Transcendental family

While scavenging in my parent’s basement during winter break, I found an old, raggedy book from the 1930s.

When I opened it and saw the author’s name, Horace J. Bridges, I realized this book was written by my own great-grandfather.

Here it was, an entire book written by a man I’d always wondered about but never met, sitting right there on my parent’s shelf, as it had been for years, idle and collecting dust.

I don’t exactly know what inspired me to finally pick it up, but when I did, one thing quickly became clear. This man saw the world in the 1930s in much the same way I see it today.

This book written by my great-grandfather, titled “As I Was Saying,” is a collection of personal essays on everything from the revival of spiritualism to the tyranny of books and even included an essay attempting to answer the question, “Are we wiser or better than our fathers?”

It felt as if the book had been written especially for me.

While there are many books I could say this about, in this case I felt that by reading his books I was beginning to unlock a new aspect of my own identity.

My great-grandfather was a humanist who emigrated from Great Britain to America in the early 1900s to serve as leader of the Ethical Humanist Society in Chicago.

I did not even know exactly what a humanist was until I read his work and realized that this term pretty well describes my own outlook on the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson believed truth was most easily found in the independent thoughts of man.

He believed cultivating an independent mind in search of truth was the duty of every citizen, if America was to develop its own distinct identity separate from European thought.

As I think about what kind of American I will become, I am reminded of the words of Emerson and my great-grandfather.

So this was the transcendental experience that followed the discovery of my great-grandfather’s books.

I realized my ancestors are still very much alive within me today, and many of my own ideas were thought first by them, decades or even centuries ago.

I encourage you to learn about your ancestors. Learn not only what they did, but also what they created.

It is up to us each individually to carry on their life stories and learn from our past.

­— bridgela@indiana.edu