Identity: Nature, Nurture, and Choice

My grown sons are rarely interested in my "family tree" discoveries; I think that's probably healthy! On my mother's side, I'm 75% New England and 25% Philadelphia-centered Quakers, all dating back to America's earliest days; my father's side is European Jews, and one of my second cousins has taken that tree back to the Middle Ages. I've found that interesting, but not necessarily life-changing.

Finding Dave in 2002 (we married a year later) changed my identity in much deeper ways. I reflect on this especially in the Jewish holiday seasons -- Passover is about to start on Monday evening, and I think about how I've shaped my own observance of this important piece of Jewish history and identity. Mostly I'm on the quiet end of that holiday spectrum: I'll prepare a few traditional foods for Passover, and of course keep writing pertinent poems.

When my novel The Darkness Under the Water was published in 2008, it faced some fierce online attacks from three Native American women who assumed that the facts of the story were wrong, because I didn't have a Native American identity myself, and also assumed that I was trying to "make money" off a story that didn't belong to me. Neither of those was true: The facts in the story are particular to this part of Vermont and were thoroughly researched. And I only lost money on the book, including the part of the story that was "mine" in some ways.

But I wanted to write it for two big reasons. The first relates to my mother's Quaker ethos: I'd discovered the terrible injustices (horrors, really) of the Vermont Eugenics Project and wanted to bring attention to those through a "relatable" story -- that's how I often pay attention  to history myself. The second was my entry into Jewish identity as Dave's wife, my father's daughter, and an absolute beginner in absorbing traditions and culture of this venerable faith. I crafted the character of Molly in the novel with a similar position: a bit curious about the Abenaki culture that remained around her, but not well informed. That was also a good way to follow the instructions of esteemed Abenaki author Joseph Bruchac, who had warned me not to try to step inside a culture that I didn't and couldn't grasp.

Now I have indeed formed a full Jewish identity, one that reflects my father's family journeys. I honor the Sabbath, participate in a Jewish congregation, study texts in groups, write related poems, and can prepare a lot of Jewish recipes, including some challenging ones that belong to this Passover season. I know the names of five members of my father's family who perished by murder in the Holocaust. (Far more of Dave's relatives were killed then, too.) I've invested years and passion in this long change, which after Dave's 2019 death became increasingly vital to me. I love what I've learned and how it's forged my identity.

Recently one of my siblings and one of my sons asked about the Native American part of my mother's family history. It dates back to the late 1600s, to the Wampanoag. At my age, and having already committed myself to one cultural path, I still want to know more about this small corner of my birth family. So, watch for details this summer, when I explore this. It didn't play a role in writing The Darkness Under the Water, which feels appropriate -- it's never been a culture that I lived within or chose, and the Wampanoag identity doesn't include Vermont, but instead the New England coast -- but it's time to catch up with another thread of how I came to be this person, in this very American life.

A Little Kanell History: From Russia, With Love

I spent a while working on my husband Dave's side of the family tree today. It's almost five years now since Dave's death, and I'm rusty on details, so it took half an hour of document diving to confirm what I thought I remembered: that Dave's grandfather Joe Kanell had been a grocer in New Haven, Connecticut, in the 1930s. I didn't want to accidentally pass along a mistaken detail ... and I had a poem in mind.

This photo of Joe Kanell, at age 47, shows him on board a ship in 1935, circling the globe, going to see his relatives in Vilna, also called Vilnius. The city was part of Lithuania, which at the time was governed by Russia -- when Joe immigrated to the United States in 1905 he declared himself "Russian," and later Census documents show that both Joe and his wife Yetta considered themselves to have been Russian before they became American. They described their parents as Russian, too.

In addition to being Russian, they were Jews, and knew the risk of pogroms, organized massacres that targeted people who identified with this religion. Yet in 1935, when Joe came from America to visit the rest of the family, they must have felt "safe enough," because none of them kept Joe company on his return to New Haven. The photo here shows Joe on his way to Vilna, Dave wrote.

In 1941, German forces occupied Vilna and liquidated -- that is, murdered -- its Jewish population. Imagine murdering a quarter of a city ... despite fierce resistance from the Jews of Vilna, that's what took place. (Read more here.)

When I met Dave in 2001, his grandfather was long gone -- died in 1969 -- and in Dave's mind, just a few Kanells were slaughtered in Vilna during the Second World War. A few years after we married, one of his cousins from outside New Haven, someone he hadn't known well, showed him a photo taken in Vilna of grandfather Joe and the Kanell family there: more than 30 people. Dave's concept of what had happened needed to be completely shifted, and I'm not sure he ever stopped reeling at the new knowledge of how many of his family had been killed.

So here is a poem for Joe and his family. I hope I have most of the pertinent details right. And I hope this wondering is of use to others along the way.

 

Unasked Questions

 

He leans on the ship railing, white collar buttoned,

tie and a cardigan, gives a wide smile—

no clue now to who took the picture, and Joe,

forty-seven then, gone such a while.

 

Nine decades later, wondering who

watched his grocery— wife Yetta, still well?

What did it cost to sail around the world?

The ship fare, the store losses—no way to tell.

 

But this is the story passed down for years:

His family lived in a Russian city

and he tried to persuade them to leave, to come

to America’s freedoms—alas, what a pity

 

that nobody wanted to follow him back.

For decades we thought there were two or three lost

then saw an old photo of Joe and the crowd

who vanished soon after, and found out the cost:

 

Two dozen or more of the Russian Kanells

were gone in a decade of war and disaster.

How did he bear it? How did he go on?

Yet we know he delighted in grandchildren after—

 

tossing a baseball, applauding their skills,

launching them upward, helping them grow.

We who are wondering how we’ll survive

try to live with our losses, like grandfather Joe.

[What Dave wrote when he posted the photo on his Facebook feed:

This post is in honor of my Grandfather Joseph Kanell (July 4, 1888 to Oct 18, 1969) who chose his birthday to be on July 4th because the United States was a land of opportunity & freedoms. From Vilna, Lithuania to New York City & then New Haven, Ct area. Have a great 4th today. I should also note that my grandmother Kanell also chose the 4th of July for her birthday. My grandparents always had the American Flag flying at every holiday.
This is a photograph of my grandfather aboard a ship on the way to visit his relatives in Vilna, Lithuania in 1935. This was the last time that he had any contact with his family from the Vilna area and in all probability they all perished in the Holocaust.]

Dad's Side, Mom's Side, and Poems Linked to Each

Although my parents thought kids should find their own way to religion when they grew up, they each explained briefly their own backgrounds: Dad came from a German Jewish family with little religious attachment (and Dad himself refused any form of belief, he said, due to the Holocaust). Mom grew up with a Quaker mother, valued what she knew of that form of worship, but added that she felt closest to God in her garden. And New England was her core.

For the past couple of decades, as I've investigated Dad's life, with leading questions from my Jewish and much-loved husband Dave, my poems have explored more of Jewish tradition and culture. But when I'm in my garden, I'm my mother's daughter, inhaling the scent of soil and plants.

It seems I've arrived at a life point where I want to probe my mother's side of things more deliberately, so you'll be seeing more of that. In fact, it's sort of obvious in the two poems of mine published this week.

 

Here's one that seeks to find light in the darkness, as Israel and Gaza continue their war -- you'll see it's especially about Dad.

And this one, told from the point of view of Henry David Thoreau's sister Sophia, digs into my mother's New England heart, into the wonders of the natural world, and into the determined sense of women's "agency" that Mom taught me.