Family Fatigue

There comes a point in every project when it appears the work could go on, but—and this is the sticking point—the will to do so is flagging.

Since starting this series on January 4, I’ve written about a family I described as “mostly the same as your families—except some ways.”

Those “some ways” included immigration from Maine around the Horn to California; chasing the Gold Rush, away from family back in Wisconsin; living with injuries causing blindness—and in one case, deafness too—and getting in on the leading edge of sales for that latest innovation, automobiles.

It’s been an enjoyable project, this memory lane journey through the Bean family history. Well…for the most part. Sometimes, it touches home too closely, but we all need to do something like that from time to time.

The hard part is knowing that I have, literally, over a hundred photographs still screaming at me from inside Bill Bean’s box of collected memories. Dare I say the people they represent still want their stories told?

Like this self-possessed businessman, decked in his three-piece suit and hat, perhaps posing in front of the very building in which he has built his reputation—who is he? It’s hard to admit I’ll probably never know.

Or take this young woman with wavy dark hair flowing behind her in the wind: will her relatives ever find this picture of her youth? I can imagine—actually, I’ve been witness to this very scenario, myself—a grandmother incapacitated in a convalescent hospital, whose aides see her only as a “Crabbit Old Woman” and can’t look beyond the face they see now to the person she always was.

Of course, I could have done more research. There is a world of online resources for historic newspapers, and Bill Bean’s name alone could yield many more stories. I still owe myself another research trip to the Bay area to follow up on Bill’s twin brother Sam’s own story, too.

However, sometimes family history research fatigue sets in, and the project no longer seems as fresh as it once did.

Knowing that, at a later date, more online resources may help me delve further into the mysteries in Bill Bean’s photograph box, I’m standing my ground now and bidding the entire Bean family—and all their potential additional stories—goodbye at this point.

It has been a heartwarming yet pensive journey for me, and I hope it was well worth the time for you as you joined me over the past several months.

We’ll head in a new direction with tomorrow’s post. But for now, we’ll give ourselves permission to lay this family’s stories down to rest.

After all, isn’t that the best antidote to fatigue?