One of the upshots of being a parent like my father, who has never abided convention, is the creation of freethinking children.
Specifically, the creation of a rebel daughter who has been known to occasionally question authority and was dubbed “tenacious” by a well-meaning but somewhat boring journalism teacher years ago.
Maybe she was right.
In actuality, I’m not really a rebel. I am responsible. I visit the dentist twice a year. I volunteer in my community. I have three kids, a house and a 401(k). I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket. But, as the years have gone by, I have found myself on an increasingly divergent political plane from my father, and after our discussions — OK, disagreements — about climate change, immigration and any other political topic, the bewilderment on my dad’s face belies a confoundment at my oppositeness that resembles the kind of disappointment and failure a parent might feel when an adult child moves back home and lets his mom do his laundry.
Even so, as vehemently as I disagree with my dad, I love him and I’ve learned there are plenty of other things to talk about instead of the affairs of state. I avoid those topics, but sometimes they creep in anyway.
For instance, months ago, I was standing in my parents’ kitchen when my dad made a casual comment about “Pocahontas” in reference to a prominent senator and presidential candidate from Massachusetts.
I was stunned. “What did you just say?” I asked him, and as he repeated himself, I could only hear the voices of pundits and politicians who resort to name-calling and malice to belittle anyone with whom they disagree. That is not how I was raised. I was raised to be skeptical, not rude. It bothered me, but more than anything, I was annoyed that after years of being taught to buck trends and ignore social protocol and disbelieve in dinosaurs, this was the bandwagon he boarded.
“Are you talking about Elizabeth Warren?” I said, and I could feel my voice rising, even though I didn’t want it to. “Are you using that nickname to make fun of her?”
In 2012, when Warren ran for one of Massachusetts' Senate seats, her opponent lobbed criticism at her claims of Native American heritage. Warren said she has Cherokee and Delaware Indian heritage, although she doesn’t have any proof of Native American ancestry. She said her understanding of that descent comes from family lore.
In 2016, when Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and criticized Donald Trump, he started calling her “Pocahontas” in rallies and tweets, reigniting the controversy over Warren’s family tree.
Interestingly, family history has always been one of my dad’s strongest passions and my family also has lore about our Native American ancestry. I suggested to my dad that, as one who believes in the importance of studying family lines, rather than make fun of Warren for embracing something she absorbed from her family history, he should help her track down her ancestors.
Well my dad is not one to back down from a challenge and so, a few days later, I received an email from him with an attached 18-page document with names from three lines of Warren’s family tree. His findings were fascinating.
First, my dad discovered that Warren grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, where my dad moved with his family in 1956. Warren attended the Methodist church, my dad said, which was about a block away from his house. They are three years apart in age. I can imagine that somewhere along the lines, they might have crossed paths.
The next thing he found is even more intriguing. To my knowledge, Warren never claimed to be related to the actual Pocahontas, but, according to my dad, she does have a tie to the famed Native American. According to his research on familysearch.org, Warren’s eighth great-grandfather was Col. Robert Bolling, who married Jane Rolfe, Pocahontas' granddaughter, in 1675. Jane Rolfe’s father was Thomas Rolfe, whose mother was Pocahontas and father was English colonist John Rolfe.
Unfortunately, Jane Rolfe died a few months after her marriage, and Bolling remarried a woman named Anne Stith. They had a daughter named Agnes Bolling, who married Richard Kennon Jr. They had a daughter named Mary Kennon, who married John Clack. They had a son named Spencer Clack, who married Mary Beavers. They had a son named Raleigh Robert Clack who married Mary Randles. They had a daughter named Elizabeth Clack, who married William Kerr. They had a son named Matthew Kerr, who married Sara Ellis. They had a daughter named Sara Kerr, who married Summerfield Jones. Their daughter, Ethel Jones, married Grant Herring, and together, they had a son named Donald Herring. Donald married Pauline Reed in Oklahoma in 1932, and they had a daughter named Elizabeth Ann Herring. She changed her name to Warren when she married her then-husband, Jim Warren.
Regardless of Elizabeth Warren’s controversy and debated DNA tests, my dad’s research taught me two important things: First, it’s hard to call someone names after you study their family tree and find out they grew up a block away from you. Second, with my dad’s research, the nickname that once was meant to be derogatory now has new meaning, and when I hear it, I’ll think of my father spending hours following the family line of someone with whom he greatly disagrees, all because his daughter asked him to.
That’s how I was raised.