Mining the Past

Vignettes of the Arnold-Schuster Family Tree

Generations of the authors ancestors have helped to defend America, from a third great grandfather who fought during the Revolutionary war, to his great grandfather who as a 12 year old drummer boy with the Union Army in 1863 had to learn and execute numerous drum beats while under fire , to the authors own service with the Air Force during the Viet Nam era. Several of these men are introduced in the stories of this book. Among other ancestors mentioned will be a Northern Virginia tavern owner whose 1810 home for wayfarers was well known by its visiting travelers for its ghostly inhabitants, a frontier doctor who was well informed by Shawnee Indian medicine men, the wives of these men, a number of whom bore ten or more children while living in remote areas and under very stressful conditions including threats of Indian attack, a wealthy oilman from Bakersfield California, and a family which organized its own frontier Lutheran Church in the wilds of 18th Century Virginia. From those who immigrated in the great migrations of the 19th century with accommodations in the steerage of cargo ships, we will find carpenters, my wifes grandmother who, as a young girl was given away as an orphan, and her other grandmother who as a frightened young 12 year old girl who spoke no English was left alone at the port in Baltimore. Still other stories include the authors grandfather who was a glazier working with Art Glass when the country first began to make its own stained glass windows, and two great grandmothers, one the authors, and one his wifes, who both gave birth to illegitimate children in Germany and emigrated to America to begin life anew.