Blood Lines

by Gene Shelburne

I found out recently that I’ve got some high-falutin’ kinfolks.

Back when summer was still way too hot for such a gathering in Dallas, a band of my Shropshire relatives staged a once-in-half-a-century reunion in a condo meeting room that could have doubled as their sauna.

These are my maternal grandmother’s people.

To my amazement I learned stuff about my forebearers that day that almost made the long hours of sweating seem worthwhile.

Never in my wildest dreams, for example, would I have dreamed that my great-great-four-times-great-grandfather was George Washington’s family minister.

Colonial records indicate that Saint John Shropshire (they pronounced it “Sen John”) was the Anglican priest who sailed from England on the same boat that brought our first President’s parents to the New World.

How’s that for high-class ancestors?

Records indicate that Saint John Shropshire had some ecclesiastical clout in those early days of the Virginia colony. Oxford educated, he is listed in the official registry of “Colonial Preachers of Virginia.”

Evidently he took care of business. More than 300 years after his final Amen, one story about his zeal in ministry still survives. When George Washington’s parents missed church, we’re told, Saint John would dutifully ride out to the Washington farm that week to collect the family’s tithe.

About the time I started feeling a bit haughty about having such an illustrious great-grandpa, one of our Shropshire genealogy experts (himself a minister) punctured that balloon.

“Most of the clergy assigned to the colonies in those days, were worthless incompetents who had failed at the job back home,” he informed us. “They shipped their duds to America.” Then he qualified this by admitting that a few capable clergymen did come to the colonies voluntarily. Unfortunately, we don’t know which group our ancestor belongs in.

“Oh, well,” I chuckled to my preacher-brothers later, “having an Anglican priest in the clan probably wouldn’t enhance our reputation in Churches of Christ anyway.” The truth is that the only blood line any of us should boast about is the one that runs from Calvary.