I am you, Sarah speaks

I lived in a small world. While I was a privileged wife of a landowner, my horizons were small. We dwelled on a  farm run by changing seasons and trauma. We wived on the Rolling Fork of the Nolan River in west Kentucky near what is now Louisville. The community was close, having migrated from Fredricksberg Virginia immediately after the American Revolution, we lived among the same families for over almost 150 years until your great grandmother, Annabelle left in 1919. Our family lived in and around LaRue and Hardin County Kentucky from 1781 to 1918. We fought to create a place in these wilds, a stable place where we could prosper. We were good people, pillars of the community. We held positions of authority and helped build and maintain status quo.

And Carole, maybe like you, the status quo made me angry. My husband was cruel, a monster of a man. I could not divorce him. I did not have birth control. I did not have power to control my own destiny.

Maybe this is why I run parallel to you, in your blood. Why of all my descendants, I have chosen to express myself in you. You could fall in love with a person of color. You could divorce someone who did not know you’re worth. Maybe I am reliving through you some of the choices I would have like to have had.

You heard my voice in your teens when Kevin, the the not so good looking black friend in your class, who was so funny, crushed on you, and you were horrified. Kevin was not attractive. Was that because of the color of his skin you wondered (I wondered). You looked around. David, in your French class, he was the best looking dude in your class. His light skin and fine features were attractive. He sat next to you. You helped him with French everyday. You asked yourself, “can I like him?” Then you initiated a relationship with him that lasted over a year. 

Where did that curiosity come from? It came from me. It came from the forbidden, never consummated relationship I wanted with Alex, an enslaved son of my husband. Lewis, my husband,  had been raping the enslaved women on his plantation since he was 14, unbeknownst to me for many years. 

When Alex returned from Mississippi without Lewis and found me undone, with a newborn child, an untended farm and children, he behaved compassionately, rolled up his sleeves and took care of what needed taking caring for. He showed me what kindness looked like. He gave of himself in ways that went far beyond what his bondage called for.

I loved him. As a brother, a friend and I often wished I could know him as a lover. I wished I could kiss him and bed him. I wished we could extend our evening fireside chats to the bedroom. Alas, this never happened.  We tended this farm, the smaller children, and we grew hemp and vegetables. We survived together and created a thriving farm after awhile. We were always watched and were never allowed to expand into the real family we had the potential to be.

Yes Carole, my blood flows in your veins and your curiosity, your daring, your choices often were made because they were choices I did not have and longed for. 

Sarah LaRue Castleman 1808-1904