When Mary Hardy knocked on Inza Fort’s apartment door, she was dropping by because she’d heard there was a wonderful painting she needed to see. On one wall hung the art, lovely as described. And on another wall was an intricate framed family tree tracing Inza’s mother’s Lee family line all the way back through American colonial history. Looking over the many hand-illustrated branches and twigs, her eyes landed on a name near the bottom of the tree: Hancock Lee. “That’s one of my relatives,” she told Inza. And just like that – fascinating family connections began to unfold.
A TREE WITH MANY BRANCHES
Hancock Lee was no ordinary figure. Born in the 1650s to Colonel Richard Lee — one of the earliest English settlers in America — Hancock Lee is a 7th or 8th great-grandfather shared by Mary Hardy, Inza Fort and Inza’s sister Susie Dawson. All reside at Butterfield, and longer threads of commonality continued to unwind.
As Mary and Inza started talking, the connections multiplied. Mary’s family line traces through Hancock Lee’s wife, Sarah Allerton, whose father Isaac Allerton sailed to America on the Mayflower in 1620. Through that connection, Mary is linked to the Brewster family through William Brewster, the Pilgrims’ senior Elder and spiritual leader.
One evening at dinner, Mary spoke of her interest in genealogy to fellow resident Joan Johnson, mentioning she was related to William Brewster. “So am I!” Joan said. Then Susan Lancaster, a Butterfield newcomer, added to the mix by revealing she shares Lee family roots that found their way to Alabama.
Sue Cullum, another neighbor, shared that her own Mayflower line traces through Susan Soule, connecting her lineage to Joan’s and to the same web of colonial ancestry – a discovery that has earned her treasured membership in the Mayflower Society.
Six women, one retirement community, all cousins — some separated by ten generations, some a bit closer — all of whom had no idea.
Sisters Inza Fort and Susie Dawson study the remarkable framed work depicting their Lee family tree.
HISTORY GETS PERSONAL
For this group, genealogy is far more than a matter of names and dates. Susan Riggs has taught beginning genealogy for years, and she tells her students that each clue can lead somewhere unexpected. She laughs, “There’s nothing else in life you feel like you really need to be doing once you find that great clue!”
A Mayflower passenger, John Howland, famously fell overboard during the voyage and managed to save himself by catching a rope that allowed him to be pulled to safety. Because he survived, an estimated two million descendants can trace their lineage through the Howland family tree. One of those descendants is Sue Cullum, whose research path began after her mother-in-law disclosed in confidence that her own father murdered his second wife and then took his own life. After her mother-in-law died and she brought it up to other family, nobody knew the name of the murder victim. This bothered Sue enough to start digging for answers. As she researched to find the woman’s name, she was bitten hard by the genealogy bug. She discovered details about her husband’s Colonialist line that first landed near Jamestown in the 1600s and eventually moved southward to Arkansas and Oklahoma – and then began uncovering her own northern Colonial Loyalist line that moved into Canada after the Revolutionary War.
(Right to Left) Susie Dawson, Inza Fort, Susan Riggs, Joan Johnson and Sue Cullum discuss their interesting family connections.
Susan Lancaster found a strong sense of connection to her ancestors through something very personal – a set of handwritten journals kept by her great-grandmother before, during and after the Civil War. “Reading her journals,” Susan says, “You just feel like you knew her, and how she was having some of the same issues as women still do today.” Her great-grandmother wrote about the beauty of her newborn baby, about fleeing Arkansas on a wagon to live in Texas for two years during the war – and about a husband she sometimes suspected loved money more than her. The family recorded the priceless journals before contributing them to the Arkansas Historical Museum’s collection.
Mary Hardy and Susan Lancaster look through a compilation of family history.
Mary Hardy, who turned 95 this spring and shows no signs of slowing down, enjoyed introducing family members who traveled to Arkansas to their newly-found “cousins” Susie, Inza and Joan. Her enthusiasm for discovery is contagious. She revels in finding the pathways and intersections, like she did with her Mayflower connection. “It’s certainly the case that there were people who came over on the Mayflower who ended up together and shared their genes.” Joan Johnson agrees. “That was true with me,” she says. “I found out one of my ancestors came from passengers Stephen Hopkins and William Brewster. It was my maternal great-grandmother who brought the two family lines together.”
MORE ALIKE THAN DIFFERENT
Susan Riggs is cheerfully unapologetic about her favorite part of genealogy work: the skeletons in the closet. Her own research revealed a bigamist great-grandfather. “My mother, I’m sure, is rolling in her grave every time I share that,” she laughs. She doesn’t hide from learning she has ancestors who owned enslaved people, a reckoning she takes seriously and approaches with honesty and humility. “We’re more alike than we are different in many ways. You never know who you’re connected to.”
A spirit of openness runs through this group. Joan Johnson arrived at Butterfield knowing no one in Arkansas – no relatives or friends here, and had barely passed through. Yet, she found herself sharing Mayflower ancestry with neighbors and feeling genuinely at home. “Butterfield encourages lifelong learning,” Joan says. “There are so many people here engaged in new ideas and who have so much history themselves. We’re always learning, we learn from each other. Sometimes we even learn we’re family.”
Mary Hardy agrees. “It’s a small world,” she says simply — and then smiles at her cousins gathered around the table.
