“In 1853 they traveled by train to Roanoke, Va., then called Big Lick; this was the terminus of the railroad….They left Big Lick in a 'Carry All,' a covered vehicle on springs and, without any definite location in view, they drove over 200 miles which brought them to Jonesborough, Tenn., where they located.”

“They” is my great-great-grandfather, Herman, and his sister Sofie and brother-in-law Jacob and their infant daughter, Clara. This is the beginning of a recollection written years later by my great-grandfather’s first cousin, Sam Adler.

I like that they had no particular destination in mind. Jonesborough made sense, it was a hotspot on the long road west from Winston and Salem. Maybe the hills of East Tennessee reminded them of their childhood home in Bavaria.

A lot happens in a few pages. They start a business and it prospers. Herman marries Helen Guggenheimer of Rockbridge County, Virginia (that’s them in the photo) and they have their first eight kids, including my great-grandfather. A woman from Indiana shows up at the Adler’s farm, adjacent to Herman and Helen’s along the Watauga River, looking for her husband, a missing Union soldier. Partisan violence wracks the town when the war is over. The kids swim in a chalybeate spring and have kid adventures.

If this lockdown lasts maybe I should write a book about it.