Two Rivers

written by Nathan

A Brief history of related lives of Shroyers and Humes

I.

In 1830, several families set out from the Monoghahalia valley in far western Pennsylvania. They were walking to a new frontier where no villages had yet settled. With them they brought all the necessary belongings in ox-carts and horse and buggy. Sheep and cows were herded beside the caravan.

The carriages were full, so the families walked. They brought their livestock of cows, pigs, goats, chickens, and squab. They brought seeds to plant. When they arrived at their new location in tiny Selma, Indiana six weeks later the families had to stay in in the ox-carts and carriages for the winter as the houses they began constructing that Autumn were far from complete. Temperatures that winter dropped below freezing for many weeks on end. They had to rely on hard work and help one another.

Before reaching western Pennsylvania from which this Shroyer journey sprung, generations of families - Jones, Hopkins, Euwellen, and Shroyer - had already lived, married, and settled together. They had bonds of family and belief. These were very pious people with trusted leadership who helped one another.

In the late 1800's, the Shroyer's migrated a third time to South Dakota. After half a generation, they returned to Muncie, Indiana before making another migration to Crockett, Texas where my grandfather and father were born and raised.

In my own childhood of the 1970's, my Shroyer grandparents lived in such faraway places as Abu Dhabi, South Africa, London, Malta, and Netherlands (interesting and confusingly another family name).

I am indebted to my Shroyer ancestors for giving me the confidence to start new beginnings

II.

In the 1830's many of my Hume family ancestors (another family which had immigrated to the United States before the Revolutionary War with Britain) answered a call for missionaries to go into the world and serve. They asked and got congregational support for following the word of God because their faith demanded that they share God's love.

The Hume family's America Mission, while dedicated to spreading Christianity in India, was to serve a  humanitarian mission. They would sail off to India three months at a time to get back and forth to the USA (not including several long stops). Here, in far away lands on the other side of the globe, they would live for three generations. Once they reached Bombay, they had to live on board their boat several months to gain permission to land. The East India Company (which was running business in India) forbade all missionaries from entering India. After appeals for their mission reached parliament in England, special permission was given.

After being raised in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, my great grandfather Edward Hicks Hume went back to the USA for education and became a doctor. He joined up with some college classmates and left for a new

mission to China. On the way, he and his new wife Lotta stopped over in Bombay for a year to volunteer as doctor and nurse at missions his parents and grandparents had begun 60 years prior. Because of my Hume

ancestors fierce dedication to service, I grew up with a grandmother who spoke Chinese and had stories of narrowly escaping the violence of revolutionary wars in China.

III.

When I first came to India, my mother insisted that I understand how our family histories are imperfect. My family's risks, their adventures, their service had not been without mistakes and suffering. In the case of my missionary ancestors, their insistence on introducing western ideas and politics in China and India had likely

caused untold rippling effects that were lasting through to today. 

Similarly, when my Shroyer family migrated to Indiana, South Dakota, and Texas they settled on indigenous land belonging to others. They had land grants; but the use of these grants displaced

None of these families were perfect. Each family had 'black sheep' and hidden sin (for whom they assigned their forgiveness, banishment, or reconciliation - over often extended periods of time). Nor was any family life easy. There were conflicts. They had trouble with other families, settlers, religions, or native peoples.

As our world 'flattens,' as distances become smaller, as travel and migrations are recognized and normal, as our economic participation and advantages muddy in streams of global economies - recognizing the gifts and privileges afforded us today, thanks belong to these ancestors.

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The Chauhan Family and Civil Rights

We are always thankful for balance that friends give us. We share joys, our sadness, our hopes. We share our common inspirations and our values. Because of friends we have the ability to change our lives, our work, our world. We cannot know exactly what brings us together except good fortune and ancestors.

My friend Sara Chauhan, I have known since I was eighteen years old. We met at Loyola University in New Orleans. We have many memories together and much in common. But, here in her ancestral home of Jabalpur, I have learned so much more about our shared family histories. And, again, I learn to not question what brings people together, to not wonder how we learn to be friends with one another.

Our grandparents would have been fast friends also.

Sara’s grandmother is memorialized by a lovely statue outside of the government center here in Jabalpur. She is known across India for her revolutionary poetry which she wrote during her work for the Congress Party - the party of Ghandi and Nehru which gained India‘s independence from England in 1947.

When we visited the park with Grandma Chauhan’s statue, workers were enjoying lunch and tea under shady groves. A cow chewed his cud peacefully in the driveway. Flowers were in bloom. There was peace.

The Congress Party in India, which Grandma Chauhan belonged to, was founded by an A.O. Hume, (surely some connection with my own Hume ancestors who lived in Bombay (Mumbai) for nearly 100 years - three generations!). When Ba & Bapu Ghandi visited Jabalpur, Grandma Chauhan hosted them.

When great-grandfathers Hume raised human rights issues in India, they were starting with backgrounds in abolitionist human rights campaigns of the middle nineteenth century in the United States. The deserved rights for Indians were very closely related to the struggles for freedom of African slaves working in the Americas. The success Revs Hume had in Bombay fighting for rights of people without castes (‘untouchables’ or dahlits), were directly tied to corresponding human rights work of the USA.

So, our ancestors were influenced by similar world events. The work of early human rights efforts, (abolitionists in the USA - anti-British revolutionaries on India), influenced my grandfather in India in the 1840’s, Sara Chauhan’s grandmother in the 1920’s, my grandfather Shroyer in the 1930’s, my own parents in the 1960’s. These triumphant human endeavors shapes our lives and future of our world today.

When my father was younger than I, his grandmother was once presented with her morning paper. The front page lead article cut was out. As she later discovered, my Aunt Ines had cut out the photo of my father being clubbed by a police officer in Houston, Texas. Working on what you believe and changing the world does not always happen without a few extra whacks! But, my father’s Grandmother Shroyer knew that the family values raised up in her grandson were strong and supported him. She was proud of him. My father practiced non-violent protest in the Civil Rights movement which was influenced by Ghandi.

I think of Sara, many friends and family, often. As they all know about me, I am always concocting ways to spend more time together, to find more common paths, and to combine our work. Sara Chauhan has always been this type of friend. She allows her friends to share her confidence in themselves. She allows us to dream. She reminds us that we are supposed to she and challenge our world beliefs. She reminds us of the importance of work, responsibility, and dignity.

We had the same experience of friendship with Sara’s nephew Ishan Chauhan. Ishan is 12 years old. He lives in Jabalpur. But, he visit’s a Shriners facility in the United States once per year for several months. Ishan was good enough to go with us to Kanha National Park. Kanha is a magical jungle where one of our recent heroes from The Snow Leopard, George Schaller, the celebrated biologist, researched tigers and was the residence and inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. We had such a great time with Ishan. He is a new BFF (Best Friend Forever) - translator, navigator, negotiator, and gentleman - at 12!

Traveling with Ishan reminded me of early journeys in my life: hitchhiking the USA with my father and as a young man, childhood in the woods of my grandparents in Texas and our farm house in Mississippi, hiking the Rocky Mountains and the Brooks Range. Ishan helped me appreciate many roles of friends. It is important for me to remember who has come before that make me who I am. Friends remind me who my base is, who has my back, who my friends are - Ishan Chauhan, at 12, has all these great qualities.

Luckily, family is a certain base in my life too. Looking back over my own family history, my grandfather Shroyer’s work in human rights in East Texas, my great grandfathers Humes’ mutual work in India, my grandmother Freeman’s passion for human rights into her late 80’s; it is no surprise to me that I am so interested in the world and taking stewardship for it. More important, it is so right to know from where I am now, how pleased my ancestors are with their good efforts shining onto me.

Even far away, friends give such support. Brittany and I are incredibly lucky to be on our round-the-world ‘honeyserviceyear.’ We are inspired everyday to learn, share, exchange. We are that much luckier to be following in the steps of our forbearers and to have to kind and generous support of family and friends.

I often reference ideas which change my world view while traveling. One of these is ‘Six-Degrees of Separation.’ You are never more than six degrees separated form any person in this world. It is true. Whether it is the Chauhans in India or my friends back home, we are all just degrees removed from presidents of nations and presidents of corporations, from Yak herders of the Mongolian steppes to goat herders at the furthest reach of the Andes.

You are too.

How we shape, change, and influence a better world helps us all realize wondrous connectivity. Awareness of our habitation in the world makes for living better, fuller days!

All my adult life I have remembered famous thoughts of Aristotle on Friendship. Aristotle believed in keeping a happy mean in all that we do. He said to not live life with too much or too little of anything: Not to be too drunk or straight, neither too happy nor too sad. Aristotle said that we should only have as many enemies as we have friends. While the statement may sound crude, I believe in its truth.

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Calling all family members!!! - (Hume Family) ***Mumbai 2011 - 2013

Mumbai 2011 - 2013 is depending on how you look at it, coming to a 200th birthday of the Hume Missions in Mumbai (lots of locals and others still know it as Bombay). We will be 'in service' in Mumbai planning for more family and friends to help the Hume Missions reconnect, reinvigorate, and build another two centuries and more of helpful, meaningful, inclusive and equitable justices and collaboration between all peoples. I was priveledged immensely to vist these diverse missions in 2007 and was swept up in the vivacity, complexity, and humanity that is Bombay! We want to use our blog, our service, and our connecting of cultures to encourage you to follow us virtually and to join us for a return in 2013 to support this big anniversary.

Other areas where we plan to meet on a mission of service and exchange include, Tokyo and Kobe Japan, Changsha and earthquake affected regions of China, Indonesia, North and West Africa (yet undetermined) and France. Would you please begin to think of our travels in contacts, dreams, ideas, or work relationships; and, when you have down-time send us any thoughts you have.

We are following the paths and footsteps of others before us as we venture out to the world as a new couple in a new partnership for new beginnings abroad. Thank you for all you are doing in keeping us in your hearts as we walk off jetways into these new encounters.

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