This is an excerpt from an entry I wrote for a family newsletter this week.

On the way back from Boston, we visited the Mayflower replica and John Alden’s¹ grave. In November, I attended a memorial service at St. Peter’s in Philadelphia, the same church George Washington attended while there. In Philadelphia they have a sculpture honoring the Irish immigrants of the 1850s … the back side shows famine and grave-digging in Ireland. The front side (of the same sculpture) shows people walking down the gangplank to start a new life. My Jones ancestors came from Wales about the same time.

I could not help but think of my ancestor, a Hessian soldier who fought for the British in the Revolution. Today, he would be called an illegal immigrant and a deserter. He jumped ship, moved to Ohio and changed his name.² The name he chose was “Free”³.

Footnotes

¹ We are descended from John Alden and Priscilla Mullens who were on the Mayflower.

² In America (maybe not in Britain), this adds up to a proud tradition.

³ My grandmother’s name was “Free”.