Cosmic Impact

Each of us thinks we are unique – unusual – and memorable. We think our passage to and from this earth creates a cosmic jarring because of our very presence.
Perhaps that is why I feel such a strong sense of outrage when I cannot find records or accounts of those who are pulled into my genealogy search. How can a person such as J P Little be born, live, and touch others and yet be so invisible?

J P Little married my great aunt. She proudly carried his name as part of her own even after marrying a second time [actually I have just discovered an earlier marriage I didn’t know about, so make that a third time]. She was always Annie Little Lenning. Even forty years after his passing, she chose to be buried along side him rather than her third husband Everett.

J P is such a mystery to me. Even his name is only initials, although I have a strong hunch the “J” stands for Joe. He shows up in so few places. I know when and where he was born because of his draft registration for WWI. I know a bit about his parents and siblings (at least seven that I can find, but there were ten). His family came from Alabama and got to Texas before he was born in 1892. By 1910 when he was 18, his father was gone from the family. It’s quite possible that it had happened far earlier in his life because I’ve found a marriage record that could indicate his dad was with someone else by 1894. I know that he lived in Caldwell, Milam, and Falls counties of Texas and died in Cherokee county. I know he was a farmer and that he shot himself at the age of 49. And I’ve seen his headstone.

But I don’t know where he was in 1900, 1920, and 1930 (all years where I should be able to find him). Here was a man who clearly captured someone’s heart and who faced a challenge in life that was too much for him. Those three years of missing census records probably won’t give me any answers, but they might.

Mostly I hate that no one else in the wide wide world of genealogy seems to have bothered to track his life and tie it to all those he touched. It’s as if he only exists to me. But I can still hear Aunt Ann’s voice as she recounts those who were important in her life. This man was surely one of them. His cosmic impact seems very small. I take it as my duty to see that it is recorded.

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