It's not what you would call a fancy bible. It's small, maybe 6x3½, covered in a dark greenish-blue leatherette. It's a thick book for its size.
The pages are small and the type is even smaller. The pages are stained with brown foxing, much like the age spots we get on our hands are we grow old. In the back, Catherine wrote in the information about her parents and their dates of birth and death. Inside the front cover, in her hand, is her full name - First, Maiden, and Last.
The date on the title page is 1846.
Our family has few and far between personal mementos that have survived the ages. Cookie has always placed a value on the photos because we can see our ancestor's faces, where they lived, and such.
A couple years ago I found myself in every genealogist's dream - presented with hundreds of family images, given to me by third cousins from their grandfather's collections. For as much as I loved them, I scanned them all, and we found a repository that would preserve them, and make them available for any researcher to use.
I had a pang of reluctance to deliver these items. At the last minute, I just looked around and loved them with all my heart. But I packed them lovingly and delivered them in Ohio to a place where we all could access them. 350+ images, online, for anyone - family, researchers, historians, students - anyone could have them.
And in the end, I breathed a sigh of relief. They belonged to all of us and needed to be accessed IF they were going to be of use. I scanned them - all into hi-res files, blown up so we could look at the detail. Doing that and the donation was the right thing to do.
But two weeks ago, another box arrived with daguerreotypes, more papers, and this bible.
The daguerreotypes are scanned - even the one that had ghosted came out marvelous. Included was an image of Catherine from the 1850s - one that I never believed I would see. So young - she had only had five of the twelve children that she and her husband would have.
But this bible kept me up nights. None of Catherine's descendants own these items. Nor are we collectors. But we are connectors. We hold these items until they can be passed onto the next generation. So the bible passed from Catherine to her daughter, to her grandson, to her great-granddaughter, to her great great-granddaughters, and then, to me, her great-great-great-grandson - that's an average of 35 years at each step in the chair, excluding my possession.
The problem is, I have no children. There is no chance to keep it in my line.
The question is, where should it go?
And the problem with that question is that I am having a hard time parting with it.
Cookie believes in God, is a member of a religion, or two, can accept communion, is a lapsed Catholic, and certainly is still partially Jewish. People who say you can't do this if you are blah, blah, blah, need to look in the mirror and remind themselves that there is no linear path to believing in a Supreme Being.
But Cookie is also not one to sit and read a bible. Even Catherine's. But I marvel at how she turned the page to mark a psalm, or two an important verse ("To every season..."). She was a woman of immense faith. But I am trying very hard not to imbue an object with magical powers. It's simply my connection to her having a physical token to hold that makes this hard.
In the end, I will take some photos - which will be hollow pictures of an inanimate object, but they have the connection that this book has. Then I will box it up, and send it off to the next connector, a third cousin in Utah. I chose him because he is a member of the LDS Church, he has daughters, and the continuance stands its best chance. He's not my first choice.
He is the book's best hope.
And I have to let my head guide me that his faith will do what is best for Catherine's memory. and her bible.
