Opening And A Big Tease

Crista Cowan 0:00

I find it really interesting when someone is so close with their immediate family but knows very little about their family tree. My guest today learned more about her family tree in a really unusual way. And it involves ancestry and good morning America. Enjoy my conversation with Melissa Stafford. Hi, I'm Crista Cowan, and this is the podcast where telling your family stories can help create a deeply connected family. Welcome to Stories That Live In Us. Melissa, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Of course.

Growing Up In Boston’s Backyard

Crista Cowan 0:47

Well, I would just love to hear about growing up in Massachusetts and what that was like.

Melissa Stafford 0:53

You know, I've thought a lot about that in the last few months because I think I take for granted living here. I was born and raised in this area. And so not traveling a whole lot growing up, you really just kind of assume that all these really cool historic places are just the neighborhood. And you kind of grow up there thinking, oh, you know, there's the Freedom Trail, Bunker Hill, the Statehouse, the Capitol, like it's just kind of the backdrop of your growing up. So it really didn't seem all that unique to me. Um, but as I've gotten older and have learned more about my very awesome lineage, it's kind of taken on a new persona with how I'm viewing things, you know, kind of around the city and and even just around my town, because I didn't know that I was really kind of embedded in this town the way I am. So it's it's been very eye-opening.

Crista Cowan 1:47

Wow, I love that. And I'm excited for our listeners and viewers to hear that story. Um, but tell me a little bit about your family of origin. Like, did you grow up with both parents? Do you have siblings? What did that look like?

Melissa Stafford 2:02

I was born in the early 70s, which was a wonderful time from music and fun and the best soundtracks, I think, are from the 70s and 80s. So I grew up, you know, that was the backdrop of my growing up. Um, my parents were young and we had a great time. I have one sister who is 10 years younger than me. So there's quite a big gap there and not a lot in common growing up with a 10-year difference. But as we got older, that gap got a lot smaller and we're very close. And having young parents too has made us an even closer family, you know, because we all kind of just do everything together. So it's it's been wonderful. Lots of cousins, lots of aunts. Um, I have one grandmother who's still living. She just turned 97, my Italian grandmother. So Nana Eve, she's she's amazing. So I'm very, very fortunate to have such a huge family.

Crista Cowan 2:57

That is amazing. So, did you know all four grandparents or just some of them?

Melissa Stafford 3:04

I knew three out of the four. The fourth one, um, so my mother's parents divorced when I was younger. So I I remember him, um, but did not have really much of a relationship. He they got divorced and he moved to Florida. And so that's kind of where the the break kind of happened, where I didn't really know much more about the family from there. Then is it your dad's side that's Italian? It's my dad's side that's Italian, yes.

Crista Cowan 3:32

Okay. And how how far from the city did you grow up?

Melissa Stafford 3:36

I grew up in Hyde Park, which is technically part of Boston, um, but it's more of a suburb. So right on the outskirts. So you can easily get into the city, but you can very much enjoy suburban life and neighborhoods and green grass and um that type of thing. But it was very easy in high school. I remember saying, should we go this way to go home or this way to head into downtown? And a lot of times we hopped on that bus and hopped on the subway with whatever change we could all kind of gather together from the bottoms of our bags and we'd get McDonald's, we'd walk around downtown crossing, and it just was great, wonderful freedom.

Crista Cowan 4:12

Oh, I love that. That's so fun. So um, so on your mom's side, you said your grandpa moved to Florida, and then your grandmother,

Big Family Love And Lost Branches

Crista Cowan 4:20

was she close to you there?

Melissa Stafford 4:22

Oh my gosh, my grandmother. She was amazing. She's a very strong woman and she raised six kids. She has a ton of grandkids. Well, she's she's gone now, unfortunately, but she had a ton of great grandkids and great-grandkids. And my gosh, does she have great grades yet? Um, but she was wonderful, always had to have a million kids around her. She was a foster mother for decades. Wow. She was honored in the state as being a foster parent for just decades. She was always involved with children. So, and I was her first grandchild and granddaughter. So I was the queen, and she used to always tell the story about how she was in Virginia when she got the word. She had traveled and she was in Virginia, and she immediately dropped what she was doing, got in the car, and drove back to Massachusetts um to see her her first grandbaby. So it was, yes, she was just that grandmother that just spoiled you rotten. You know, that was that was man. Yeah.

Crista Cowan 5:22

I love that that that you have those memories of being so well loved. I think that's so beautiful in a grandparent-grandchild relationship.

Melissa Stafford 5:30

Yeah, never a question. Never a question. You just always felt it.

Crista Cowan 5:33

Yeah. Was she a storyteller at all?

Melissa Stafford 5:37

No, not really. Okay. Not really. But but her traditions kind of lived on um with some of her some, you know, her kids, she would teach them um some of her recipes, which we always laugh because they were not recipes that I ever liked because I'm a very picky, very picky eater. And so some of these things I was just yikes, you know, not anything I would I would go near, but it makes me laugh and I remember that, you know. So it's even though I didn't like the food, I just enjoy the memory of it and how I used to laugh and, you know, get a little freaked out.

Crista Cowan 6:12

I love that. So you're growing up surrounded by family, surrounded by history. But what did you know about your own family tree?

Melissa Stafford 6:21

Not a whole lot, Krista. It was, I had started a family tree years ago, but I had four kids, worked in Boston five days a week, kids had activities, a house to keep, you know, the laundry was never ending. I just never got to do those kind of extra little things that weren't really going to change anything for me at that point in time. So I really did not know much at all. I vaguely remember great-grandparents on the Italian side. Um, never met any on the other side. So to me, that's kind of where my family tree stopped was with my immediate grandparents and my aunts and uncles and my cousins. So I was very fortunate to have that. Um that, you know, very loud Italian Christmas Eve, you know? New people would c come in to Christmas Eve and they would look so frazzled. And I'm like, oh, they don't, they didn't, they have not had that kind of loud holiday yet. So um they'll love it. They'll love it in the end. But I just loved that, you know, house full of people, and we we still do that to this day. So now I'm hosting. And so I love carrying on that tradition. So thankfully I have a husband who enjoys hosting as well. So it worked out.

Crista Cowan 7:31

That's fantastic. So, where did you said you had four kids? Where did you and your husband raise your family?

Melissa Stafford 7:37

So we um we have a little bit of an interesting story. We actually met at karate class. So we were both taking karate. So my husband had two sons from a previous marriage. I had a son previously, and then we had Jackson together, our last son. Um, but we met at karate

Sharon Life And Deborah Sampson Everywhere

Melissa Stafford 7:55

class when our three original kids were taking karate. We just we had both independently took karate class as adults and were taking self-defense and we were beating each other up. And, you know, it was a wonder, wonderful experience. And we became very good friends and ultimately started dating and found love and had Jackson and decided to move to Sharon. And that's how we ended up here was, you know, just the schools are great, the town is great, and it was just a wonderful spot to raise kids. And so we we bought a house here in Sharon and we beloved it. So we moved here about 13 years ago.

Crista Cowan 8:33

Okay. And how far is Sharon from the city and in what direction?

Melissa Stafford 8:38

We're in a great spot because people laugh that we're kind of in the woods, but like once you leave the woods, it's really close to any highway. You can get to really any highway about 12 minutes in any direction. So, and the commuter rail is really close by, so I can hop on the train. It's about a 25-minute commuter rail train into Boston. So it's um it's very nicely located. I can get to Rhode Island, you know, in about 30 minutes. I can get to Boston in 30 minutes. I can get so it's really a nice, nice spot. You can really go anywhere.

Crista Cowan 9:08

Yeah. Oh, I love that. That sounds sounds idyllic.

Melissa Stafford 9:13

But growing up in more of a city-esque uh landscape, um, Sharon was a bit rural for me in the beginning.

Crista Cowan 9:21

I bet.

Melissa Stafford 9:22

Very woodsy, very woodsy, and you know, heaven forbid we ran out of milk or something. It was like, oh geez, who's going to get some milk? You know, would do a rock, paper, scissors, and you know, who's gonna go out at that point? Because previously you could just two minutes go grab a gallon of milk, but out here it's you actually have to trek a little bit.

Crista Cowan 9:42

So yeah. But I understand that there is a particular landmark or statue in in your community that you would pass, and there's some history attached to that that you learn just by living there in Sharon. Tell me about that.

Melissa Stafford 9:57

Well, if you grew up in Sharon, you always had awareness of certain things around town. Not many things, but certain things really stood out. Um, one of them is the name Deborah Sampson, who there's a statue of her, there is a street named after her, there's a ball field named after her. Um, where she the house she lived in is right centrally located, where she's buried is really close by. So if you grew up in Sharon, you did a project on her in third grade. You read her book, you wrote a paper, you might have even dressed up in colonial garb. So her name is very well known um here in town. So anywhere you go in town, there's Deb Sampson something.

Crista Cowan 10:42

I love that. So, how old was Jackson when you moved there? Six months. Okay, so he grew up knowing all about Deborah Sampson.

Melissa Stafford 10:51

He grew up knowing all about he'd done the project. And actually, two out of our three older boys also had been here for third grade. So they had done the Deborah Sampson um project as well. So all very well versed in Deborah Samson.

Deborah Sampson’s Revolutionary War Story

Crista Cowan 11:06

Okay, so for for people who have no clue who Deborah Sampson is, can you tell us her story?

Melissa Stafford 11:12

Deborah Sampson, incredible, incredible lady, she decided to dress as a male to join and fight the Revolutionary War and was the first woman to receive a full pension for those efforts. And she just kind of was a pioneer and an inspiration to all because she, after all of her experiences, um, she went on to tour, if you will, and talk about her experiences and just inspired many, many, many people and mostly women, pioneer.

Crista Cowan 11:45

And you have to think that during the Revolutionary War, right? Like a lot of these people are joining as communities into militia groups and companies. And so people would have known who she was if she tried to join locally. So was she originally from Sharon? And is that where she enlisted, or did she have to go elsewhere to enlist?

Melissa Stafford 12:03

She was South Shore. She was more South Shore. She was not born in Sharon. She ended up settling here in Sharon. So she definitely had to leave her area to enlist. And she was a lefty. She was a lefty. So signing, not many people were lefties. So that was definitely a my son is a lefty. So she definitely was a giveaway when she was local signing with her left hand.

Crista Cowan 12:30

Aha. And so then so she got caught a few times because people knew her or recognized her, but then ultimately she was able to serve.

Melissa Stafford 12:40

She was. She joined under the name Robert Shirtlip. Okay. And she was able to serve. And she was injured and she dug that bullet out. So she wasn't found out. I know only only a very strong woman would do that. We get it done. Yeah. Wow. I got shot. Let me just get that bullet out and continue on.

Crista Cowan 13:01

Right. Well, and you think about right, like the circumstances under which these men are fighting, the circumstances under which they are marching and camping and doing all of the things that were involved in the Revolutionary War and what she had to probably have gone through or how she had to have moved through that world in order to keep that hidden for any amount of time.

Melissa Stafford 13:25

It's really quite quite impressive because thankfully she was of a taller stature. So I think she was 5'8.

Crista Cowan 13:34

And that's really tall for a woman back then. Yeah.

Melissa Stafford 13:38

Pretty tall for a woman, exactly. So I think that definitely helped her with trying to maintain um a different persona at that time.

Crista Cowan 13:46

Yeah. And did she have family? Did she have parents or siblings who knew that she was doing this? Or was she orphaned? Like what was her family situation?

Melissa Stafford 13:55

She so her she had parents and a whole gaggle of siblings. But the hut the her father, it's kind of undetermined what happened to him. They think he was lost at sea, is kind of what the consensus is, but there's no real proof. Um, they think he was lost at sea and they had no money. They were very much in poverty. And so the family ended up kind of scattering, and she went to work for family. She was indentured for a while. And ultimately, when she was done with that, she was like, What do I do now?

Crista Cowan 14:31

Was she able to serve through the duration of the war, or did she get caught at some point before the war ended?

Melissa Stafford 14:37

She got caught before the war ended, but it was because she ended up with an infection, but she was honorably discharged.

Crista Cowan 14:43

Okay. So how like she wasn't from Sharon. Um, so how did she end up being such a prominent figure in Sharon? Is that because she settled there eventually?

Melissa Stafford 14:53

She settled and married here, raised her family. She they had a piece of land, her and her husband, and they ultimately gave that land to their son, and he built a house there. It's still there today. Um, and she ultimately lived there and and died there. She was buried up the street, which is just at the corner of my street.

Crista Cowan 15:15

What?

Melissa Stafford 15:16

So the whole family's there.

Crista Cowan 15:18

That's amazing. So here you are raising your family in Sharon, seeing the statue, the ball field, your

An Ancestry Email Turns Into TV

Crista Cowan 15:25

kids are doing projects. Like this is somebody that you're aware of as a historical figure. But at some point, Ancestry contacted you and there was an opportunity for you to be on Good Morning America and tell me a little bit about like what you were thinking or what you knew or believed as you were going into that experience.

Melissa Stafford 15:44

To say I was a little bit um in the dark, but very curious, uh, to say the least, I had gotten an email from Lisa at Ancestry and to an email address I don't really use anymore, but it was one that I had when I started my tree in Ancestry a million years ago. And I happened to go through that email every so often because having four kids go through the school system, some have this email, some have that email. So every once in a while I'll do a quick scroll through. And I happened to see this email that did not look like spam. So after doing a little digging on is Lisa a real person, you know, type of thing, I agreed to chat with her. And my gosh, once you chat with her once, lovely person, very easy to talk to. And she asked if she could look into my family history, that they were going to do some different projects of women in Boston, you know, Women in History Month was coming up. Um, could they look into my family tree? So who would not want that um type of gift? To me, it felt like a gift because I didn't know anything. But the deal was I couldn't look into anything myself now that she was going to look into it, which was not a problem at all. That was not a problem. So we we chatted a handful of times and um I had no idea what she was finding out. And then she had one day said, Oh, by the way, we pitched it to Good Morning America and they loved it. And can we shoot at your house? So very interesting. A little mind-blowing, a little bit, wow, really? Me? They must have found something. I'm just gonna wait and see and we'll go with it. And so thankfully, I was away the the couple of weeks prior. We had had a blizzard in Boston. It delayed me even getting home. I couldn't even get home in time to do the Good Morning America. So I said, You guys are gonna have to do it without me. I'm you know, I'm sure the other people that you're working with, because I was under the assumption they were doing multiple stories. So I said, You you're just gonna have to go with them. I'm sorry, I'm still in California. I can't get back. We've got like five feet of snow at home. And so they rescheduled it, which like wow, for me. For me, what's going on here? So, um, so yeah, we rescheduled it and we even had to bump it earlier by two hours because we were getting more weather. So they arrived at my house at 6 a.m. Um one day, and it was the most just amazing experience I've ever had. The the team at Good Morning America was just fantastic, made me feel so comfortable working with Lori Bergamoto. She was amazing. The producers, the camera, I mean everybody. And then to actually meet Lisa in person was just the whole thing was just dynamite. And when we finally sat down and started chatting, it was, you know, the hype was crazy. And so finally Lisa had come out and started flipping through the her iPad. Do you recognize these names? Do you recognize these names? And I still had no idea. Um, I really thought it was going to be my Italian side for some reason. And I saw that it was my grandfather from Florida, and I didn't recognize any names. I didn't know his mother's name, his father, I knew nothing. So we got to the end and it said Deborah Simpson. And I was like, mind-blowing. Mind blowing.

Crista Cowan 19:25

Right. Like you think about that, right? Like you grow up knowing, oh, I have this grandpa who lives in Florida. And I think sometimes that's what happens in families when there's divorce or disconnection. Like you just kind of lose touch

Hearing The Name That Changed Everything

Crista Cowan 19:40

with the stories that could have been passed down or the information that might have been shared. And so to have that information restored to you essentially, those those family stories given back to you, but this connection to this person that you essentially knew um all the stories about already, that's that's crazy.

Melissa Stafford 20:02

It was it was mind-blowing. It it kind of just blew me away. I honestly I didn't know how to react or feel. And I just remember Lori from GMA saying, How do you feel? What do you think?

Crista Cowan 20:17

But after the lights, after the lights are gone and the microphones and cameras are off, and you had some time to sit with it for a little bit. Like, did you have some feelings about it?

Melissa Stafford 20:30

Oh my gosh. I would actually say by the end of that day was just I was emotionally drained. Um thankfully, GMA did not show any of my ugly crying that I did um here and there throughout the day. But the last stop was actually at the Sharon Historical Society. And what a lovely group of people. And they were just so happy and thrilled that we were there. And they just went all out. You know, they just really wanted to make sure that Deborah was kind of seen, you know, and it was it was just wonderful. And by the time we like completely finished filming, I just burst into tears. Like it was the most emotional. Like these people did all of this for me. Like that was what kind of got me was they did all this for me. And like, who am I? I'm just uh, you know, another person, but they did all of this for me. And I think that was really very humbling for me was to have this attention to kind of bring out this amazing Deborah Sampson, you know, to kind of kind of bring her back out again and spotlight her and give me that star, you know. It just it's really hard to explain, but I was I was humbled by the whole thing. I was I was misty when they told me that they reached out to Rock Ridge Cemetery where she's buried, so that they could plow a path to the grave so that I could go there. And I just got so emotional thinking about that, like the things that people did to make this happen for me. I think was the most moving part of it was to kind of give me that. It was a gift. Yeah. It was truly a gift.

Crista Cowan 22:06

Well, I love that. I love that perspective too, that you have that humility and that connection. I think that's really beautiful. As a mom, though, like were was your family off-camera experiencing this with you, or did you have the opportunity to share it with them later?

Melissa Stafford 22:21

Well, so my husband and my son, they both, they, they were here. They live here. Um, but Jackson went to school that morning. So he was, he was there in the very beginning and they got a little shot of him at the very beginning. That was his two minutes of fame. My husband, you can kind of see him a little bit because they said, Oh, you know, go about your day. We're gonna take, you know, some shots of you just kind of in your home. And so, but then my husband was kind of in the background, just kind of watching and listening and just taking it all in. And that he had some, he works from home, so he was downstairs doing some meetings while all this was kind of going on upstairs. So Jackson knew all about it and he could not wait for me to get home from going to all these different places so that I could tell him all about it. And so my husband was really good. He wasn't telling anybody, he's like, it's her story to share. And he knew that it needed to be top secret until it was aired. And so we were only going to tell my mother and my sister and the kids. And so my mother and sister had been messaging my husband like all day. And I didn't even take my phone with me because I knew it would be buzzing and ringing. And so they were just dying to know what this big connection was. So when I finally got home to Jackson, I told him, and he was beside himself, but he also was a little bit like, why couldn't we have learned this earlier when I was in third grade and we did this project on Deborah C, you know, it was, but he was dying to tell his brothers and my mother and my sister. So I let, you know, we did it all together, but we let him share the news. And he was just so excited. He was so excited. And when we we FaceTimed with one of my sons, um Aaron, we said, Um, do you remember Deborah Sanson? And he was like, Yeah, what a badass. Why? And so we're like, hey, guess what? You know, so it was really cool news for all of them. They just really enjoyed it.

Crista Cowan 24:18

Oh, that's so fun. So do you remember what your exact connection is to her?

Melissa Stafford 24:23

She's my sixth

Turning Discovery Into Family Legacy

Melissa Stafford 24:25

great-grandmother.

Crista Cowan 24:26

That's pretty close.

Melissa Stafford 24:28

It's and my mother's fifth, and my mother, you know, so it's we went out today where we had a congressman, a senator, our state rep, the select board, the library trustees, the Sharon Historical Society Board. It was this big event um for 250. So it was kind of this like, you know, Deborah Sampson, hey, how awesome is she? Let's honor her with this kind of you know, event. And we were invited as the family. So my mother, my sister, and my son Jackson went. So we had five, six, and seven um for generations there. And it was just so cool. And they loved it. They were so happy to have family there, you know, to kind of you know, be the witness.

Crista Cowan 25:09

How many children did Deborah Sampson have? She had three. Okay. And did all of them have descendants?

Melissa Stafford 25:17

They do, but you know, I think there's a couple of distant cousins around here, but nobody I've met um that's as direct as as me just yet.

Crista Cowan 25:27

Yeah. So it's not like family has been honoring her, the community has been honoring her, but family hasn't been really participating in those celebrations or honoring until yet.

Melissa Stafford 25:39

There's people that are, they might as well be family. They they've really been honoring her in such a way. We have this one gentleman, Steve, um, who's uh Sharon resident, and he worked so hard for years to get Deborah on the stamp. So she's on the stamp um currently with the 25 revolutionary heroes. And then I understand there's a Deborah Sampson Day. There's a Deborah Sampson Day. It's May 23rd every year, and that date is significant because it's the day she was able to officially enlist. So it's her enlistment date. Um, so we celebrated at the Historical Society. We had lots of wonderful people there. And the state does this whole um proclamation uh with a citation. And so they do that every year. They proclaim it Deborah Sampson Day, and they have a reenactor, Julia, who's absolutely wonderful. And it's almost like you're talking to Deborah Sampson. So I find that incredibly cool. But it's just wonderful. And there's also an amazing award um through the state. It's at the state house and it's Deborah Sampson Award, and it's for a female veteran. And I attended to witness on my great-grandmother's behalf. And it was to see it in my town, you know, and we all know Deborah Sampson. She lived here, she died here, the whole thing. But to kind of leave my little area and to go to the state house and just see her so honored was mind-blowing. They had, you know, Color Guard, Star Spangled Banner, you know, just the pe all the people from the Veterans Affairs were there. So I got to meet the deputy secretary, the deputy um lieutenant was lieutenant governor was there. And um I met the families, I met last year's recipient, the nominees. I mean, it was just an honor to be there and just baffling to see the honors bestowed upon my great-grandmother. No family has been there before. I was the first of family to kind of go to these things. So it was just an honor for me to be there on her behalf to witness these amazing things that these women are doing in her name. So it's really pretty cool.

Crista Cowan 27:57

Well, and to have a reenactor, I think that is so cool. I was just talking to a friend today, and one of the things that we said was like, how like there are some ancestors we just really wish we could have a conversation with and just learn more about their story directly from them. And so through Julia, you're almost able to do that, right?

Melissa Stafford 28:16

She's she's wonderful. She's fantastic. We had gone to a reading that she had done. Um, basically, she was sitting at a table going through what would be her journal and just kind of talking at the audience. And I had my six-year-old nephew with me, who I'm like, oh, is he gonna sit through this okay? He was mesmerized. He thought that he was looking at his great grandmother and he was, can I meet her? It was just, it was wonderful. It was one, and it was pretty new to me when we had found out that she was our great. So to be sitting there listening to her like she's Deborah Samson was just so much fun.

Crista Cowan 28:53

Uh, that is the coolest. I love that. And I love that you took your nephew. I think as you think kind of to the future and how, like now that you know this story, now that you have this connection and understanding of your family tree and and this, like you knew the story intellectually before as a piece of history, but now it's a part of you and it's a part of your family history. How does that change like your family now and the connections that you have now and how this story continues to perpetuate in your family going forward?

Melissa Stafford 29:25

I think it's it's our duty and responsibility to continue on with our legacy. Initially, I was thinking, I actually I think it's Lisa or Lori at Good Morning America had asked me, you know, do you feel like this will change things for you? And initially I said, no, I already do everything that I think Deborah would be proud of. You know, we give back, you know, my son is very avid in scouts, and we're always doing community service and we're always trying to do for the community. And so I just felt like I was a very strong female and I feel like I would be doing her proud already. But then as I kind of had a moment to think about it quietly, it's kind of our responsibility to continue on and to be there in her in her stead and to bear witness. Like I wanted to be at the the award ceremony. I wanted to be there to congratulate somebody on behalf of my grandmother. So I just think it's something that we need to keep passing on. And and now, so today we went to an event and my son went too, you know. So I think that we just need to keep that, keep that going. And somebody needs to be Deborah's descendant. We need to keep her, you know, at the forefront and keep inspiring women and people in every gender, every race, every culture, just everybody should have a voice.

Crista Cowan 30:44

Oh, I love that. That's so beautiful. And I feel like you are the perfect person because you were already living so many of those values to step into this role to carry it forward. I think that's beautiful.

Melissa Stafford 30:56

It's showing me so many things I never even thought of before. I was like, wow, there's there's an award. Oh, there's a day. There's, you know, just how else can we honor Deborah? A million different ways, even just by ourselves going to

Going Deeper With Genealogy Research

Melissa Stafford 31:10

the food pantry, you know, just anything really, just paying it forward.

Crista Cowan 31:14

Yeah. Well, Deborah is such an illustrious ancestor to have, but has this experience um changed your level of curiosity about exploring more of your family tree?

Melissa Stafford 31:26

Oh my gosh. Hours and hours. If I start looking, just oh, let me pop on ancestry for a little bit. I it my husband's like, oh, she's gone. She's gone. We'll never see her again. Um, but I'm currently knee deep all over my family tree. So I recently applied to the Daughters of the American Revolution and also the Mayflower Society because Deborah's roots go back to uh Governor Bradford, John Alden, Miles Standish. So it's been really fun. It's been really fun. Some of it is a little frustrating based upon they all like to name their kids the same names as other people in their family. And so it's sometimes you hit a roadblock, but I love finding that little breadcrumb and kind of finding out something cool that I that I didn't know. So it's it's been really fun. So yes, the curiosity level has just skyrocketed.

Crista Cowan 32:22

Has your mom, your siblings, your children, your nibblings, is it anybody else in the family kind of shown a similar interest or spark because of this?

Melissa Stafford 32:31

I think they're happy for me to do it and for them to hear um stories and connections and whatnot. Um, it's funny. When I I think when I was first initially interested in it, but I had, you know, a whole bunch of kids and, you know, a job I had to travel for. My sister is in that place now. So she's got the smaller kids. So she doesn't really have the bandwidth to do that, but she enjoys everything that I tell her and you know, these cool connections and whatnot. And my mom's enjoying that as well. Um, Jackson, my youngest, just finished the genealogy merit badge, um, which Lisa very graciously had a Zoom with him and some other fellow scouts uh to talk about, you know, what she does. And so it was very cool. So he he has an interest in it as well.

Crista Cowan 33:17

Yeah, that's pretty typical that there's usually one person in a family when they get to a point in their life where they become the family historian. And the other, I think it's just a really beautiful thing, actually, because you have the time and the drive and the interest to dive into that. And then you become the connector to share those stories. And so as you think back, you know, I asked you earlier about, you know, was your grandmother a storytelling grandmother? And you said no. But now you can, you have the opportunity to become the storytelling sister and aunt and mother. And I think that that's a really beautiful, beautiful role for you to step into.

Melissa Stafford 33:56

Well, it's interesting because, you know, when you look at your family tree and you're just trying to, oh, how far back can I go? Where do my roots start? But you also have to think about what you're doing right now. What's the history you're making presently and what you should be documenting about it now, so that it's then seen years from now. So you got to kind of keep that in mind, which I wasn't initially. I was like, oh, I don't need to worry about my photos. My photos are everywhere. And but you really need to kind of keep that all documented now, um, or it's lost.

Crista Cowan 34:27

Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you could sit across from Deborah Samson today and and tell her one thing or ask her one thing, right? I know Julia's a great um kind of stand-in to give you that connection. But if you could actually have a conversation with Deborah, what would that look like for you?

Melissa Stafford 34:45

I'd want to know about her quiet moments. I think I would want to know, you know, what was her concern or worry or her happiest moment as she was living up the street from me. You know, I know I'm sure everybody had asked her, what was it like to be a man in the Revolutionary War? But I think I'd want to know about the quiet moments, the the anecdotes, you know, where she, you know, was making a cake and she spilled it everywhere and something funny happened. I think I would want to know those little tales, you know, about the really gross dinner she made or what made her kids laugh. You know, I think I would want to know about the everyday Deborah, just the great grandmother Deborah.

Crista Cowan 35:22

I love that. I love that so much. I think that's kind of as family storytellers, as family historians, I think sometimes we want to be able to tell the heroic story of enlisting in the military, right? And uh, you know, dressing up as a man and like that heroic story, which is amazing and incredible and deserves to be retold. But like you just said so beautifully, I think our descendants are gonna want to know those same things about us. Like, you know, what did we believe? What did we think about? What were our hobbies? What were some of those quieter um characteristics that came out in just everyday life? I think that's so lovely.

Melissa Stafford 36:01

And it's like, who do you take after? You know, I I love that kind of like little tidbit of where our ancestors connect with each other. So having those little personal traits or stories, or, you know, my son's a lefty. I know Deborah was a lefty, you know. So it's just kind of like those little things that I feel like I enjoy the most.

Crista Cowan 36:18

So fun. Well, Melissa, thank you so much. I love that you've shared Deborah with us and that you now have the opportunity to share Deborah with the rest of your family and be involved in sharing her with um the state of Massachusetts and those who come in contact with her story. Um, if people want to kind of follow along with your family history journey or um learn more about Deborah and and see the reveal, like are there places they can go to look for that?

Melissa Stafford 36:45

Well, I know that you can view the Good Morning America um segment if you go on YouTube and look Good Morning America, Deborah Samsa, and you'll find that Good Morning America segment,

Airplanes And The Stories We Keep

Melissa Stafford 36:55

which was really cool.

Crista Cowan 36:56

Then we'll link that for sure. Great. So this season on the podcast, Melissa, um, we are talking a lot about how stories keep families deeply connected. And you've just shared this lovely story with us about Deborah Sampson and how you're sharing that with her with your family. But in my box, um, I have random words and we're gonna draw a word today. And I just want you to do like a little word association and just see. Is there any story or memory from your own life that comes to mind as we say this word out loud? One word, one story. Okay, our word today is airplane. Airplane. I remember the first airplane trip I took because we I grew up in California and um we just lived near my grandparents my whole life, and so there was never really anywhere to go. We took like one big family vacation, but it was by car. But when I was 13, we moved to Oregon. And the most devastating thing for me about moving to Oregon was that we were moving away from my grandparents, and I didn't know if we were going to be able to see them again. And uh the Christmas that I was 15, uh, my parents bought plane tickets, which was a big deal because there were five children in our family. That's so that was a lot of plane tickets. And um, and it was, I was so excited to fly to California to see my grandparents, but we had to make a stop. Like, I don't know why there was not a direct flight from Portland to Los Angeles, but we had to stop in San Jose of all places. And um, I had been just a little bit airsick, like not like just a little nauseous and like it didn't agree with me. And we got into the airport and in San Jose, and I was like, we're gonna have to get on another plane. And that's just all I could think about in my head. Um, and as we were sitting there in the airport, this guy walks by dressed like kind of like Santa, like he had on like, you know, some Santa accoutrement. And it was a kid that I had that I was in high school with, um, just randomly there in the San Jose airport. And he came over and hugged me, and I introduced him to my family, and we got to laughing and stuff, and it just completely took my mind off how I was feeling. And I was fine getting on the next airport. I may have had a little crush on this guy. And um, and so like, so that was my memory of my very first airplane trip was to visit my grandfather.

Melissa Stafford 39:33

I was waiting for you to tell me that you ultimately married him or something. I did not, no. We didn't we didn't take too many plane rides um growing up, as I'm sure you can imagine. You know, you just didn't have a lot of airfare money. You got in the car and you drove places, but my folks were really young, so we didn't really take many trips at all. I did get to go to England with high school, and I remember saving up for that trip and working all the weekends and buying my clothes at a discount because I worked at Filene's basement. That was amazing. And I got to go to England and so with my class and getting on the plane and just having that sense of adventure and no parents. And honestly, I'm not even sure I remember the actual like being on the airplane, like riding in the flying in the airplane, but more just the people that were with me, my classmates, and just the excitement of going on this trip at you know, 15, 15, 16 years old, going abroad even to England was just unheard of. You know, you didn't travel abroad, you know, back in the day. It was just not something you did. So it was kind of a really cool thing that I got to do.

Crista Cowan 40:44

That's amazing. Was it like with a like like with a history class or a music class?

Melissa Stafford 40:49

Or it was in high school. I went to an all-girl high school, and um, it was something, it was an optional type of thing, you know, so kids who wanted to do it could sign up to go. And it was over during a school break. And um, you know, you did all that, you got on the bus, you toured all around, and um, it just so happened that there was a um a boy school also going on that same trip. So made it a bit more exciting. Um, that there were these like cute boys, you know, also on the bus uh type of thing. So that was kind of fun. But it was just my parents let me go on this trip, which they never traveled abroad. So it was just kind of a new, exciting type of thing. So it was really cool.

Crista Cowan 41:29

Yeah, I love that. Have you shared that story with your kids?

Melissa Stafford 41:33

No, I don't think so.

Crista Cowan 41:36

There you go.

Where To Watch And Final Thanks

Crista Cowan 41:40

Well, Melissa, thank you again for being here. Thank you for sharing Deborah. Thank you for sharing your stories, and I'm excited to continue to follow along with how you continue to honor Deborah and her life.

Melissa Stafford 41:59

Studio sponsored by Ancestry.