Up & Coming Weekly

THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON The Dicksons recently enjoyed a trip to Philadelphia. We toured Independence Hall and saw the room where North Carolina’s delegates threw us in with the Revolutionaries by signing the Declaration of Independence and where, a few years later, they married us to a new nation by voting for the Constitution. We marveled at the interactive exhibits at the much newer National Constitution Center and discussed it all over a few Philly cheese steaks. We were a band of very proud Americans. Like virtually every other American except those of us descended from the folks here before Columbus arrived, however, the Dicksons really came from somewhere else. My maternal grandmother had a passion for genealogy, and she followed my grandfather all over eastern North Carolina pursuing it. While he practiced law and politicked, she visited cemeteries and small family burial grounds and took rubbings of headstones, which was the way amateur genealogists researched in those days. I know she would be astounded and filled with wonder and joy to know how easy the Internet has made that work today. The result of her labors is a loose leaf notebook filled with family history and connections for each of her 7 grandchildren, a true treasure. That is how I know that most of my ancestors on my mother’s side came from England, many before the United States was a nation, and that while some of their descendants are now scattered around the globe, many are still right here in North Carolina. A much more recent immigrant ancestor arrived in Baltimore in 1870. Victor Emmanuel Weyher, then only 23, was born into a banking family in Vienna. He was not the first son, however, which in those days meant he had to make his own way in life, and he became a physician. There are several THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET One American Family family legends surrounding the reason for his trip to American, a completely unsubstantiated one involving the death of another man in a duel and a warrant for his arrest. Some creatively bored American child probably came up with that one. The more likely reason is the same one that brought many European doctors to study in America after the Civil War. At that point the wounded United States had state-of- the-art trauma medicine. Whatever the reason, he did work in Baltimore, where he met Clay Parrott, a teenaged boy from Lenoir County who had been sent there for treatment of an improperly set limb. As unlikely as it seems, the farm boy from a large eastern North Carolina family and the Viennese doctor became friends, and as family history tells it, the boy invited the doctor to Lenoir County, where he could meet “the prettiest Parrott sister.” Meet her he did, and Rachel Susan Parrott and Dr. Weyher married and settled down in Kinston, still the largest town in the county, where he became the only physician, the only pharmacist and the only Roman Catholic in town. They set about the universal business of family life, producing nine children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. Victor Weyher died in Kinston in 1930, never again having seen Austria or any of his own brothers or sisters. He named his own children for them, though, and sent two of his daughters to Austria to visit their cousins. His youngest daughter, Margaret Regina, future genealogist and the beloved grandmother for whom I was named, went on that trip across the Atlantic Ocean with her older sister, Marie. My grandmother forged strong and life-long bonds with her Austrian cousins, bonds which remain in place today. During the terrible years of World Wars I and II, she sent clothing, food, and money to her family in besieged Austria. In my generation, a young Austrian cousin spent almost every summer with us, fitting into American family life with the precious jewels, and giving us an excuse to take several sightseeing vacations that we might not have done otherwise. Most of those visitors have now married, two in ceremonies Dicksons attended, and one of them flew over with two of his own children to a precious jewel’s recent wedding. The last daughter in that branch of the Austrian clan will wed this summer, and our fingers are crossed that we can make her wedding as well. This branch of my family has been on my mind since a chance meeting with an old friend last week. Her name is German but could be Austrian, and we had a conversation about her our various family histories. It is all a reminder of the unique qualities and experiences that make us Americans. My story is one of European immigrants, while yours may be South American, African, Asian or some other culture. Whatever our heritage and however it shaped us, we are now Americans. Our culture is woven from many different fabrics, giving us a breadth and strength of purpose unlike any in history. I am grateful to my grandmother for nurturing the ties that bind, thankful to know my Austrian family and so proud and blessed to be an American. MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer Full day or half day camps for rising 1st - 6th graders • June 21-25 • July 12-16 • August 2-6 For more information or to regis- ter, go to www.fascinate-u.com. 116 Green St. • Downtown Fayetteville • (910) 829-9171 6 UCW APRIL 7-13, 2010 DISABILITY CLAIMS When the doctor says you can't work, put your attorney to work.  D. Pittman Dickey Smith, Dickey, Dempster, Carpenter, and Harris, P.A. 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