Who are the unsung heroes in your life?
I’m not talking about the obvious unsung heroes like your mom or your saintly aunt. I mean the ones you may never have met who have done a service for you–whether they’ll ever meet you or not–out of enthusiasm for the topic or situation
I’ve been thinking about unsung heroes this week because I’ve connected with one. Chris lives in McMinnville, Tennessee and I met him through last week’s research serendipity.
He’s a fan of the real life heroine of my Civil War novel (the one that has been set aside four times so I could write a book for publication. It’s up next . . . but I’ve said that before!), and after learning about my visit, he took the trouble to send me information.
Gold mine information.
Information I’ve sought and wondered about for the eighteen months my confederate (Kim Bailey) and I have been researching together.
In addition to sending me the newspaper clippings I need, he also recently took over the position of Warren County Genealogical Association Bulletin Editor. If you’re a genealogist in that part of the country, he’s an unsung hero to you.
Indeed, in the years before Ancestry.com made everything you need to seek your genealogy as easy as filling in your credit card 
number, people like Chris were the backbone and the heroes of all us old time genealogists. I met another one last time I was in Tennessee, Thomas Partlow, an archivist for Wilson County who personally transcribed countless volumes of county records. His transcriptions were bound into books and you can see them on the shelves behind him at the archives–or in the mother lode of them all, The LDS Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City.
I finished up the majority of my genealogical research in 2000 at that library. My husband took our two youngest children on tours around Salt Lake City for two days while I spent first 10 hours, and then 8 hours in the library combing the books for every last jot and tittle I could find about my ancestors. I methodically worked my way down the county shelves, one book at a time, examining every index for a long list of names.
When my husband finally dragged me out, nearly babbling, on the second day, I felt sure I had looked at everything possible.
Thanks to the hard work of people I’ll never meet and whose names I don’t even know.
I was wrong, of course, and over the years since I published Pioneer Stock, numerous folks have come out of the woodwork to ask further questions or provide additional information. I welcome them all.
They’re everywhere volunteering for no money to help others–amateur, of course, comes from the French word that means “lover of,” and refers to people who do something because they love it, not because they’re paid. They play musical instruments with me at church. They maintain countless genealogical forums on-line, they run the Boy Scouts and are behind all sorts of charity organizations.
I try to remember to thank them when I see them.
Or, in Mr. Parlow’s case, I saluted him and took his picture! And then I said “thank you.”
Here are some more unsung heroes whose lives affect us all, starting with the immortal Henrietta Lacks.
One other unsung hero in my own life–the “real” AJ who kept together a disparate group of World Magazine blog commentators by providing them their own website to keep their community going. Thanks, Aj!
Who are the unsung heroes in your life? Click to Tweet
How can you recognize them?
How can you be an unsung hero for someone else? Click to Tweet
Agree on the Boy Scout leaders as being unsung heros. Also workers in small ministries such as pregnancy resource centers, prison ministries and ministries that help children or the elderly. They do the work of Jesus on earth but are rarely recognized for their advancement of the kingdom of God on earth.
Michelle,
Thank you so much for the compliment. 😳
World gave myself and others an opportunity to meet a unique group of like-minded people, most of whom are fellow believers in Christ.
Personally, it gave me the opportunity to “meet, chat, and correspond” with best-selling authors (you and Lynn) and editors (Cheryl, Mickey, Joe) and reporters. As well as their dogs. 🙂 Also a man that helped map the moon, a bunch of teachers and educators, Southern Belles, pastors, housewives, military members, and fellow bloggers. Also, missionaries in Africa and PNG. I’d have never had the opportunity to know and learn and be considered a friend by these folks without them.
The folks there have been a blessing in my life thru their work, and the folks I’ve been privileged to meet there because of them. I’ve witnessed folks who’ve traveled thousands of miles to help others in our community to minister to others. There was no way I could simply allow that to end.
So I guess Mickey, Marvin, and the rest are my unsung heroes. So are folks like you and the rest of the gang who have been an encouragement to me for many years.
Thank you.
Allen 🙂
Enjoyed your post, Michelle! I have loved exploring the genealogy of my own family the last few years.
My definition of an unsung hero is someone that puts others before himself, I would hope that I have done this, at times – but to be able to do it, regularly, requires a very selfless person. Hopefully, I AM able to “do unto others as I would have them do unto me”!
There are many people who sacrifice for others, without getting their just due – our military; missionaries; those that work with the elderly, handicapped, & abused children, in prison ministries, etc.. The list goes on & on – I am thankful for them all!
My vote for unsung heroes goes to the security contractors who made the logistics in Afghanistan and Iraq possible, and who saved places like Sierra Leone from literal hell.
They were vilified as mercenaries, and when they came home dead (or not at all), the public reaction was typically a yawn, or “they got what they were paid for, so what?”
In rebuttal I’ll ask for your indulgence, to quote Housman’s “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries”
These, in the day that Heaven was falling,
the hour when Earth’s foundations fled,
followed their mercenary calling
and took their wages, and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended.
They stood, and Earth’s foundations stay.
What God abandoned, these defended,
and saved the sum of things for pay.
I was a mercenary, by the strict definition. I make no apologies. Bless ’em all!
Thank you, Andrew.
Of course.
Michelle, is this is a WordPress blog, right? Here’s something I came across I thought you might want to check out…
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/09/27/how-to-avoid-being-one-of-the-73-of-wordpress-sites-vulnerable-to-attack/