Family reunions, a resource for strengthening families

Family cookout. Submitted by Antoinette Harrell.

Family reunions, a resource for strengthening families
By Anoinette Harrell, Genealogist

We have always had family reunions.  Every Sunday the family, aunts, uncles, and cousins, would come together for dinner.  They would talk about how to help family members who were sick, plan activities, or divide up work that needed to be done on the farm.  Lately, we are only getting together once or twice a year.

I remember every Sunday thirty or forty first cousins used to all get together.  Chicken were killed and prepared.  Pies and cakes were baked.  They would sit on the porch and visit with each other.  This is what I refer to when I say that it is the past that shapes the present and the present that shapes the future.  We come together to honor our ancestors, spend time with those who are here with us, and build a future for the rising generations.

Family members have moved away in search of jobs that have taken them all over the United States.  At one time receiving a long distance phone call was a big thing in the family.  Everyone would gather around the phone waiting to speak to the family member on the phone. Now  internet technology has brought us closer.

Those who passed away in our time become ancestors.  They were in their forties and fifties, and we thought they were old.  Now we are the elders, and our children are looking to us to guide them. Family reunions should have a council of elders to mandate family matters and family business.

Family Reunion. Submitted by Antoinette Harrell.

Family reunions could become a business.  A reunion is a perfect place where dues can be paid and funds generated for committees to carry out family business such as:

• scholarship committee
• cemetery committee
• elderly care committee: Instead of putting family members in nursing homes, someone always took care of family.  Perhaps they need help paying for medicine or need a place to stay.

An education committee could assist family members with applying for grants, preparing for college, or resume writing.  They also could offer internships. When we work to empower our families, that's freedom.  We need to recreate the village. A lot can come from family reunions.  The family can plan community service activities, visit historical sites, restore a cemetery, set up a community resource center, support family members as they serve on a foreign mission.

The family was always the primary source of support for extended family members.  My mother, Isabel  Harrell Cook, had a cousin who had special needs.  Mandy Wheat's daughter took him in. That was just the way they did it.  It was not always about the money back then because they had so little.

They bartered, and they used money mostly for the things they could not barter.  For example my mother, Isabel Harrell Cook, allowed Henry Wheat to put his cows in the family pasture.  In return, he shared fresh vegetables, and when he slaughtered a cow, he shared portions of meat with her.

Each segment of the reunion is fun, but equally or more important are those things that would empower the family and build a stronger family community. When you empower a family, you can definitely build a stronger community.

Our families are rich with talented young people.  We have doctors, nurses, educators, business owners, farmers, and much more.  Having a family business directory makes available resources that will inspire family members to patronize each others services.  This is what economic freedom is all about.

One mistake we as genealogists make is that we do not live in the present in the family.  We are too busy researching the past and do not spend enough time with family members who are living in our time. We are looking for yesterday's information and not collecting enough of today's information right around us.  We pass up opportunities to connect and preserve today's information.

Children need to connect to their grandparents to learn more about the generation before them that in time they are connected to someone that they know.  When they become older, they will have greater interest to learn more about  family.  They will eventually desire to learn more about the people who were important to their grandparents.  They will then search out the generations that came before namely, great grandparents.

Image via Wikipedia

This year, I created the Facebook page, African Americans of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, to capture the attention of the younger family members.  I already have over 125 family members who have liked the page.  We are developing an online family community.  This is what the Nurturing Our Roots internet radio and television shows are all about.

FB page, African Americans of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana

More family history seminars and workshops should be planned for family reunions. We could incorporate activities such as:

• Oral history stations
• Family research and artifacts displays
• Tours to historical family sites

I think a good family reunion should be planned two years in advance so that people can organize themselves.  "It is important to choose the homestead as the site for the family reunion.  If there is any land left, visiting the site can reinforce the emotional ties to the home and the land. Without an emotional tie to the land or home, the ties to the family weaken,"  said Robin Foster.

Its the ties that bind us.  The reunion is the opportunity to form a greater network.  We need to use more wisely the resources in that network. That network forms a larger and stronger community.  Tune in to our weekly broadcast of Nurturing Our Roots internet radio, Sundays at 7pm Central and 8pm Eastern, Tuesdays at 8pm Central and 9pm Eastern, Wednesdays at 8pm Central and 9pm Eastern.

Are we neglecting the land?

Some collect death certificates, census records, and marriage certificates, compile a history, place it on a shelf and assume they have completed their genealogy.  At the same time, the family homestead is sitting dilapidated with weeds growing up around and no one left who feels a connection to the land or legacy left by ancestors.  Little do they realize they are neglecting a source of economic freedom which probably has their ancestors turning over in their graves.

Genealogist, Antoinette Harrell, proclaims that genealogy is not a hobby.  Her own knowledge of the purpose and struggle of African Americans to realize the dream of independence and freedom comes down to her from the examples set by her own ancestors who obtained and held on to land.

In 1803, the slave owner, "Old Fat" Levi Harrell and his son, Hezekiah, migrated from Darlington, SC to Georgia bringing the father of Robert Harrell with them.  He moved to Amite, Louisiana, and then to East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.  Antointette's 2nd great grandfather,  Robert Harrell (Dinah Robertson), purchased 200 acres of land in 1888 after sharecropping a short time.  He could neither read nor write.  He signed his name with an "X."

"Robert had a vision for his offspring, said Antoinette, "He wanted his family to own their own land.  Most people in rural areas believed in owning land.  Robert saved money and worked hard farming.  In his wisdom, he knew the land would provide food, a place to build homes, and help them keep some level of independence."

Antoinette standing on the land that her great grandmother Emma Mead Harrell purchased in 1902 & 1904.

Photograph by Walter C. Black, Sr.

"Sometimes family members move from the South to the East coast or West Coast. Some went to other urban cities  They neglected the land.  They did not help to pay taxes, and when they come back after retiring, they have no land or property left for which to return," said Antoinette.  She also informed me that the 1997 Agricultural Census showed 16,560 black owned and operated farms existed totaling 1.49 million acres.  That is down from the 15 million acres of land they owned in 1920.
Also according to a report by the Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund, the leading causes of loss of land and property are:

1.  Heir property ownership
2.  Heirs do not know one another
3.  Heirs do not have a connection to the land
4.  Lack of estate planning
5.  Tax sales
6.  Partition sales
7.  Voluntary sales
8.  Inaccessibility to legal counsel

"Heirs do not live on or near the land.  Business matters are not discussed within the family.  If you had ten children, seven would leave and never come back.  Genealogy is more than researching.  It involves estate planning.  Young people should be taught to be mortgage-free which would keep free a large portion of their income,"  explained Antoinette.

Alexander Harrell (1821-1921), shared by Antoinette Harrell

Robert Harrell, son Alexander Harrell was born on December 24, 1821 and died December 12, 1921. Alexander and Emma Mead Harrell had ten children.  Two were Jasper and Palmer Harrell.   Antoinette's grandfather, Jasper Harrell and his brother, had a connection to another piece of land purchased by Emma Mead Harrell between 1902 and 1904 which has been in the family for 106 years.  He farmed, and cultivated the land. He took care of the family "cemetery and made the headstones for the graves for his parents, grandparents, and brothers."  He was one of ten children.  Eight left and went North.  Jasper and his brother, Palmer, were the only two who remained connected to the land.  In other words, the others just gave up their inheritance.

Jasper Harrell, Sr, shared by Antoinette

Palmer Harrell, shared by Antoinette Harrell

"When we give up our inheritance, we have nothing to pass down to our children.  Most are tired and do not want to keep up the hard toil of picking cotton or cultivating the land.  Those who stayed connected to the land are able to send children to college.  Most people in rural areas have a large percentage of young black children who attend college."

"The people in the South find it much cheaper to send their children to college because they maintain a greater portion of money. Most build homes, can, own water wells, own their homes free and clear," said Antoinette, "Most blacks owned land in the South.  I had a clear understanding about land in the family.  My mother and cousin, Arthur Harrell talked about the land. I lived on the land.  I had a connection to it.  Other cousins were called "city children,"  said Antoinette.

Harrell brothers, shared by Antoinette Harrell

The "city children" did not share the same connection to the land. They found their visits to the South boring with nothing to do, hot, and they thought it was too dark.  Some left and never returned to the homestead. Antoinette grew up with a fishing pond, trees, berries, lemons, walnut trees, herbs, spring water, fresh vegetables like juicy tomatoes, and more.  She never had to go inside for lunch. She could pick up the things that grew freely outdoors like fresh cucumbers.  "We learned in the South to enjoy vegetables because that is all we had," she said.

"The goal is to learn about family assets as well as family history.  Take a royal family for example.  A child born into a royal family becomes educated because it becomes mandatory that that child learns how to protect what that child has when he or she child grows older.  Genealogy is a necessary tool for ensuring family economic development.  We need to empower children with economic freedom,"  explained Antoinette.

Some things we need to do to according to Antoinette are:

• educate children about land and property owned in the family
• take children on a tour of the land
• teach children about homestead exemption
• collect oral history about the land, location, who purchased, how it was lost
• start a family dialog about the status of the land (upkeep, caretaker)
• set up a will
• obtain legal service to clear or confirm title in the family group

"When someone dies in a family, we will not open up a succession.  More people die. Then one dies, and another dies.  After a twenty year span, fifteen people have died.  You cannot become the rightful heir until you have opened up a succession to become an heir. What does genealogy mean to me?  Empowering myself and my family by putting my family business in order," said Antoinette.

Antoinette also raises a very valid question which she has not found the answer to yet: " How were people who had between a 3rd grade and 6th grade education able to maintain more freedom, were entrepreneurs, and had so much common sense?  She also wonders:  How did so many people with so much more education, master's and doctorate's, lose so much land?  "I have not found the answer yet," she says, "We should analyze what we are doing. There is a great migration moving back.  We should never be disconnected from the place we know we will return."

"We can go off from these places, but don't let the property run down.  On my recent road trip, I saw too many abandoned houses that could give someone a place to stay or rent for college.  We are dishonoring ancestors who worked hard.  We trade in these homes for a three or four thousand square foot home that we cannot afford and end up losing."

"I am really grateful to those Harrell men, my grandfather, Jasper Harrell, great grandfather Alexander Harrell, and 2 great grandfather Robert Harrell.  I am grateful to my great grandmother Emma Mead Harrell who purchased land that is still in the family.  Genealogy is not a hobby.  It is a necessity."

"I am hoping with your help (Robin Foster) and this educational blog that you are writing that when people gather for the family reunion they will add discussing the land to the agenda.  Our ancestors believed three things:  1.  Own your own land, 2. Build your own home, 3. Have a family cemetery.  Everyone was not buried in the church cemetery. Some were buried on their own land," shared Antoinette.

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