A trip back in time reveals family's history

In 1900, George Hammann and Myrtle Lee married in Buck Valley, Fulton County, Pa. Four years later, they sold their 110-acre farm and moved to Kansas for richer and flatter soil. In 1915, they decided "not that flat," sold their Kansas farm and moved to a farm near Barron, Wis.

Fast-forward two biblical begats. Six grandchildren of George and Myrtle Hammann, me and five girl cousins, rented a van and drove to Pennsylvania to see what it was like "Back East," as it has always been known in the family.

The official term for this sort of thing is "heritage travel." I've heard that heritage travel -- on-site historical discovery coupled with a curiosity about the lives of ancestors -- is a growing phenomenon, and well it should be if it is as much of a hoot for others as it was for us.

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My cousins and I were fortunate in that a walking family history book awaited us, in the person of Marvin Oakman, a cousin of our parents' generation. Marvin has lived in one house in Buck Valley all his life, except during his World War II duty. He was prepared to provide details of the valley and our family history there.

The Hammann name came from Germany -- along with Great-Grandfather Jacob -- in the early 1850s. When Jacob got off the boat in New York City, he had 25 cents in his pocket. He took that 25 cents, placed it on a bar and had a beer or two. I can relate to that.

The Lees came from the British Isles nearly 200 years ago. Marvin pulled a huge book from a cabinet in his dining room, placed it on his dining-room table and flipped to a certain page. The book is a 100-year-old history of Fulton County. He pointed to a short list. "Read that," he suggested. "Our ancestor Lees were the fourth deedholders after the King of England on Buck Valley property? My goodness," cousin Ruth Sandman exclaimed. "Thirty-two thousand acres," Marvin said. "But acreage ownership shifts when it is used to pay bills and to be parceled out among children. Nearly all of that land is in other family names now."

There is talk we may be related to the Virginia Lees of Light Horse Harry and Robert E.

"Wishful thinking," Marvin says.

"The Lees we're related to run more along the line of Uncle Jim Lee. He was the world's first hippie and had an aged, long-haired pig as a pet. If he had enough to eat and a roof over his head, that was all he asked." OK. But the Lee dream made for an interesting conversation between my son, Bryant, and his chemistry lab partner in high school several years ago.

"I'm maybe a descendant of Robert E. Lee," Bryant said.

"I know I'm a descendant of Ulysses S. Grant," his lab partner said.

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Marvin pulled to the side of the dirt road and pointed down a slope into the woods to the spring that served the long-gone Lee house. It was where Grandma's young sister died after she was bitten by a rattlesnake as she went for water. "It's down there a bit. You won't have any trouble finding it,"

"You go ahead," Rachel Craymer said to Norma Newberg at the head of the path. "You're older."

"No, I'm in no hurry," Norma replied.

"Glenn, why don't you go first?"

"Here, let me hold the camera." The spring, when we reached it, looked benign. The walls of flat rock were clean and still firmly in place. Beverly Borgen stood on the wall and looked around. "No snakes today. That's fine with me."

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As we drove to a white clapboard church, Marvin said, "Your great-grandparents and grandparents, and half a dozen other families here in the valley, built this church. We still have services here once a month, so we've worked hard to keep the church in good condition. Go inside and look around. You'll get the best impression by sitting in the pews." We took Marvin's suggestion and discovered he had set us up: "These pew seats are lower in front than at the back," Bev said. "I'd have to lock my knees and stay awake or I'd slide off the pew like a strand of cooked spaghetti." In the cemetery behind the church, we stood clustered before headstones in silent homage to our great-grandparents and other Hammann relatives. For a long moment, nothing was said, but this group couldn't remain silent long.

"There's Aunt Mary's headstone," Barbara Renfro noted.

"Is she the one who lived to 105?"

"She chopped her own wood until she was past 100 and wouldn't have anything newfangled in her house, such as running water or electricity."

We moved on, trying to connect names carved in stone with the names we heard in our youth, family members never met but now known. Amid all our discoveries, my cousins and I understood that the most meaningful connections we made during our trip Back East were with one another.