Chapter 36

"Mrs. Marston showed me an old newspaper clipping from 1862 that described how a noted Southern sympathizer, Alan Squires, had been using the Buchanan house as a place to store documents that would have gotten him into serious trouble with the War Department if they'd been found in his law offices," Kendra told Lee, Amanda, Dotty, Phillip, Abby and the children at supper that night. "When Louisa Stetson rented the house, she did it sight unseen, and because she'd unwittingly written to a Copperhead – that was the name for people who opposed the war and thought that President Lincoln was doing everything wrong, Bobby and Emily – to a Copperhead newspaper to ask about houses for rent near where her friend Amanda lived, they thought she was opposed to the war too. Anyway, Squires rented her the house, they moved in, but the first night Frederick Stetson and Amanda and Matthew's ward, Robert Clayton…"

"Hey, that's my name! Well, it's Uncle Bob's name, and I'm named for him," Bobby exclaimed.

"Yes, it could be coincidence, but if it is, there sure have been a lot of them recently," Lee said. "And don't interrupt, please, Robert."

"Sorry, Kendra."

"Apology accepted. Anyway, Frederick and Robert heard some noise up in the attics, so they went to investigate, but when they got up there, the intruder had gone, vanished into thin air, it seemed."

"Really? Did he really vanish, Kendra?" Bobby asked. "Oh, man, I wish I could have been there instead of that other Bobby."

"If you had, you'd be about a hunerd and fifty years old," his very logically minded sister pointed out. "Nobody lives that long anymore."

"Yeah, but think of all the fun I could have had!"

"Robert, please let Kendra finish," Amanda said.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, Kendra. Then what happened?"

"Well, Fred and Bobby told their mother, who told Matthew and Amanda, and they all decided to set a trap for Squires. While Matthew and his superior at the War Department, Colonel Harry V. Thornton – and yes, he is an ancestor of our Harry V, according to Mavis Marston – went to the house to find the secret passage and explore it, Amanda and Louisa went to Squires' office to lodge a complaint about intruders in the attic. Of course, he tried to convince Louisa that the boys were just making up a story, but it scared him enough that as soon as they left his office, he went directly to the house. He wasn't the man in the attic the night before, you see; he'd sent someone else to get some papers that proved that he and several other prominent citizens of Georgetown were actively involved in aiding the Confederate war effort, but the man looked in the wrong place, didn't find the papers, and then left when he heard Fred and Bobby coming up the stairs. Matthew found the right papers, asked Amanda's stepfather, a retired naval officer named Captain Daniel West, to stay downstairs in case Squires tried to make a run for it, and sat down to wait. Sure enough, Squires showed up, got caught, tried to run, and was arrested. And before you ask, Bobby, you can't go explore the secret passage, because the house burned to the ground in 1865, and the lot where it sat on was later bought by a law firm, who built their offices there in 1885."

"And that building changed hands several times between 1885 and 1954, but you know it now as the Agency," Amanda told her children. "The guest house across the street belonged to Kendra's daddy's family, and then later in the war, that Matthew Davis sold it to your daddy's family."

"Mom, I'm confused," Emily said. "I know Kendra is my cousin because her daddy and my daddy are cousins, but how does that work?"

"I thought you might ask that, Emmy," Amanda said. "I made a copy of the family tree your Grandmother Stetson made for Daddy when he was even younger than you are. I'll show it to you after we eat, and then we'll ask Kendra to help us put in the Davises that aren't on there."

As soon as the table was cleared and the dishwasher loaded, Amanda got out a roll of white paper and cut off a large piece. She weighted it down and got out a ruler, pencils, and markers.

"We're going to make a family tree," she said.

The effort took nearly an hour because the children wanted to do as much of the work as possible, but when it was finished, Bobby said, "This is so cool, Dad. I hope I get to do something like this for a project for school next year. Now I know how we're all related."

"Why don't you explain it to me, Bobby; I'm still a little confused," Dotty said.

Amanda knew that Dotty probably wasn't the least bit confused, but the request gave Bobby a chance to explain, so the ruse was not only acceptable, it was very much appreciated. Amanda sent her mother a 'thank you' look and Dotty smiled.

"Okay, Grandma. See, on this side, we have the Stetsons, starting with William Stetson, who lived from 1819 to 1862. In 1849 he married Louisa Livesay, 1830 to 1899. Their son was Frederick, 1850-1925. Well, at the same time, over here on the Davis side, we have Matthew Davis, who lived from 1829 to 1909, and he married Amanda Bishop, 1829-1920, in 1862. Their son was also named Matthew, and he lived from 1863 to 1940. He also had a sister, Anna Lee, who lived from 1866 to 1941. Matthew got married, but Anna Lee never did. With me so far?"

"Yes; you're doing a great job, Bobby," Dotty said.

"Thank you. Now, over here, Frederick Stetson grows up, goes to West Point just like his father did, graduates in 1872, and goes into the cavalry, but in 1883, he has to leave the army because of disability. He comes back east and in 1885, he marries Mary Alice Taylor, who lived from 1860 to 1935. They have a son, William Lee, in 1886, and here's where the two families intersect because over on the Davis side, Matthew Davis, junior, has also gotten married, in 1895, to Mary Katherine Rogers, who lived from 1867 to 1952. They have two children, Mary Louise, who was born in 1896 and lived until 1935, and Matthew Davis III, who was born in 1898 and was killed during World War II, in 1943. In 1917, Mary Louise marries William Lee Stetson, who is a West Point graduate with the Class of 1907, but Daddy's father, Matthew Davis Stetson, isn't born until 1920."

"Because my Grandfather Stetson, being a career army man, was off fighting World War I," Lee said. "He was so badly wounded in the closing days of the war that he had to be discharged on disability, just like his father Frederick. Continue, please, Robert."

"Thanks, Dad. Now, over here on the Davis side, Matthew Davis III gets married in 1925, to Frances Mary Kuhn, who lived from 1905 to 1955."

"That's not very long, only fifty years," Dotty remarked.

"She was my Poppy's mother, Grandma Dotty," Kendra said. "He told me that she had a heart condition they didn't know about until she had a sudden heart attack and died. That was the same year that Daddy's little sister Mary Frances died of leukemia and the same year that Matthew and Jennie were killed, and back then, Poppy thought Lee had died in the same car wreck. It was a rough year."

"Very rough," Dotty said. "Go on, Bobby."

"Yes, ma'am. Matthew Davis III and Frances Mary had two children, General Robert J. Davis, only he wasn't a general when he was born, of course, and another Mary Frances, who died in 1935 when she was only four years old. Do you know why, Kendra?"

"She had polio, Bobby. That was the same disease that President Roosevelt had, only he had it when he was an adult. It crippled him and he had to use a wheelchair and heavy braces on his legs to walk, but he survived. A lot of little kids didn't," Kendra explained.

"Oh, that's so sad," Emily said. "Kendra, look – this lady, Mary Louise, who was daddy's….what was she, Daddy?"

"My grandmother, Emmy, my father's mother," Lee explained.

"That's right. She died in 1935 too. Was it polio?"

"No, Emmy, she had cancer," Lee said. "After she died, my grandfather Stetson married again, to Lucille Clayton. She was a widow with a young son, Robert."

"Uncle Bob!" Bobby said.

"That's right. He's my father's much younger stepbrother, which is how he got to be my uncle."

"Right. And then Matthew Stetson married Jennie Hamilton in 1949, which was the same year that General Davis married Kendra's Nana, Miss Sue. See, Emmy, if two people have the same grandparent, that makes them first cousins. Daddy's father, Matthew Stetson, and General Davis were first cousins because they shared a grandparent, this Matthew Davis, the one what was born in 1863 and lived in the house across from the Agency. The Matthew Davis here, the one that was killed during World War II, was Matthew Stetson's uncle on his mother's side. Now, to be a second cousin, you have to have a common great-grandparent, which is the same Matthew Davis, and that's how come Daddy and Kendra's daddy are second cousins, and you and I are Kendra's third cousins."

"If Kendra and Phillip get married will their children be fourth cousins? How can you be your own cousin?" Emmy asked.

"You can't," Amanda said, as the adults hid smiles. "They won't be related because Phillip and Jamie aren't related to Kendra at all. They're on a different family tree, the one from my family and from their father, Joe King's, family."

"For which I am very grateful," Phillip said.

"Why? Don't you want to be related to her?" Emmy asked.

"Not that way. You'll understand later."

"Grownups always say that," Emily grumbled.

The grownups laughed.