Growing up a Roman Catholic in a pre-Vatican II world, one of the last things that ever entered my mind was the very concept of \u201creincarnation\u201d. I\u2019d heard about it of course but it simply wasn\u2019t something that I gave much thought\u00a0 and even less credence. It was an alien concept. That changed dramatically one Saturday afternoon in the late fall of 1970.<\/p>\n
Apparently this isn’t the first time Sherry, my late wife, and I were\/are together. When we were growing up we were raised by our grandparents. Her dad was a career Marine and my dad was a Ford Motor Company exec. They traveled all the time so they gave us over to Papa (my grandfather) and Mama Carrie (her grandmother). Now we were the youngest kids of youngest kids. Our grandparents were all born in the late 1870s to the mid 1880s. Papa was born in 1881 and Mama Carrie was born in 1886. That put us a whole generation, almost two generations closer to the 19th century than other kids our age. We grew up hearing about things that happened then from people who were there and remembered them instead of reading about them in history books. We grew up thinking of it as being “our” time and “our” place far more than the time and place that we were in. After seeing something else that I’m attaching here we both became convinced of it.<\/p>\n
Now this is where it gets strange. Papa had been in the Spanish-American War. He was one of the first doctors… very first… to be in the Army Medical Corps. It was organized for the Spanish-American War. Up until then there were no doctors who were actually in uniform. They were all civilian “contract physicians” until 1898. In any case… here’s where it gets strange…<\/p>\n
When we were teenagers Papa still had one of his old blue uniforms from the Spanish-American War in his closet and Mama Carrie had a whole bunch of her old dresses from that time in hers. The whole thing started when our High School scheduled a costume party for Halloween and we were right up to the last minute and didn\u2019t have any costumes figured out. We wanted something that would complement each other as usual.<\/p>\n
Well, we dug around in our grandparent\u2019s closets until we dug out all of those old clothes and… with their permission… wore them to a school costume party.\u00a0 I wore Papa\u2019s old uniform and Sherry wore one of Mama Carrie\u2019s old dresses. When we were dressed we came out and showed ourselves off to Papa and Mama Carrie to get them to fix anything we hadn’t done right in putting them on. Papa almost passed out when he saw us. The look of shock on his face was something that we had never seen before. He turned as white as a sheet. With thirty-six years in the army \u2013 they didn\u2019t make you retire back then until you were sixty-two years old no matter how many years you had in \u2013 and a lifetime in medical practice it took a lot to shock Papa.<\/p>\n
He didn’t say anything for a long time \u2013 it was almost like he couldn\u2019t. We just thought it was the old memories coming back. It was to a point but we didn’t understand just what that “point” was until the a little later. Finally he just started muttering \u201cWell I\u2019ll be damned, I\u2019ll just be damned\u201d under his breath. His eyes were as big around as saucers.<\/p>\n
Then the old man got real quiet, and left the room, but he never took his eyes off of us while he was leaving. When he came back, he had a box full of old photos. It was the kind that are made on the thick cardboard backs and all of them were from the Spanish-American War period or the War in the Philippines. He must have dug in that box for an hour before he found the picture he was after.<\/p>\n
What he showed us made us almost pass out.<\/p>\n
He showed us an old, faded picture of a couple who looked exactly like us… I mean EXACTLY like us. They were dressed exactly the same way and in exactly the same pose that we had used to show off for Papa and Mama Carrie just a few minutes before. They looked enough like us to BE us or vise-versa. It was like looking in a mirror at ourselves. It\u2019s hard to explain still. It WAS us.<\/p>\n
The next afternoon we all loaded into Papa\u2019s little ’49 Ford and we took a trip to one of the neighboring towns… to the cemetery. He took us directly to a big granite monument… it stood over six feet tall.<\/p>\n
We both came down with a case of cold chills and thought WE were going to pass out AGAIN. Papa just stood there and eyed us like we had two heads, looking back and forth between us and that big tombstone. He had known these people before they died. They had been close friends but he hadn’t though of them in years until he saw us that Saturday evening dressed up for the party. I will always wonder what went through his mind.<\/p>\n
If you read the birthdays on this epitaph closely you’ll see something else that really got our attention…<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have any photos of this. I wish that I did. You have to see this to fully understand it. But… here is the inscription that is on that monument. It’s in a place called Indianola Texas. There’s no town there any more, just the cemetery.<\/p>\n
IN LOVING MEMORY<\/p>\n
Of<\/p>\n
OUR PARENTS<\/p>\n
Major James Lee “Jimmy” Masterson MD AUS (MC)<\/p>\n
Dec. 4, 1845 – Jan. 11, 1901<\/p>\n
Emily Marie “Miss Emmy” Fields Masterson RN<\/p>\n
Sept. 11, 1848 – Jan. 11, 1901<\/p>\n
Died in field service with the Peking Relief Expedition<\/p>\n
There was never in their lifetimes,<\/p>\n
Not a single minute\u2019s span<\/p>\n
That the two were not together;<\/p>\n
This woman and this man.<\/p>\n
From the time that they were children<\/p>\n
To the time that they grew old<\/p>\n
They stood beside each other<\/p>\n
In the wind and rain and cold.<\/p>\n
From a far-off land called Texas<\/p>\n
To the forests of Vermont<\/p>\n
To the shores of distant China<\/p>\n
They cast a single lot.<\/p>\n
The Major healed their bodies<\/p>\n
While Miss Emmy held their hands;<\/p>\n
And they raised a loving family<\/p>\n
In a dozen different lands.<\/p>\n
So pay good heed what love can do;<\/p>\n
How long that love can last.<\/p>\n
And know that God can give us<\/p>\n
Both a future and a past.<\/p>\n
Know that God can give us<\/p>\n
Loving families and friends<\/p>\n
And God on high can give to us<\/p>\n
A love that has no end.<\/p>\n
For there is no one beneath this stone<\/p>\n
No earthly shells lie near.<\/p>\n
Their bodies lie across the waves<\/p>\n
Their hearts are buried here.<\/p>\n
From All of Us:<\/p>\n
Josephine, Emily, Kimberly, James, Timothy, Grace, William, Norris, Doris, John and Samantha Masterson<\/p>\n
The Mastersons had been killed in China during the Boxer Rebellion. They were part of the International Relief Expedition that went to relieve Peking under General Chaffee and Admiral Sydney.\u00a0 Their bodies were never recovered.<\/p>\n
If you look closely at that epitaph you will notice, except for the years of our birth, Sherry and I have the same birthdays\u00a0 as Major and Mrs. Masterson and there is exactly the same amount of time between us.<\/p>\n
Now it gets stranger still. We really didn\u2019t pay any attention to it at the time. Papa and Mama Carrie pointed it out to us later. All the time we were getting all dressed up in that old uniform and that old dress, it was just like a \u201chabit\u201d for us. We knew what we were doing. Sherry didn\u2019t even look while she was using a button hook to fasten the buttons on a pair of high-topped shoes and I never down while I was buttoning the fly on the uniform\u2019s trousers (no zippers back then).\u00a0 The thing is, clothes from the 19th century are a LOT different from the clothes we wear now. We shouldn\u2019t have had any idea what we were doing, Sherry buttoned the detachable collar onto my shirt without any trouble at all, and helped Sherry into all of those petticoats and bloomer just like I\u2019d always done it. We had seen Papa in his uniform before for parades on Veteran\u2019s Day (he still called it \u201cArmistice Day\u201d) but neither one of us had ever actually seen him put it on. Neither one of us had ever seen Mama Carrie in any of those clothes except once or twice in old photos. There\u2019s just no way that we should have known how to do any of that, let alone get it completely right the first time.<\/p>\n
We kept that old uniform and that old dress. For the next thirty years any time we attended any kind of \u201ccostume\u201d function we were \u201cThe Major and Miss Emmy\u201d. That \u201cdirty-shirt blue\u201d uniform of the \u201cold army\u201d, one of the last ever worn in combat by a US soldier, and a \u201cmatching\u201d blue velvet dress with antique white lace trim are still hanging in my closet today.<\/p>\n
Yes, I believe in reincarnation. I have for some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Growing up a Roman Catholic in a pre-Vatican II world, one of the last things that ever entered my mind was the very concept of \u201creincarnation\u201d. I\u2019d heard about it of course but it simply wasn\u2019t something that I gave much thought\u00a0 and even less credence. It was an alien concept. That changed dramatically one Saturday afternoon in the late fall of 1970. Apparently this isn’t the first time Sherry, my late wife, and I were\/are together. When we were growing up we were raised by our grandparents. Her dad was a career Marine and my dad was a Ford Motor Company exec. They traveled all the time so they gave us over to Papa (my grandfather) and Mama Carrie (her grandmother). Now we were the youngest kids of youngest kids. Our grandparents were all born in the late 1870s to the mid 1880s. Papa was born in 1881 and Mama Carrie was born in 1886. That put us a whole generation, almost two generations closer to the 19th century than other kids our age. We grew up hearing about things that happened then from people who were there and remembered them instead of reading about them in history books. We grew up thinking of it as being “our” time and “our” place far more than the time and place that we were in. After seeing something else that I’m attaching here we both became convinced of it. Now this is where it gets strange. Papa had been in the Spanish-American War. He was one of the first doctors… very first… to be in the Army Medical Corps. It was organized for the Spanish-American War. Up until then there were no doctors who were actually in uniform. They were all civilian “contract physicians” until 1898. In any case… here’s where it gets strange… When we were teenagers Papa still had one of his old blue uniforms from the Spanish-American War in his closet and Mama Carrie had a whole bunch of her old dresses from that time in hers. The whole thing started when our High School scheduled a costume party for Halloween and we were right up to the last minute and didn\u2019t have any costumes figured out. We wanted something that would complement each other as usual. Well, we dug around in our grandparent\u2019s closets until we dug out all of those old clothes and… with their permission… wore them to a school costume party.\u00a0 I wore Papa\u2019s old uniform and Sherry wore one of Mama Carrie\u2019s old dresses. When we were dressed we came out and showed ourselves off to Papa and Mama Carrie to get them to fix anything we hadn’t done right in putting them on. Papa almost passed out when he saw us. The look of shock on his face was something that we had never seen before. He turned as white as a sheet. With thirty-six years in the army \u2013 they didn\u2019t make you retire back then until you were sixty-two years old no matter how many years you had in \u2013 and a lifetime in medical practice it took a lot to shock Papa. He didn’t say anything for a long time \u2013 it was almost like he couldn\u2019t. We just thought it was the old memories coming back. It was to a point but we didn’t understand just what that “point” was until the a little later. Finally he just started muttering \u201cWell I\u2019ll be damned, I\u2019ll just be damned\u201d under his breath. His eyes were as big around as saucers. Then the old man got real quiet, and left the room, but he never took his eyes off of us while he was leaving. When he came back, he had a box full of old photos. It was the kind that are made on the thick cardboard backs and all of them were from the Spanish-American War period or the War in the Philippines. He must have dug in that box for an hour before he found the picture he was after. What he showed us made us almost pass out. He showed us an old, faded picture of a couple who looked exactly like us… I mean EXACTLY like us. They were dressed exactly the same way and in exactly the same pose that we had used to show off for Papa and Mama Carrie just a few minutes before. They looked enough like us to BE us or vise-versa. It was like looking in a mirror at ourselves. It\u2019s hard to explain still. It WAS us. The next afternoon we all loaded into Papa\u2019s little ’49 Ford and we took a trip to one of the neighboring towns… to the cemetery. He took us directly to a big granite monument… it stood over six feet tall. We both came down with a case of cold chills and thought WE were going to pass out AGAIN. Papa just stood there and eyed us like we had two heads, looking back and forth between us and that big tombstone. He had known these people before they died. They had been close friends but he hadn’t though of them in years until he saw us that Saturday evening dressed up for the party. I will always wonder what went through his mind. If you read the birthdays on this epitaph closely you’ll see something else that really got our attention… I don\u2019t have any photos of this. I wish that I did. You have to see this to fully understand it. But… here is the inscription that is on that monument. It’s in a place called Indianola Texas. There’s no town there any more, just the cemetery. IN LOVING MEMORY Of OUR PARENTS Major James Lee “Jimmy” Masterson MD AUS (MC) Dec. 4, 1845 – Jan. 11, 1901 Emily Marie “Miss Emmy” Fields Masterson RN Sept. 11, 1848 – Jan. 11, 1901 Died in field service with the Peking Relief Expedition There was never in their lifetimes, Not a single minute\u2019s span That the two were not together; This woman and this man. From the time that they were children To the time that they grew old They stood beside each other In the wind and rain and cold. From a far-off land called Texas To the forests of Vermont To the shores of distant China They cast a single lot. The Major healed their bodies While Miss Emmy held their hands; And they raised a loving family In a dozen different lands. So pay good heed what love can do; How long that love can last. And know that God can give us Both a future and a past. Know that God can give us Loving families and friends And God on high can give to us A love that has no end. For there is no one beneath this stone No earthly shells lie near. Their bodies lie across the waves Their hearts are buried here. From All of Us: Josephine, Emily, Kimberly, James, Timothy, Grace, William, Norris, Doris, John and Samantha Masterson The Mastersons had been killed in China during the Boxer Rebellion. They were part of the International Relief Expedition that went to relieve Peking under General Chaffee and Admiral Sydney.\u00a0 Their bodies were never recovered. If you look closely at that epitaph you will notice, except for the years of our birth, Sherry and I have the same birthdays\u00a0 as Major and Mrs. Masterson and there is exactly the same amount of time between us. Now it gets stranger still. We really didn\u2019t pay any attention to it at the time. Papa and Mama Carrie pointed it out to us later. All the time we were getting all dressed up in that old uniform and that old dress, it was just like a \u201chabit\u201d for us. We knew what we were doing. Sherry didn\u2019t even look while she was using a button hook to fasten the buttons on a pair of high-topped shoes and I never down while I was buttoning the fly on the uniform\u2019s trousers (no zippers back then).\u00a0 The thing is, clothes from the 19th century are a LOT different from the clothes we wear now. We shouldn\u2019t have had any idea what we were doing, Sherry buttoned the detachable collar onto my shirt without any trouble at all, and helped Sherry into all of those petticoats and bloomer just like I\u2019d always done it. We had seen Papa in his uniform before for parades on Veteran\u2019s Day (he still called it \u201cArmistice Day\u201d) but neither one of us had ever actually seen him put it on. Neither one of us had ever seen Mama Carrie in any of those clothes except once or twice in old photos. There\u2019s just no way that we should have known how to do any of that, let alone get it completely right the first time. We kept that old uniform and that old dress. For the next thirty years any time we attended any kind of \u201ccostume\u201d function we were \u201cThe Major and Miss Emmy\u201d. That \u201cdirty-shirt blue\u201d uniform of the \u201cold army\u201d, one of the last ever worn in combat by a US soldier, and a \u201cmatching\u201d blue velvet dress with antique white lace trim are still hanging in my closet today. Yes, I believe in reincarnation. I have for some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}