THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

There is a large statue outside the National Archives in Washington D. C. Chiseled into the stone are the words, "Study The Past". Spring had turned into summer, summer was nearing its end and we were in the nation's capitol. I was now standing at the doorway to the great house of archival records documenting all aspects of our nation's history.

Everywhere you turned white men in white stockings with the phrase, "We the People" written above their heads stared down at me. Indeed, I was now one " of the people" and going through the separate entrance for researchers propelled me into the National Archive Experience.

Many people are surprised to learn our national records belong to us all-free and clear. The assumption is often made you need special permission to do research in our National Archives. While you cannot wander through the building and suddenly decide, "Oh-bring me out a box of Lincoln documents", anyone has the right to do research. The staff are most accommodating and generous of their time. Our National Archives has regional centers so not all documents are stored in Washington D.C.

Conducting research the first time can be a daunting experience, especially in D.C. Security is very strict. There are rules about what researchers may or may not bring into the research rooms. All papers and documents carried into the archives must be stamped going in and accounted for. The list of rules is endless and everyone inadvertently breaks at least one.

I AM RESEARCHING A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

"Pull" times for boxes with the requested documents are only certain times of the day. It usually takes a while for staff to locate the boxes and send them to the research room. The first morning I began my research journey I had not yet realized what it meant to be "researching lighthouses". What I did know was it seemed to take forever until I was told the boxes were ready.

The research room is large. It is very quiet with only the sounds of those intent on discovering their histories. Slipping hands across onion skin pages,newspaper clippings,thickly bound registers, and forgotten calligraphy mark the passage of time now only known through the written words left by the marker. It was when my curiosity got the better of me that I learned what it meant to be researching lighthouses. There were historians, authors and researchers from countries beyond our borders all doing the important work set before them. Yet, when they learned I was researching lighthouses and a particular lighthouse keeper, I was accorded the same stature as if the pages had been written in the hand of Washington or Lincoln. The depth of feeling toward those men and women who risked their lives everyday to save a life was a remarkable presence that stayed with me throughout my time in Washington D.C. A generation had passed yet, even at the morning hotel breakfast a guest would tell me about the lighthouse in their own community and how much it meant to them. My humbling experience was about to begin.

The gray box sat before me on the research desk. I felt like all the other explorers who had ever been at the entrance to something unknown. The quietness becomes an unspoken silence followed by a slight hesitation before the shinning of that first light down a tunnel, a tomb, or when unearthing a past. Taking a deep breath, I opened the box, removed the first log and opened the pages. Edward's letter slipped from those words.

Here I was directly across from the room that housed the document containing the words, "We hold these truths to be self evident" and I was holding a document written by my great uncle the lighthouse keeper almost one hundred years ago. This was my truth, my history, and my story. Until that one moment, I had not realized what it meant for a truth to be self evident. I was holding the gilded plate.