A Happily Ever After from Colonial Yorktown

This week our four boys had school vacation so we took them down to Colonial Williamsburg for a good old fashioned family vacation. You can bet I didn't mention that it was the "educational" vacation! They actually really enjoyed it, as did my husband and I. One story in particular stuck with me.
Just before the revolutionary war the Jemison Family was attacked by Indians. Young Mary Jemison was abducted and taken into a Seneca Indian tribe. After a while, she accepted her fate and adapted to the tribal life. She married a warrior and had two children. When the Revolutionary war broke out, her tribe, like many were attacked and driven from their homes. Mary fled to the mountains and hid there through the winter with her children, and the help of two escaped slaves. After the war ended, Mary had the opportunity to be returned to her white family, but she chose to return to her Seneca Indian family.

Now....it may not be the happiest of endings....but it was definitely thought provoking. I like to believe that she had found true love with her Indian warrior and returning to him was her only wish. Maybe I am romanticizing her choice. Perhaps it was the mere fact that her children wouldn't have been accepted by her white family? As I walked through the various homes and read the stories of the people who carved out our freedom, I can't help but wonder what they were really like. Mary's story of challenge, loss, triumph, survival and love will be with me for some time.