I just finished reading The Tribal Knot, A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change, by Rebecca McClanahan and enjoyed it so very much that I had to share it with you! I was fortunate to come into contact with a distant cousin (we share the same 9th GGF, Barnabas Horton!) through one of my writing groups, Faith Hope 
and Love, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. Margaret is an author of uplifting fiction under the pen name of Maggie Adams and mysteries with a touch of Spirit under the pen name of Rhett Shepherd. She also studies and enjoys genealogy and recommended this book to me.
Through a treasured collection of letters, documents, journals, family stories handed down, and firsthand memories, Ms. McClanahan takes the reader on a poignant journey through time and family, deep in the heart of the mid-west. I became entwined with the hopes, dreams, triumphs and tragedies of great-grandmother, her siblings, her children and their children as if I’d known them all my life.
Indeed, I believe the richness of the book is that it reminds the reader of their own heritage, the grandmother with wrinkles she’d earned, and a soft arm that was a pillow of comfort to the younger generation. The aunties who could advise, direct and love from their own vantage point and the uncles who could dote.
It’s true that it’s in our past that we come to understand ourselves and Rebecca McClanahan paints a generational portrait that is a reflection I think we all can peer into and see something of ourselves. It comes back to the importance of remembering the past so that we don’t repeat mistakes, but also enriching the good we find.
Much of The Tribal Knot is based on the letters kept by the family. Is letter writing becoming a lost art? When was the last time you wrote a letter? When was the last time you received a letter that you kept?
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of mine heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14, Geneva Bible 1599.