Hurray for Aunt Mary!
The Source
Hurray for Aunt Mary! I guess I have a personal stake in lies, finger pointing and witch-hunts. My fellow man’s affinity for blaming his problems on others nearly put an end to my family tree. My aunt was nearly condemned to death as a witch. My great, great, great…oh, I forget how many great’s…Aunt Mary was accused of witchcraft and came within a flaming distance of burning down our family tree in America before it got started. Mary Perkins Bradbury was the wife of Thomas Bradbury, one of the most prominent men in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Thomas was the schoolmaster, the town clerk, justice of the peace, associate judge and captain in the military. He married Aunt marry and they bore seven remarkable children, but after living 55 years in Salisbury doing what was described as “good and neighborly deeds,” someone accused her of being a witch….an 80-year-old witch. Over 100 witnesses came to Aunt Mary’s defense. In those days it was dangerous to even speak up on behalf of someone accused of witchcraft, but a hundred brave souls came forward. It did no good. Someone said she was seen flying through the air on a broom. In that same trial four other women were found guilty and hanged while Mary sat in her jail cell and awaited the rope. The year was 1692, not a good time to be a woman in New England, or to own a broom for that matter. The Salem witch trials remain a blot on that area’s history and while Salem has now cashed in on the “witch tourist” business, it’s no laughing matter to those of us descendants whose lives and fortunes were nearly nipped in the bud because of mass hysteria. Now comes the part of the story that I sorely wish I knew better. Using methods that no one was ever able to discover, my eighty-year-old Aunt Mary escaped. She escaped. Yeah, Mary! You go girl! Did she bribe a guard? Did she pull up her bloomers and crawl out through a barred window? Did she wait for a full moon then hop onto her broom and take off toward Philadelphia? Gosh, I wish I knew. All we know is that she lived out the rest of her life somewhere and died of causes more natural than a rope or a bonfire. Whether it’s the U.S. Congress, a local school board election, a tax referendum or a committee of fifth graders formed to decide what sort of cookies to bring to the birthday party, we do love to spread the blame around and carefully duck any spears of responsibility that are thrown our way. As a teacher I guess I’ve heard enough excuses for late and sloppy work to fill a Salem jail cell, and those are just from the teachers and parents. The students tend to be more creative. I can remember my college roommate receiving a call from the Illinois College Dean’s office offering him free counseling. According to my friend’s called-in excuses that semester he’d had three aunts die, an uncle killed, a grandmother disappeared, and a little brother who wasn’t feeling too well. If he attended any of those funerals I didn’t notice. I shouldn’t criticize; he’s now a lawyer and one of Peoria’s most prominent businessmen. My Aunt Mary’s lineage continued after her prison break and six generations later her nephew Jacob Bradbury and wife Patience built a houseboat, loaded up their thirteen children, and took off from Brown County, Ohio. In their gun-fortified craft they floated down the Ohio in 1826, wintered at Cairo, then in the spring of 1827 they poled their way up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, landing at Naples on March 27 of that year. Their hand-hewn craft featured fireplaces on both ends of the boat, plus portholes to defend themselves from pirates who plied the Midwest rivers in those early days. I wonder whom they had to blame when the storms hit, the boat capsized or the pirates attacked. I didn’t know Jacob personally but I’d bet that he gritted his teeth and carried on. When there’s no one else to blame you tend to solve your problems much more quickly. Perhaps it’ll take a shattering dose of really tough times for us all to live up to our own responsibilities and stop playing the blame game. A totally irrelevant side note: The historian on my mother’s side of the family was less reliable. When I was asked to research her family tree, my grandpa told me that he’d traced our family back to two bachelors in New England who were tried and hanged as horse thieves, so our family line ended right there. I was a third grader and believed everything Grandpa said so I gave my report to the class. Not a good move when your mother is your third grade teacher. After school we made a quick trip to Grandpa’s house.