The Visit

Dear Editor,

I am writing this as a letter to the editor, or as we say in newspaper parlance, LTE. Why? Because the events of the past in my own family are so relevant today in terms of events now. Because of what is happening in our nation, in our state, in our county and in our local communities across our country.

A wonderful time to visit and make more memories happened over the Memorial Weekend. My youngest brother and his wife visited. He was carrying memories in photos of long ago. So many of them were from before he was born. He is the history-keeper of the family. It tied this place in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the people that came to this land from across the land and then on the land. I had a relative, who came by ship to California during the gold rush after 1849, seeking his fortune in gold. He did not find it in a timely manner and so went back home to Missouri to make his fortune in farming. His last name became my father’s middle name, Minard. Robert Minard was known by his family as Minard.

My father, Minard, did not immigrate from across the sea, but he did migrate from Nebraska to California, and he stayed. He saw opportunity, after serving in WW II, for raising a family and making a good decent living in California. Many cross this country, many times over, for the same reasons. Our country is so large that, at least for now, because we are a republic, no one is stopped from going from California to Alabama or crossing the states in between. Where one was born is not necessarily where one grew up.

My family on both sides were immigrants. They came as many, maybe even most immigrants, come to the USA, and now even more to Canada.They came because they were poor and hungry, or they were insecure in the country they had the luck to be born in. My relatives were escaping “potato famine”. Yes, that potato famine. They just got enough resources together to make the passage by boat. They did not have a passport or a visa. They did not have any special skills that meant they could be valuable to the USA, other than their wits and brawn. My ancestors were leaving a place with a hope of better lives for themselves and for their children. Some were very young, themselves, when they came.

Loyalties in my ancestral family were divided during the Revolutionary War in our beloved country that became the United States of America. Some were Patriots and some were Loyalists. The Loyalists moved to Canada for a time, because the Patriots were not inclined to be neighborly. When the Civil War was waged, I am happy to say all the ancestors (on my side) were Unionists. One died a terrible death in a prisoner of war camp. The Union held.

For our present migrants and all of us, I hope the Union holds.

Linda Guffin, citizen by birth from an ancestry of immigrants

Downieville