Thanksgiving for Our “Family Tree”

As I look forward to our family gathering on Thanksgiving this year, I am filled with thankfulness when consider all the past circumstances that have clicked into place to make us “family.”  Like the pin tumblers on a lock that fall into place only in response to the right door key, so is the myriad of choices and circumstances that have unfolded to bring our family into existence.

The analogy of a “family tree” becomes more meaningful the more I think of it.  Like a large tree, our family has both branches and roots that have grown during the last fifty years since Abby and I were married on June 14, 1969.  We thank God for His salvation by grace through Jesus’s obedient sacrifice that has given us both Life in Him.  Then, He allowed circumstances to bring us together as students on the campus of Malone College.  Two first-born’s, each with our own self-centered wills and priorities, could never have “become one” and “remained one” for over one-half century without God’s grace and mercy.  Yet, Christ spanned the infinite gulf between God’s holiness and our sinful separation to redeem us, purchasing our forgiveness (Titus 2: 11-14).  Because of His loving sacrifice, we see the gulf of our differences as tiny and manageable as we lean on our Savior for our daily needs.

Our marriage has also produced a family tree with two wonderful branches, a son, Bradley Allen, and a daughter, Melinda Maetta.  They eventually married and their loved ones will now take their places at our Thanksgiving table.  As we gather this year, I realize that our two branches have grown and branched more to form a wonderfully diverse “international family” representing numerous nationalities.   But, in order to appreciate our international family, let’s refer to our “roots” derived from our parents and grandparents.

Abby and I understand that her grandmother, Alva Mae (Kennedy) Bright, was one-fourth Native American, representing the Cherokee Nation of western North Carolina.   Alva married John E. Bright who was of English descent.  They settled and raised ten children in East Tennessee near their places of birth.  Alva’s oldest daughter, Marietta Bright, married Ralph Moser who was of German descent.  Marietta bore seven daughters, the oldest being Alvadell (“Abby”).

My grandfather, Earl Bauders, was a descendent of British and Irish lineages.  When Earl who was an Englishman “came courting” my grandmother, Naoma Troyer, he had a challenging time earning the trust and respect of her family.  The Troyer’s were part of the Amish culture of Holmes County, Ohio.  The Amish are of Swiss German Anabaptist origin.  Earl and Naoma’s daughter, Esther Mae Bauders, married my father, Bert Silvius, who was of German descent.  Although I have not explored Silvius genealogy back to the Revolutionary War era, the Silvius family is rumored to have come to America during the late 1700’s.  The Silvius’s may have been among the Hessians who fought against the Continental Army led by George Washington at Valley Forge.

Large trees depend upon hundreds of miles of roots!  Each major tree root is anchored and nourished by untold numbers of tiny roots and rootlets extending throughout the soil.  Likewise, our current family tree is rooted in a myriad of past choices, marriages, and circumstances that God has allowed to occur among our ancestors representing many nations and tribes that Abby and I have never met. 

If we are all able to gather together on Thanksgiving this year, the two branches that God allowed Abby and I to form; Bradley and Melinda, will have brought additional international flavor to our table.  Brad’s wife, Raquel, came to Ann Arbor, Michigan from Rio Grande do sul, the southern-most state of Brazil, South America.  According to historical records, Rio Grande do sul has had a gaucho culture like neighboring Argentina and Uruguay, and has since been influenced by Portuguese, German, and Italian immigrants.

Meanwhile, Melinda, married Steve Salyers.  The Salyers name is traceable to Anglo-Saxon tribes of Britain.  The Salyers may have come to America in response to religious and political persecution.  Melinda and Steve have three children, Caleb, Kiara, and Della Rose.  This year Caleb and his new bride, Gurvinder Mahi Salyers, will be the latest couple to form in our family.  Gurvinder (“Soni”) was born in America, a daughter of parents who emigrated from India.

And so, this Thanksgiving, our gathering will represent the newest branches of our “family tree” rooted in a wonderfully diverse international heritage and branching outward and upward in ways that only our Sovereign God can foreknow.  Abby and I thank God for His provision of our marriage and family, and we pray and hope for HIs blessing and provision for our offspring. 


Know that YAHWEH Himself is God;
It is He who has made us,
and not we ourselves;
We are His people
and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving,
And His courts with praise. 
Give thanks to Him;
bless His name.   – Psalm 100: 3-4

Discovery and Renewal on Huffman Prairie

Discovery and Renewal on the Huffman Prairie:  Where Aviation Took Wing (Kent State University Press, 2018) is a delightfully readable and colorfully illustrated book.  Its author, David Nolin, masterfully integrates Southwest Ohio geology, ecology, history, technology, and culture to tell the rich story of how Huffman Prairie State Natural Landmark near Dayton, Ohio came into being.  Aa a result of the land stewardship restoration efforts of Dave and partnering land stewards, Huffman Prairie is now blossoming as a resurrected expanse of colorful mesic prairie located on Wright-Patterson Air Force.

Readers will learn how Dave Nolin discovered the remnant of a historic native prairie and became engaged in its restoration as Huffman Prairie.  But readers will also learn how the prairie instilled within the author a land ethic based on love and respect for historic natural areas as treasures worthy of his professional attention and restoration.  Partly as a result of this early engagement with the land, Dave enjoyed a fruitful career as land stewardship specialist with Dayton-Montgomery Five-Rivers MetroParks and is responsible for negotiating and closing over 7,000 acres of newly acquired natural areas and easements during his 30 years with the agency. 

The story of Huffman Prairie is also an important thread within the early settlement history of Ohio in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  A highlight of this history is the account of how the Wright Brothers of Dayton, Ohio used a nearby pasture field that was once part of a 3-square-mile open prairie grassland, to test and improve their “flying machine” in the early 1900’s.  But long before the Wright planes took wing over this remnant prairie, grassland birds like Eastern Meadowlark and Bobolink were flying over this pre-settlement landscape, pouring their praises over a sea of beautiful prairie grasses and colorful native wildflowers.  Readers will wonder how the Dayton area was blessed with such an unusual treasure of beauty and diversity.   

The answer comes when Nolin takes us back even further in time, into the geologic history of what is now Ohio and the Midwest.  Here, he explains the forces that shaped the landscape and allowed for complex prairie ecosystems to form.  With the help of abundant maps, diagrams, and photographs, readers can learn how bedrock layers were formed by sedimentation under a great deluge, then uplifted, buckled, and eroded to form rivers and valleys.  Then, came the ice age in which glaciers shaped the landscape and left behind porous soil deposits.  The resulting complex of wetlands and prairies that developed on these glacial soils over time was a biological wonder that was much more complex than the Wright “flying machine.”

As settlers entered the Miami Valley in the 18^th century, impacts of agriculture and urbanization began to threaten the survival of the original forest and prairie communities.  Gradually, farmers drained and plowed up the prairie sod.  Others built roads, railways, and airport runways.   But, although readers like me are saddened by the gradual whittling away of the expansive prairie, Nolin does not present the history of Huffman Prairie as a woeful account of hopeless environmental degradation in the face of “progress.”  Rather, as Nolin tells us, the story of Huffman Prairie reveals how a few forward-thinking scientists, naturalists, and common citizens took steps to protect and restore remnant portions of natural areas in Ohio.

I was encouraged by what I perceive as my friend, the author’s philosophy of environmental stewardship.  Although we may differ in the exact presuppositions that form our respective worldviews, we agree that it is possible to address the potentially conflicting demands of human civilization while successfully conserving habitats and biodiversity. 

Page 135 (Kent State U. Press. 2018) 

The answer is wise land stewardship which not only conserves natural and biological resources but also provides inviting “places” where we can go and be refreshed in body, soul, and spirit.  Time spent working, restoring, and reflecting in these places all help us distinguish our wants from our actual needs in a consumer culture that so often has too little time to be quiet, reflective, and restorative.  If this is true, Nolin’s book is well named because although today’s Huffman Prairie is only a fragment of the original prairie ecosystems now largely transformed into agricultural and urban enterprises, this small remnant prairie will continue to be a place our generation and the next can go for discovery and renewal.

Nolin’s summary of the extensive historical and cultural scope detailed in Discovery and Renewal on the Huffman Prairie:  Where Aviation Took Wing, reminded me of the epic and thought-provoking television mini-series, Centennial, which portrays the history of several human ethnic cultures in what is now Colorado. The following excerpt (page 73) should encourage and challenge every reader who aspires to practice environmental stewardship in our fast-paced technological age:

The big prairie was gone, but the human and American achievements on this grassland in less than 80 years were unprecedented.  Here the first practical powered aircraft had been tested and flown, with a large impact on world history.  The prairie was an important part of an innovative flood control system that has protected Dayton and other communities along the Great Miami River from flooding.  Here the Wright Company School of Aviation trained the world's first generation of pilots.  The prairie land became an important part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, an important facility for National Defense.  Wright-Patt supports world-class aviation, engineering, and research facilities, and is a major employer for the region.

That these achievements resulted in the loss of the biologically diverse living systems that once thrived on the landscape was not widely known or considered except by a few.  Agnes Anderson Hall, John Van Cleve's biographer, reflected on the progress and loss at Huffman Prairie in "Letters from John":

"The "wet prairie" has lost its fringed gentians, in deed, but in the first years of this [20^th] century it's flat expanse recommended itself to two young men of the Van Cleve blood and tradition-- as a place well adapted to experiments with their new invention-- a machine that would fly!  A Government Flying Field now bears their name on the spot where one day a breathless crowd watched in tense silence while Orrville Wright soared three thousand feet into the air!  The Wright brothers led the way into the wilderness of the air as the Van Cleves had ventured forth on earth; they scaled the ramparts of the clouds as those, their forebears, had scaled the Alleghenies; they faced the scorn of unbelief, and beat back dangers and possessed their goal with the same courage, the same indomitable perseverance, the same effacement of self. Their lives were as full of peril and daring; their deeds were as replete with romance."

Nolin concludes:  Environmental awareness and general understanding of the complexity and value of living systems were a science and ethic that didn't start in a meaningful way until the early 20th century, but they grew swiftly in the 1970's and 1980's. This increased awareness and valuation of biodiversity and natural systems was to combine with a bit of luck to bring back a piece of Huffman Prairie in 1986.

 In Chapter 6, “A Prairie Renaissance,” the Nolin recounts how, as a graduate student at Wright State University, he was inspired by the growing conservation ethic of the 1980’s.  I was blessed to read Dave’s own personal account of how he and his father first discovered some native prairie plant populations that had survived after many centuries, now on the grounds of Wright-Patterson Air Force base.  What followed was an organized effort to restore the prairie and acquire its current Natural Landmark status. 

Readers will want to visit Huffman Prairie after they see on the pages of Discovery and Renewal on the Huffman Prairie the dozens of color photos of animal and plant species that currently reside in the prairie.  Nolin also includes a current listing of common and scientific names of plants of Huffman Prairie and helpful notes and references, helpful for those interested in the history of the Dayton, Ohio area.  Why not treat yourself to this book and buy a copy for friends who love history, nature, and working in land stewardship efforts?  Who knows, reading Discovery and Renewal and taking a trip to Huffman Prairie might even capture the imagination of a few young people who will enlist in environmental stewardship efforts in the future.