Salem’s daughter

I can trace my family back to Salem. The branches of our tree go many ways, holding up figures all throughout history. I am related to Edward I of England through his daughter Joan, who ran off with a knight! There are mad men and mysteries, stories and many different histories. This is just on my Father's side! The Pickering family name is steeped in history, and my particular branch can be traced to the Pickerings of Salem, who built the still standing Pickering house.

My ancestors walked these historic streets, and I often wonder where they stood in the witchcraft histeria. Benjamin and his wife Jane married in April of 1693 in Salem, as the trials were actively going on. Benjamin's father John passed just after the trials...what did they see? What did they believe? My 10th great grandmother Alice lived during the trials, was she afraid to gather herbs and natural remedies after her husband passed? For fear the trials could happen again and a widowed woman could very likely become a witch! Perhaps they buried themselves in their bibles, hoping that prayer could truly save them, not knowing the real monster was ignorance.

I’m already wired differntly… so if I myself of the same mind & heart were to end up in the time of my ancestors… I would probably be labeled a witch myself. I have a hard time staying still and love to spin for vestibular stimulation. I imagine I’d spin through fields and gather wild flowers instead of working through the crops with my family. Could I handle the mud on my fingers and the stiffness of my clothing? I ask a lot of questions even now, and I've always been a curious soul. Would I question something in the holy scripture that would make them wonder about me? I could easily be labeled a witch, so many of the things I do today when I am merely being myself would get me killed back then. As much as I wish I could be just a normal woman of the town, my mind tells me that If I were merely myself in a different time...would I have even lived very long at all? If I was a strange child, would I be sent away? Would I be kept a prisoner in my own home? I don't have much knowledge of disabled folks in that time...and I wonder if there are records at all to say there was anyone who was disabled other than some of their older residents. If I existed back then, would I be some strange anomaly? Labeled demonic for things my body and mind could not control?

Perhaps I would be lucky, perhaps my family would love me just the same and work my needs into their home? What if I couldn't stay still so my mother put me on a spinning wheel, so I could dance in my seat? What if my father told my brother that whistling loudly was not for inside our home but for out where the winds could carry it away from me? Maybe I would be a witch, by society's standars, but I'd be a clever little witch, studying herds and plants and cataloging them in my mind, perhaps also collecting them to press into books. Maybe I felt closest with animals, and sat and talked to our sheep more than my own peers. I don't know where I would be then, or what I could be labeled, but it clearly hasn't stopped me from wondering who I would be if I were a child of Salem in the 1690's.