Letters From the Mountaintop

Goddard College has a tradition of students writing a letter to themselves at the end of each intensive on-campus residency. While going through some old books of mine, this letter, from my Winter '04 residency, fell out from between the pages. The timing for me is still perfect:

Dear Jim,

Write from your spine, without arrogance or false humility- both are a form of self-hatred.

Write as if you were God when he created the universe-made small afterwards.

Indeed, they will increase- you will decrease.

You are a sincere visitor and you are welcome inside.

Cast away your doubt.

Always remember, people are dying a little bit every day. Bring them life- and fill your time doing the same thing for yourself-

You are a love poet-You bring people back into their bodies again-

Expect originality and magic from yourself.

Love,

Yourself

English Matters

From Master English Teacher, Jim Burke

"Teaching English has always been a privilege for me. As I write this, school has just finished up and my head still swims with the images of what my students did on their different culminating projects, what they said in their portfolio cover letters, where they reflected on the year. I feel very humbled by the achievement of my students when I consider all they learned. As I watched my students stand up in class and speak at length about different topics, as I watched them stand to speak at the funeral of one of my students, and as I watched former students of mine stand to speak at graduation, I was reminded again and again how important our work is. If you find yourself surrounded by people who do not appreciate this, seek your companions in other departments or online. Spend your days and the coming years with colleagues who feel the pride we should all feel for helping all our students tell their story even as we are writing and revising our own in classrooms across America."

Searching for Benjamin Rush

From an Anonymous Query from CousinConnect.com: I need to find the connection between my Great Grandmother Jennie Rush Gartman (MO-TX-OR), family has said she was related to signer Benjamin Rush?

My Response:

To the writer of the above query,

Greetings from Oregon. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, it is quite possible that you and I are related. I have no direct answer to your query into the link between Jenny Gartman and Benjamin Rush(I am currently searching for the same link myself.)

If your Jenny is the same ancestor as mine, (she would be my great-great grandmother,) then she settled in St. Helens Oregon with her husband Jasper-a simple yet handsome fellow with a mischievous grin covered by a handlebar moustache (from what I remember of the photograph).

They had three children, I believe: Bill, Neva, and Edna.

Edna (10-26-1903 - 12-23-81) was my great-grandmother, who married Kenneth Preston Howell.

They had three sons, Kenneth, Robert, and Richard (the youngest)

I am Richard's eldest grandson. He is the one who has told me stories of how- when he was a young boy- he was visited by a very old female relative of Jenny's, who claimed that they were related to the great Benjamin Rush. Since he was a young boy with little attention span, he could not recall the lineage that she shared. He only remembered thinking that "she was the oldest woman he had ever seen."

As your query was in 2003, my hope is that you may have found the information you are looking for. I also hope that this further information finds you in good health and in good spirits.

If you have the notion or the time, I would be grateful for any information that you may have found. I am truly excited by the possibility that we may be two travellers searching for the same source of the same tree.

Be well.

Warm Regards,

Jim Churchill-Dicks