David Buck Patterson

"April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers."

It turns out that T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is an eminently apt poem for today. While composed over 100 years ago, the central question of the poem on whether the wasteland of the modern world can regenerate itself is as central today as it was a century ago. Beyond that the world in 1919 was in the midst of a world flu pandemic not unlike what we are facing today.

That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! 

Big Frank has no lilacs but has mixed memory and desire in this cruelest month of May through his genealogical work (memory) and its record (desire). While "The Waste Land" is, no doubt, an unusual springboard into genealogy it seems to be connected to pretty much everything else so why not? The connection, tenuous Big Frank agrees, is the year 1919. That year the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919 was raging and that is the year that Big Frank's Great Granduncle, David Buck Patterson, died.

Big Frank is back from a marathon drive cross county - out to Sacramento and back. In all it was a total of 8 full days of driving, mostly done at top speeds of 80 mph. No speeding tickets; however, Big Frank did get nabbed by the California Highway Patrol for passing in a no-pass zone, an infraction that has cost him $280.00 plus some addition $40 in online traffic lessons to keep the points away from the insurance company!

While in California Big Frank's daughter, Gina and Big Frank had a terrific time visiting wine country and it's summer resident, Jack Stack, working in her yard, playing with her cats, meeting her friends and visiting Loyalton, CA to gather family history on Big Frank's great granduncle David Buck Patterson (1826 - 1919). He was born in Hammond, NY, moved to Jefferson, Wisconsin where he ran a logging gang and then bought a team of oxen and traveled cross country to prospect for gold on the Yuba River. He struck gold and parleyed that into a saw mill, renting donkeys, setting up a meat packing business, and finally running a ranch in Loyalton. He was one of the original settlers there. His portrait is in the local museum and there are streets in town named after him.