Today’s prickly discussions of who qualifies as a “real American” reminds me of a polite interrogation I once endured at a picnic one long-ago summer. It all started when my father, on a whim, invited me to a family reunion in Illinois. He lived outside of Oklahoma City, and at the time I was living in southern Illinois. So on a weekend in the middle of June we set off for Springfield.
We pulled in well past noon, hurried through a parking lot crowded with hot-to-the-touch cars and headed for the park. Once we hit the grass, we slowed to take in the shade of half a dozen worn-out elm trees along the way. My father and I ambled along, unconcerned by the fact that we were late to a family affair where we knew not a single soul.
Soon enough, an officious-looking woman in her sixties, spotting us for newcomers, intercepted us at the edge of the gathering. She introduced herself as Mrs. Mildred Marvel Burwell, a formality I thought oddly out of place for a picnic. I gave her my name, and after a proper pause, she asked, “Are you from the Prettyman Marvel side or the John Marvel side”? I turned to my father, “Uh…?” John Marvel, he replied, giving me a grin. Oh, she said, leaving “too bad” unsaid.
To me, the gathering felt all too orderly for a family reunion. It lacked the familiar rowdiness of my mother’s family reunions where I could expect singing, laughing—plenty to eat. Predictably, we could expect one or another aunt to take offense with the beer drinking going on out by the trucks.
There was no such excitement at this reunion. Plus, the heat and the heavy lunch brought on a mid-afternoon stupor even a rousing hymn wouldn’t have stirred. We needed a nap. Instead, my father caught my eye, raised his eyebrows and with a slight tilt of his head, signaled “Let’s go.”
Mildred spotted us heading for the parking lot and flagged us down with the sheaf of papers in her hand. We stopped, giving her time to catch up and to catch her breath. “I meant to give this to you earlier,” she explained thrusting the manuscript at me. I accepted her hand-off and read the title:“Marvel Family History.” I fanned through a few pages and thanked her sincerely. After saying our good-byes, we continued toward the car. In afterthought, she called after us, “You know, you might be eligible for the DAR,” she shouted and waved us on.
My father and I never attended another Marvel reunion. He died in 2012. I don’t remember reading the history and I never pursued membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mildred probably would have attributed these failings as a trait of the John Marvel side of the family—that and the family’s migration to Oklahoma. But she would have been pleased, possibly surprised, to know that through many, many moves, I had kept the yellowed manuscript safely stashed in a file cabinet. Now, I’ve promised myself that I’ll read it soon, very soon.
Mildred M. Burrell died Jan. 23, 1991. According to her obituary in the Bloomington, Ill., newspaper, she was 81years old and widowed. No mention of children. She was a member of Trinity United Methodist Church, Kansas City, Kan. The obituary ends with distinction she was most proud of—“Mrs. Burwell was an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kansas.”
For the Record
The entire Marvel bunch is descended from the John Marvel who immigrated to America in 1652. My many times great-grandfather, also named John Marvel, was the older brother of the enviably named Prettyman Marvel—Mildred’s line.
Source:
Yeakel, Ella Armstrong,“The History of the Marvel Family,” circa 1920. Revised by Mildred Marvel Burwell, July 1968. Addendum by Steve Malone, Dec. 2013.
Marvelous! (Sorry, I inherited my mother's penchant for puns!) And it is quite a marvel to time-travel via all those sensory and emotional-tone details to a long-ago summer day. Brava!
So lovely to see you yesterday, Linda, and catch up a bit.