nuance. It was just such a fine detail in the shape of my grandfather that almost escaped me. One day when I was about ten or twelve years old my dad and I were talking about his family when he suddenly blurted out, “My dad was very sensitive about his long arms.” The conversation went on to include his tall, lanky uncle Charlie (whom I resemble). Uncle Charlie was a riverboat pilot on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. He had such adventures that I almost forgot that comment about my grandfather’s long arms.

In those days I had no idea that I would ever become an amateur genealogist, but I will admit to having a curiosity about my ancestors and an enjoyment of talking about them. Now, many years later, when I am the last one in the family still alive who can record his thoughts in a computer, the statement about my grandfather returned to me: “very sensitive about his long arms.” That fact turned out to be as important as the KKK bullet that ended my great-grandfather’s life in 1874.

What I learned from the experience was that it is important to listen and record all the details of an ancestor’s life, size and shape even though you may not think them important at the time. My grandfather is one example.

There is a human syndrome of medical conditions known by the name of the person who identified them: Antoine Marfan, a pediatrician in France who first saw the condition in a five year-old girl. It is a weakness in the connective tissues and it shows up in various ways.

Abraham Lincoln is a candidate for Marfan’s syndrome. He was tall and lanky with big hands and other features that might have been in the Marfan category. A museum owns the shirt Abe was wearing when he was killed. There are a few drops of blood on that shirt. If scientists could get their hands on just one of those drops of blood, they could test Abe’s genes for Marfan, which would appear in his genetic makeup. But to my knowledge, this has not been done. A scientist once observed that if Abe had advanced Marfan, he probably would not have lived much longer than the day when he was shot.

I knew that my father died young from the effects of an enlarged heart. This was most likely a connective tissue condition. And I, as a tall, lanky person have had a series of abdominal aneurysms. Over the years some doctors and medical technicians have mentioned the possibility of Marfan.

Recently, I had this discussion with a orthopedic surgeon:

“You know, doctor, I might have a slight touch of Marfan Syndrome”
The doctor held out his arms. “In that case your arms might be quite long.”
Both of us knew my arm span was six feet and I was six feet tall. This is an ordinary relationship.
“Yes,” I agreed. “And you are describing my grandfather.”
“Oh,” he explained.
“And my father had an enlarged heart, which could have been a connective tissue problem, couldn’t it?”
“Yes it could,” he replied.
“And my aneurysms could also be related . . .”
“Yes they could,” he replied.
“I suppose there are degrees of Marfan?” I asked.
“There are,” he agreed.
And then he added, “But your age mitigates against a very large degree of Marfan.”
“Because many Marfan patients do not live long?”
“Exactly,” the doctor said.

I reported this conversation by email to my son and daughter, who do not exhibit Marfan characteristics at all. They might be carriers but my grandchildren do not seem to be affected.

My son replied tersely, “One of the joys of being short!” He is five feet, ten inches tall, which is average for men in the United States. My daughter is still thinking about it and watching her children very carefully. . .

Because of a remark my father made in passing, I have a likely explanation for some of my medical conditions. But my grandfather isn’t the only case in point.

Less exotic physical features can be important, too. Another adventure in the family began with high cheekbones. One of my ancestors had them, and somehow he just did not look like the rest of the family. The only reason I know about his face is that my cousin had a painting of him and his wife, painted around 1856. It could not have been later than that because someone blew him in half with a shotgun in that year. His name was Henry.

If you recall anything about the beginning of the Civil War, you will know that there was an Ohio Congressman named Clement L. Vallandigham, nicknamed “The Copperhead.” He was anti-slavery, but against fighting a war over it. President Lincoln was fiercely opposed to Clement, and Clement’s fellow Congressmen accused him of being pro-southern, which he was not. House records showed that they said Clement had family across the Ohio River in Kentucky, which he did. It was Henry’s family, his first cousins.

Pictures of Clement showed him to be an ordinary white guy, perhaps handsome and dashing, and not quite like Henry. There was a slight variation in that Henry had high cheek bones. I ignored it for years until I read an item in which Henry’s father, Lewis, was described.

Lewis was observed to be dark-skinned and he “looked like an Indian.” Bingo! Three things were explained: 1) Henry’s high cheek bones, 2) the lack of identity for Henry’s grandmother, and 3) the reason that the Clement side of the family never acknowledged the Henry side of the family. I also suddenly understood why General George Rogers Clark used Henry’s dad Lewis as an Indian spy after the Revolutionary War.

It seems that Henry and Clement had the same grandfather but different grandmothers. The first grandmother was most likely a Mingo Tribe Indian woman. Later in life, their grandfather married a well-to-do white woman and produced another family. The half-Indian children went to Kentucky, while the white children went to southern Ohio.

Someone, no doubt a political enemy of Clement in the U. S. House, made public the fact of Clement’s Kentucky (Southern) relatives. Many years later, when Rev. James Vallandigham (Clement’s brother) wrote about Clement and their family history, he never mentioned his Kentucky relatives at all. I would never have known where those high cheek bones came from, if the angry Republican in the House had not made his comment about Clement’s Kentucky relatives. His remark caused me to do the research that turned up the description of Henry’s dad.

Suddenly I was tall, lanky, and part American Indian. I am looking into the possibility of opening a casino on my block in Fullerton, California.

Those details about our ancestors—size and shape and cause of death—can be important to those of us who read them a hundred years later, maybe not for diseases we know now, but for diseases or conditions that will be identified later.

In genealogy, it is the little things that sometimes count more than the larger ones.

Thomas S. Fiske
Fullerton, CA
January 11, 2009