Say what? In other words, What did (would) Thomas think? What would John (or Joseph) do? As in, Gardners coming forward to fill in a meme.
Who are the Gardners? They have many threads, a lot of which have been touched upon, briefly, in this blog. In particular, we are talking two generations. That is, there is the gentleman who was the patriarch of the family and his wife, Margaret. Then, there are the kids who numbered nine in total.
Of those, we pick two in the order of birth. John is the first (Quaker and more); his brother, Joseph, was military and was a casualty of an early conflict with the American Indians. Which, by the way, no Gardner was responsible for seeing it come about.
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So, let's get anecdotal a minute, using Thomas as an example, first. See Written out of history. Thomas was here in the 1623/24 time frame. Then, there were all of these machinations, here and abroad. For the Gardners, they ought to be happy that Thomas and Margaret and their kids made it through all of that. We have to realize that Thomas was effective (physically, he would have been large, strong and very much capable; mentally, he was no slouch, as we have seen people argue when talking about his home-schooled sons, John and Richard).
So, we used "deign" to characterize Thomas taking the oath in 1637. That is thirteen years later. Of course, he did this for his kids. That same year, the ruling folks in Salem voted that he would go with Hathorne (ggp) to see the mucky-itty-mucks in Boston (or, wherever they were meeting at the time). Well, doing this gig got Thomas the temporary label of Deputy to the General Court. But, what happened next?
Was one time enough? Thomas saw that such was not for him (great decision). After that, he was very much involved in affairs in Salem and elsewhere. BTW, he was there when Endicott pulled his power trip on Mary Dyer and others. What Did Thomas Think?
Too, Thomas had no shadow over him; rather, he and Margaret enjoyed, until JE came along, a blissful life on Cape Ann.
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Now, we'll look at John and Joseph. John was another big guy who was involved in a lot of activities that supported the new society. He may have been young, and providing the muscle, but he was with the crew that mapped the Merrimack. No doubt, he learned a lot. ... Later, we see he and his brother going to see Gov. Lovelace in New York. The name of Sherborne on Nantucket came about from this visit. Lots to look at there.
And, Joseph? He married Ann Downing and has the house, that came to have Bradstreet's name, associated with him and his bride. Ann got Simon to sign a pre-nup after she lost her husband. Joseph was killed during the King Philip war. He, again, is an example of being taught well by his father and his mother.
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Again, we are looking at only two generations, here. The American experience, though, is the sum total across all of the years and the accumulation of experiences by the generations, thereof. In a spiritual sense, genealogy is missing several boats. And, the problem is worse than just running after DNA and encouraging some bad practices (as money, not truth and knowledge, is the focus).
Remarks: Modified: 04/23/2021
