still that girl?
I am Gus Sedlaw. I cannot forget my name. Augusta Belier Blackwood Sedlaw. And then Branson, a name I will bear like the mark of Cain until I die. Eli’s name that was put upon me. Ten years ago, I was not married. But wanted to be, I think. Who knows what I wanted or what I was thinking. That day did not seem possible until it happened. Like Eli dying. When I talk about my marriage, it will be about a thing that no longer exists. Ten years gone in a moment. None of that matters now, anyway.
Mama wanted it so. She knew Eli was not a good match. Not by the old standards. The war wiped away all that. Our name meant something before. And I suppose Eli thought it meant something, too. For Mama, our name meant nothing if we didn’t know how we would eat or if we would keep our home. The blood of the Blackwoods and the Sedlaws to be united with the scalawag Branson, and in the front parlor of the house my father had built.
Sedlaw is a fine old name. Pa told me he came to Albion from Nashville when he was a young man, just as his father and mother had come to Nashville from the Virginia Tidewater with their old names. They bought virgin lands, leading gangs of slaves who burned the forests and tore up the charred tree stumps. They planted cotton, tobacco, and corn, and they speculated in tracts along the Cumberland and Harpeth rivers, the Duck and the Elk, along the Tennessee and the Oosanatee. Pa said he inherited five hundred acres in Riverbend County and fifty slaves. When he died, he owned 234 slaves and 2,500 acres. He was a planter and a politician. A gentleman.
There was no difference between Pa’s family and Mama’s, even if Mama and Judge shared the Blackwood name. Mama’s parents came with Judge’s, their mothers Blackwood sisters. They must have been rugged women. Tough and tireless, traveling overland in a long wagon train to the Oosanatee valley from up-country South Carolina. They cleared out the Indians with a gentle push from President Jackson. “When I was a boy,” Judge always says, “there was nothing here but Indians and rattlesnakes.” The rattlesnakes are still here.
Sedlaw. Blackwood. And Belier, from my mother’s grandmother, who is buried somewhere in the swampy rice lands of South Carolina. Wardwell, from my mother’s father, like Judge is a Heppert from his father. They are names of quality of which I am proud. I was taught to be proud. This town that they built, Albion, was a place of which they were proud. My grandfather Wardwell and great-uncle Heppert and our Blackwood kin. They came here with their families, white and black, to carve civilization out of the raw wilderness. And they did make a civilization here. If anything, they were too proud of what they had made.
But the names go on in spite of anything we do. Adams, Hilliard, Belier, Blackwood, Wardwell, Sedlaw. And now Branson. From father to son and mother to daughter. Like in the Bible. I am connected to the past by these names, as if all the actions of my father and his father and his father’s father are contained in my veins, are pulsing in the blood pushed by my heart. The names go on forever if you look deep enough. An honored name is a tradition of greatness. Of achievement, like the Blackwoods, who have been governors and senators and held positions of power even before there was a United States. But all that’s past now. Pa is gone and Mama is gone. Hill is gone and the house on Allen Street. My name is different.
That first night with Eli, he brought me to this house. It was the Chapmans’ house before. They moved to Nashville so Hugh could find work in spite of his one leg. I had sung a duet with Carrie in the parlor downstairs at the war’s start. Carrie sang so sharp.
“Better for them to go than stay here and starve,” Eli said. He put a hand on my shoulder and walked me inside. Emma was right behind us. It was dark and dusty in the house but still the same. The paintings were mostly gone,
I am Gus Sedlaw. I cannot forget my name. Augusta Belier Blackwood Sedlaw. And then Branson, a name I will bear like the mark of Cain until I die. Eli’s name that was put upon me. Ten years ago, I was not married. But wanted to be, I think. Who knows what I wanted or what I was thinking. That day did not seem possible until it happened. Like Eli dying. When I talk about my marriage, it will be about a thing that no longer exists. Ten years gone in a moment. None of that matters now, anyway.
Mama wanted it so. She knew Eli was not a good match. Not by the old standards. The war wiped away all that. Our name meant something before. And I suppose Eli thought it meant something, too. For Mama, our name meant nothing if we didn’t know how we would eat or if we would keep our home. The blood of the Blackwoods and the Sedlaws to be united with the scalawag Branson, and in the front parlor of the house my father had built.
Sedlaw is a fine old name. Pa told me he came to Albion from Nashville when he was a young man, just as his father and mother had come to Nashville from the Virginia Tidewater with their old names. They bought virgin lands, leading gangs of slaves who burned the forests and tore up the charred tree stumps. They planted cotton, tobacco, and corn, and they speculated in tracts along the Cumberland and Harpeth rivers, the Duck and the Elk, along the Tennessee and the Oosanatee. Pa said he inherited five hundred acres in Riverbend County and fifty slaves. When he died, he owned 234 slaves and 2,500 acres. He was a planter and a politician. A gentleman.
There was no difference between Pa’s family and Mama’s, even if Mama and Judge shared the Blackwood name. Mama’s parents came with Judge’s, their mothers Blackwood sisters. They must have been rugged women. Tough and tireless, traveling overland in a long wagon train to the Oosanatee valley from up-country South Carolina. They cleared out the Indians with a gentle push from President Jackson. “When I was a boy,” Judge always says, “there was nothing here but Indians and rattlesnakes.” The rattlesnakes are still here.
Sedlaw. Blackwood. And Belier, from my mother’s grandmother, who is buried somewhere in the swampy rice lands of South Carolina. Wardwell, from my mother’s father, like Judge is a Heppert from his father. They are names of quality of which I am proud. I was taught to be proud. This town that they built, Albion, was a place of which they were proud. My grandfather Wardwell and great-uncle Heppert and our Blackwood kin. They came here with their families, white and black, to carve civilization out of the raw wilderness. And they did make a civilization here. If anything, they were too proud of what they had made.
But the names go on in spite of anything we do. Adams, Hilliard, Belier, Blackwood, Wardwell, Sedlaw. And now Branson. From father to son and mother to daughter. Like in the Bible. I am connected to the past by these names, as if all the actions of my father and his father and his father’s father are contained in my veins, are pulsing in the blood pushed by my heart. The names go on forever if you look deep enough. An honored name is a tradition of greatness. Of achievement, like the Blackwoods, who have been governors and senators and held positions of power even before there was a United States. But all that’s past now. Pa is gone and Mama is gone. Hill is gone and the house on Allen Street. My name is different.
That first night with Eli, he brought me to this house. It was the Chapmans’ house before. They moved to Nashville so Hugh could find work in spite of his one leg. I had sung a duet with Carrie in the parlor downstairs at the war’s start. Carrie sang so sharp.
“Better for them to go than stay here and starve,” Eli said. He put a hand on my shoulder and walked me inside. Emma was right behind us. It was dark and dusty in the house but still the same. The paintings were mostly gone,
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