I’m descended from a long line of women with Pilgrim souls. Some by circumstance, some by choice, but we all share travel.

There was a great-great-more greats-grandmother fleeing famine in Germany and arriving as an indentured servant in the 1700s.

There was another great-great-something who left Germany with her husband and nine children only to arrive in America on Christmas Day in the 1800s with eight children and no husband, having lost two to the difficult journey.

Yet another who left her babies in Wisconsin to take a wagon train to California only to lose her husband to disease halfway. There was no turning back and she did not see those children again for another 16 years.

Many from Ireland as youndsingle women through “chain migration.” Immigrants, all of them.

Some fleeing famine, some with families, some alone seeking love? I don’t really know their reasons but I’m assuming All were driven by a need for a different life.

This is my DNA. Their journeys were arduous, their challenges overwhelming, their heartbreak unbearable. Nevertheless they persisted.

I am grateful to these women, for their vision for a better life for themselves and their families. Their ability to endure and persevere. Their bravery.

Their Pilgrim Souls.