The Genealogy of Quicksand
(Author's note: I was advised not to publish this. I was told that it might flavor the soup against me. Balderdash, I say. If the soup is meant to kill me off, then so be it. Onward, can be our only reward.)
As always, genetically unedited.
I sometimes get stuck in the wonder of the quicksand — caught in the awe of the rabbit hole, marveling at the strange and beautiful interconnectedness of things. It is an interconnectedness that transcends time. As some forgotten commercial once put it, "It's the fabric of our lives."
(Okay, come on, that was frickn' funny if you ask me....lol.)
Sometimes it feels like I'm being God-smacked. I mean, I hesitate to give it too much power, for fear that you, dear reader, will think me more daft than I actually am. (Though I can assure you I am quite that, daft, indeed.)
Let me simply lay it out and let you be the judge.
This past week, I completed a submission to the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. It's an article that concerns the identification of one Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, a descendant of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller (d. 1621, Plymouth Colony). I've been working on this piece and this lineage for a while now, really digging in to what I see as a past genealogical faux pas out there regarding dear Ruth in the current published literature — and it's my attempt to set the record straight. I've been doing this not only for "fun," but also for a friend of mine, Paige.
It's been, as they say, a lot of work, and a labor of love.
Shining any light on problematic lineages is, if nothing else, fun as heck. The NYG&B seemed the logical destination for my submission. "They" felt right to me, if that makes sense. I'd already ventured down the halls of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, who suggested I lacked sufficient primary sources and politely sent me packing. (Whatever...) Really though, do I? I hadn't yet tried the Mayflower Descendant, fearing the same silent verdict.
The august folks at NYG&B seemed my next best hope in the telling of Ruth's story.
Maybe they could hear her saying, "Look, over here. It's me, Ruthie..."
But let's face it, I'm green as... I'm still learning the trade.
So I sent it in, foolhardy and brave soul that I am.
And now I sit and wait.
I sit and wait for a reply from their editor — one Ian Watson, PhD, an extremely (to put it mildly) astute scholar whose work I have since had occasion to admire. And yes, if you are wondering, I feel more than a little intimidated by the whole process, each aspect of it really from start to finish, and by whatever infirmities as might be contained in my wishful (but well-wrought) submission on behalf of our dear heroine, the noble weaver, Ruth Fuller, wife of Old Henry Francisco.
Now — hold that thought. Go back in time with me.
I am a sophomore at a mid-range Jesuit university in sunny California. I am studying philosophy under the tutelage of Father Frederick Charles Copleston, S.J. (10 April 1907 – 3 February 1994) — the only philosophy professor who ever gave me an "A" on anything I ever wrote. (Poor old man…)
Father Copleston was a dear man, eloquent and kind, a distinguished British Catholic convert and visiting professor at Santa Clara University from 1974 to 1982. He had published a nine-volume masterwork, A History of Philosophy (1946–1975), still considered a monumental achievement. More notably, he had engaged in a celebrated series of televised debates on the existence of God with the eminent British philosopher and atheist Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), broadcast by the BBC on 28 January 1948.
In terms of twentieth-century philosophy, Bertrand Russell was, as they say, the cat's pajamas.
So there I was — it was about 1975 — learning my trade of "what-ifs" and "what-nots" from one of Bertrand's most formidable intellectual opponents and rivals on the question of God's existence. (I'm rather glad I fell on the "God side" of things, if only for the sake of being, as they say, better off and (hopefully) more "sage.")
That was long, long, ago... on many accounts.
Today I submit genealogical articles.
I know, I know! Imagine the hubris of such aspirations!
Today I'm engaged in a different kind of Socratic dialectic — the "wannabe better" genealogical motivations behind the interrogation of evidence, the weighing of proof, and the absolute pursuit of what is genealogically true. But being an innately curious researcher, I was compelled — for reasons known only to some higher power, or to Fr. Copleston, or perhaps to the great Bertrand Russell himself — to look into the history of the man who would be reading my submission: Mr. Ian Watson of the NYG&B.
Enter the realm of interconnectedness. Enter the Genealogy of Quicksand — and or, in my case, its addled half-sister, the Genealogy of Philosophy.
It was there that I found this:
Ian Watson, "Mollie, Countess Russell," Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies 23 (2003): 65–68.
Say what?!?
This is where things get peculiar.
And yes, I know I have only just barely scratched the surface on this very unusual and interesting story — a story that arrived on my doorstep out of nowhere, via Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, and the confluence of events from a philosophy class fifty years ago, my friend Paige, and the chance that my "genealogical editor" would be even remotely connected to my own 1970s memories...
Did you get all that? Maybe you can explain it to me.
Ian Watson's article concerns Marion "Mollie" Cooke, born in Ireland about 1857–1858, daughter of George Cooke, master shoemaker. She married first, on 7 February 1880 in Glasgow, Scotland, one James Watson — Ian Watson's great-grandfather. That marriage broke down when James Watson joined a utopian spiritualist community called "Shalam" near Las Cruces, New Mexico, departing for America in October 1884 without Mollie. She filed for divorce, which was granted the following year. James Watson eventually settled in Los Angeles, where his son James M. Watson — Ian's grandfather — was born.
(I think I have all that straight...)
Mollie then married George John Somerville, an electrician, on 10 July 1888 in Aberdeen. By the late 1890s she was living near London, where she met Frank Russell, the 2nd Earl Russell — Bertrand Russell's elder brother — in a political context. Frank Russell, as he was known, was the original "Wicked Earl" of Edwardian society, tried for bigamy by the House of Lords in 1901 and sentenced to three months in Holloway Prison. Mollie — ardent feminist, Poor Law Guardian, and secretary of the Hammersmith Women's Liberal Association — was, by any measure, a remarkable woman.
Ian Watson went looking for her. That is the article he wrote.
So here is what I ask you to hold in your mind simultaneously, the following anecdotal whatcha-ma-call-its:
(1.) A student of philosophy in 1970s California, taught by the Jesuit priest who debated with his arch-rival Bertrand Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) on the existence of God in 1948, and who is now…
(2.) …submitting a genealogical article for review to editor Ian Watson, who has published research on the second wife of Bertrand Russell's brother, Frank, 2nd Earl Russell (1865–1931) — whose…
(3.) …editor who is the same Ian Watson, who happens to be the great-grandson of one James Watson, whose first wife was none other than our friend Mollie — the very same Mollie who went on to become the second wife of Frank Russell, the "Wicked Earl" himself, and brother to the great Bertrand.
Got all that? That's why they call it "genealogy."
Ian Watson has no direct tie to Bertrand Russell other than the fact that his great-grandfather's first wife, Mollie, was also the second wife of Bertrand's brother Frank.
(That seems like one heck of a lot of "not really no direct tie" at all, if you ask me.)
I have no tie to Bertrand Russell either — and certainly far, far less than Ian's — other than studying the existence of God under the guidance of Bertrand's adversary, Fr. Copleston.
But seriously? Who the heck has ties to Bertrand Russell at all?
Is it normal to find oneself at such an intersection?
A 1970s California philosophy student. A 1948 BBC broadcast. A Jesuit. An atheist. A bigamous Earl. An Irish feminist named Mollie. A woman named Ruth (Fuller) Francisco — the subject of a 1970s California philosophy student's genealogical article submission fifty years later, written for his friend Paige — Ruth (Fuller) Francisco, who wove cloth in upstate New York in 1819.
And one editor in New York City who, connected however obliquely to Bertrand Russell himself, has apparently been quietly waiting at the intersection of all of it.
Dude. Can you even make this up?
I rather think Fr. Copleston would call it Providence. Bertrand Russell would call it coincidence.
I am daft enough — to call it both.
Beats me. You be the judge.
☮
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