My Pilgrim Past
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After trekking through Rhode Island to capture what tidbits of history I could glean regarding my 11th and 12th great-grandfather, I decided to visit my pilgrim heritage in Plymouth. According to my admittedly crooked family tree, I am a direct descendent of John Alden/Priscilla Mullins and John Howland/Elizabeth Tilley. Unlike in Rhode Island, where I found a dearth of photographable memorabilia, Plymouth proved to be a paradise for capturing kitsch.
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- Plymouth Plantation aka Reenactment Central Let actors depicting Pilgrims or Native Americans circa 1620-26 give you their side of the story.
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- Plymouth Rock: Did the Pilgrims actually step on this sacred pebble?
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- National Monument to Our Forefathers Standing proud despite Kirk Cameron’s monumental (http://kirkcameron.com/monumental/) revisionist depiction.
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- Cole’s Hill Pilgrim Memorial Tomb Contained inside this sarcophagus are bodies of those pilgrims who died during the first winter including all of Priscilla Mullins’ family and Elizabeth Tilley’s parents and brother.
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- Salvation Smackdown! Competing Bibles: Pilgrim aka Geneva Bible, vs…
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- …King James (owned by John Alden).
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- Cashing in on US Christianity has a long tradition starting with my ancestors the Aldens.
Becky Garrison is a satirist/storyteller whose most recent book is Roger Williams’s Little Book of Virtues (Wipf & Stock, March 2020). Also, she edited Love, Always: Partners of Trans People on Intimacy, Challenge and Resilience (Transgress Press, 2015). Her six books include 2006’s Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church (PW, starred review).