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| "Three Masts" Watercolor by Linda Lee Greene |
In the opening years of
the 1990s, I unexpectedly fell seriously ill with Ulcerative Colitis, later
diagnosed as Crohn’s Disease, a disorder unfamiliar to me at the time. My
research revealed that although the exact cause of Crohn’s is unknown, there is thought
to be a genetic component to it. A staggering 20% of people with Crohn’s have a
close family member such as a parent or sibling with the disease. The byword
within the Crohn’s community is that it tends to “cluster” in families. Though
it can raise its nasty head in any ethnic or racial group, it is commonest in
Caucasian populations and alarmingly dense in Jews with Eastern European
ancestry, also known as Ashkenazi Jews.
Depending on the studies you read, Crohn’s Disease
is, or is not, considered an autoimmune disorder. If it is, then one of the culprits in my case
would likely be identified. This is due to the fact that since the age of
sixteen, I have battled Graves' disease, also known as toxic
diffuse goiter and Flajani-Basedow-Graves disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid. It
frequently results in hyperthyroidism and an enlarged thyroid, with a range of
serious symptoms that absent treatment is life-threatening. Like Crohn’s
Disease, the exact cause of Grave’s Disease is unclear, is believed to involve
a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and is likely to “cluster”
in families. For example, if one twin is affected, there is a 30% chance the
other twin will also have the disease. In my immediate family, my maternal
grandmother, my mother, and one of my three siblings, and I contracted it.
That’s a whopping 50% of the off-spring of my parents who fell ill with this
particular autoimmune disorder—that’s also 20% higher than the incidence of it
in genetically identical twins. I’m not a geneticist, but if I were, I would
follow that track like a scent-crazed bloodhound. It suggests to me that my
particular autoimmune monster is a two-headed beast, one inherited from my
mother, and the other from my father.
Despite
my noteworthy autoimmune behemoth, copious specialists in the field of
gastrointestinal disorders involved in my particular bout with Crohn’s Disease weren’t
much impressed with it, and suggested strongly that there was at least a 50%
chance that I did have an ancestor hell-bent on doing me in with his/her bad
gene. My guess is that they had inside information they were ill-inspired to
share with me. But since I hold the dubious distinction as the only member of
my family known to have ever been afflicted with Crohn’s Disease, where, then,
is the stealthy genetic link?
I have long speculated that a
person of high color found his/her way into my family’s otherwise pale woodpile.
But as far as we know, ours is the traditional “Plymouth Rock” story: Irish/Welsh/English
to the core, with a bit of German thrown in, and Native American, Cherokee
specifically, linked to my paternal great-grandmother Annie Lane Green. Just
look at me, my siblings, and most of our cousins, and the Anglo-Saxon/Celtic connections
stand out boldly. Our Cherokee blood has proved resilient, as well, clear-cut in
the high-flying cheekbones, convincing noses, and black/brown hair with
brooding midnight eyes in most of my father’s paternal aunts and uncles, as
well as in three of his eleven siblings, with some trickledown to the current
generation. An image of Annie Lane survives—it is a family photo; she sits at
the left hand of her husband (my great-grandfather Joshua Green), and behind
them stand their several young off-spring, my father’s father Alderson Estep
Green(e) the one that is the blondest and bluest-of-eyes among the entire group.
To my mind, Joshua has always been the perplexing one in this line-up of hearty
Appalachian humanity, however. For many years now, his proclaimed “Protestant Englishness”
has not set well with me because I swear I see in his swarthy countenance a
Persian, or a Turk, or a Jew.
In my quest to nab my underground nemesis, my mind
cleaved to what it held to be the phantom olive-skinned presence in my paternal
great-grandfather’s face and body and bearing. Could it be?! Could it be he who
was the carrier of the Crohn’s gene, wrought through Ashkenazi Jewish DNA? Why
not? He looked like a Jew. And…and…there
is further circumstantial evidence of it—for example, the surname “Green.” Might
it be a diminution of a Jewish name such as Greenbaum, Greenblatt, Greenstein,
or the like? Joshua and Annie Lane Green were vigorous disciples of the
Pentecostal arm of Protestant Christianity, a religious fervor reborn, and
intensified, in most of their progeny, including my grandfather, the
self-proclaimed “Reverend” Alderson Estep Greene(e). Their exuberance for the
credo bordered on fanaticism, which wrought prejudice toward a broad spectrum
of humanity, including Jews—of course Jews. It is a blight on my family, indeed
on my nation, that this culture of xenophobia was pervasive then, and
unfortunately exists today, although to a lesser degree, thankfully.
You will also note the extra
“e” that my grandfather added to his legal surname “Green.” The purpose behind
it remains a mystery—a mystery to all but me, I submit, because I think it
quite possible he did it to Anglicize his name, to my mind, a transparent
camouflage of any appearance of a Jewish ethnicity, a circumstance that my
Family Green either suspected, or knew to be the case, and that my grandfather
went to extraordinary lengths to keep under wraps. By the way, the defective
gene aside, I would be right proud if it were confirmed that I share an Ashkenazi
bloodline with the likes of Mayer Amschel Rothschild; Marc Chagall; Albert
Einstein; Sarah Bernhardt; Sigmund Freud; Stanley Kubrick; Golda Meir; Felix
Mendelssohn, and countless others.
The Ashkenazi
coalesced in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the 1st millennium. Upon the Christianization of Rome, unwelcome and fearing their wholesale extermination, they scattered throughout Central and Eastern Europe, in modern times banding together in great numbers in Israel. Both paternal and maternal pedigrees of the Ashkenazi show a genetic structure drawn towards the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, reflecting historical admixture events with Europeans. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the Caucasus usually has been incorporated into the Iranian world. At the beginning of the 19th century, it fell to the Russian Empire.
Before
Iran became the only remaining remnant of Persia, the vast Persian Empire
spanned the ancient Near East, Egypt, and parts of India. It was a kingdom
generous to its resident Jews, an environment that no doubt resulted in instances
of new and far-reaching gene-pools. The Persians were a resourceful people. They
were responsible for several significant cultural and administrative innovations,
among them by way of one especially insightful soul, Zoroaster by name, the
founder of the religious concept of monotheism, which many religious scholars
believe to be the basis of the Hebrew and Christian religions.
A fascinating mix of factual and mythological entities and
events, Turkey's location at
the crossroads of Europe and Asia has also made it a land of significant
geostrategic importance. With its one thousand kilometers of incomparable
shoreline of the Aegean and Mediterranean waters, known as the Turkish
Riviera or the Turquoise Coast, it
has been a continuous and popular tourist destination. Apparently, later on, the
jewel-like beauty of the Turquoise Coast landed
it in Cleopatra’s vast collection of baubles. Rumor has it that Rome’s Mark
Antony chose it as the most beautiful wedding gift he could bestow upon his
beloved Egyptian Queen. The Greek gods and goddesses succumbed to its allure,
as well, for within its volcanic mountain ranges, they played out their
melodramas and comedies. Additionally, Turkey
was the birthplace of St. Nicholas, the doppelganger of Santa Claus. Herodotus, the Father
of History was another of Turkey’s native sons.
In the company of such shimmering personalities, I wonder if my presumed Ashkenazi Jewish
ancestor also hailed from Persia, or Turkey, or somewhere closely akin to them,
rather than from Germany, as my Anglo-Saxon blood would suggest? The human interplay in areas of
commerce and personal relationships among Persian, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese,
and other Mediterranean neighbors, many of them Ashkenazi Jews, separated by just
the span of a relatively small body of water, was the melting pot in which the
initial fortune-hunters that overran America was brewed. I have a basis upon which to entertain the
possibility that the carrier of the flawed (Crohn’s) gene in my DNA was among
them, as the following second part of this little drama will illustrate:
The alternative to the aforementioned
proposition is that the Ashkenazi Jewish blood that I think courses my veins
comes from my Cherokee great-grandmother Annie Lane. She was the mail-order
bride of my great-grandfather Joshua Green, and although I haven’t confirmed it
in research, anecdotally this was a common practice in the late nineteenth
century, and earlier. Like theirs, intermarriage among Native Americans
prevalent along the eastern regions of the New World and its early foreign
invaders was common. I can see it in my mind’s eye: my distant Semitic relative,
perhaps kin through Persian blood to a contemporary of Zoroaster, or Turkish
blood to neighbors of St. Nicholas or Herodotus—this bearded, turbaned, bangled, and sashed exotic was the great-great-grandsire
of the similarly exotic buccaneer who jaunted onto the utopian soil of the New
World, and swept off her feet, a nubile Cherokee maiden, and in them, was born “a
new race.” It is entirely possible that the roles in my imagined
scenario were inhabited by one of Annie Lane’s long-ago grandmothers and a Mediterranean
sailor. It might even be probable given the large number of adventurers of that
breed of humanity who sailed the early ships to America’s shores, many of them,
to a greater or lesser degree, of Jewish extraction. If such a union were to be
corroborated, it might go a long way in marking the starting point of the Crohn’s
gene in my DNA.
Why don’t I get a blood test? I’ve
wondered about that too. I think the answer is that I really don’t want to know
for sure. Ultimately, finding the missing link to the faulty gene isn’t as
important to me as preserving this mystery. I prefer not knowing—knowing would
take the fun out of it. It would remove the element of romance that I want to
believe in for Annie Lane’s great-great-grandmother and her handsome
swashbuckler—or of the lovely Ashkenazi Jewish girl whose sloe eyes melted the
heart of a Persian lad and generations later found renewal in the heart of
Joshua Green. And besides, this mystery
sets the stage for another novel. I think I’ll call it Footprints of the Cherokee.
*****
My historical fiction novel "Guardians and Other Angels" features transcriptions of authentic letters written by several of the main characters. Included in the novel is this one dated July 22, 1936, and is penned by my maternal grandmother Lena Gaffin and addressed to her firstborn child Marlin "Bob" Gaffin. Bob was in the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), a highly successful program put in place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its purpose was to provide employment for young men across the nation, disenfranchised young men essentially, who were victims of the Great Depression.
