My American Story

Reconciling the conflicts in my family history at the foot of the cross

Note: As we commemorate Juneteenth for the 2nd time as a federal holiday and the 157th time as an annual celebration of African-American liberation from slavery, my observation on the current conversation in America on race is that it’s not a conversation because we’re shouting past each other to our respective affirming audiences.

Racial progress in America is not a story where we’ve "let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24), but more like the story in the Old Testament about the nation of Israel, which found itself in an endless cycle of disobedience, distress, repentance, redemption, complacency, and back to disobedience. Sin creates a crisis that brings about a state of remorse and seeking forgiveness, and steps are taken toward setting the scales right. Eventually, the ardor fades, indifference sets in, and people question the need for redemption until another crisis precipitated by sin occurs. For America, the murder of George Floyd was a horrific act of disobedience against God that generated national distress, repentance, and acts of redemption that we hoped would lead to a lasting pursuit of justice and righteousness. Regrettably, the cycle continues until the next horrific act occurs.

I am reposting a lightly edited version of an article I shared about my family history last year to commemorate Independence Day. Given the nature of my story, it seems appropriate to share it again to honor Juneteenth, America’s 2nd Independence Day. My veins course with the blood of the slaves and the slaveholders, and I use that to illustrate the promise of reconciliation found in Jesus Christ, who healed the oppressed and the oppressor so that both might come to the throne of grace and be unified in his name.

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July 3, 2022

As we approach America’s 246th birthday, I’ve been thinking long and hard about my message this year. I’ve always tried to offer a thoughtful reflection on the state of our nation on its birthday celebration. Still, my thoughts in recent years have been somber and lacking in optimism about the sustainability of the American experiment.

As I watched the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel with my daughter, Briana, last week, I marveled - no pun intended! - at how much I was learning about a culture with which I was unfamiliar. This thoroughly adorable Pakistani American teenager fantasizes about superheroes, geeks out at the fictitious AvengerCon, and has a crush on the cute new guy at her high school. However, her life outside of school transports you to a vibrant, colorful world that brings Pakistani culture into the tapestry of American life.

I’m also learning about the turbulent and tragic history of the creation of Pakistan. I knew about the Partition of India and Pakistan by Great Britain, but I didn’t know about the millions who were displaced or killed to make it happen. As I was watching the re-enactment of thousands of refugees crowding the train station to catch the last train to leave for Karachi, Pakistan, I thought to myself how that story, along with other stories of triumph, tragedy, and everyday life from around the globe and throughout history, was now woven into the American story because of the Pakistanis and other immigrants who migrated to this country. I told Briana afterward how the legacies of all these stories brought together in one nation made America culturally rich and worthy of celebration.

Of course, not every story brought to these shores was transported here voluntarily, but even those stories are woven into the tapestry called America. That is what inspired me to share my American story.

A hobby in which I haven't had time to indulge as much as I'd like is genealogy. Most people who know me know my Louisiana roots, which are on my mother's side of the family. I was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where I spent some of my formative years when we couldn’t accompany my father on one of his temporary duty assignments.

I have traced my Louisiana family back to Neufchatel, Switzerland. Francois Louis DeVille, born in 1708, left Neufchatel with other French and German-speaking Swiss settlers for Purrysburg, South Carolina. Like many colonists searching for the freedom to determine their destiny, he hoped to own a piece of land, cultivate it, and make a prosperous life for himself in the New World. An advance party of settlers arrived in Purrysburg, named for speculator and town founder Jean Pierre Purry, sometime in the early 1730s, and by 1736, there were 100 houses and about 450 settlers in the new town. However, the land was unsuitable for farming, and hunger soon overtook the settlement, followed by malaria from the abundant mosquito population. The surviving settlers scattered for more hospitable climes, and Purrysburg today is marked by a large stone cross and a cemetery.

Francois Louis DeVille married and had a child or children, although the records are incomplete. One report says his wife was Francine Huyghues Despointes, and they married in Purrysburg, but I’ve only found one reference to his wife’s name and where they married. I know he had at least one child, his son Michel DeVille, born in 1738 in Purrysburg, and Michel eventually migrated to southeastern Louisiana. He married Marguerite Katzenberg, a first or second-generation German immigrant, in New Orleans in April 1768. That union produced the family line that eventually led to my third-great-grandfather, Alexandre “de Franc” DeVille, and my third-great-grandmother, Augustine Gradenigo. One of their daughters, Clementine DeVille, and her 2nd husband, Francois “Tutu” Toussaint, gave birth to my great-grandmother, Eva Toussaint. Eva married Minor Stevens, and one of their daughters was my grandmother, Olevia Stevens. She married Melvin Lubin and had two children, her oldest being my mother, Mary Jean Lubin. She married Lafayette Miller, Jr., and they had six children, including two twins who went to the Lord at birth. The doctors predicted a similar fate for me, but God had other plans, and I am, almost 63 years later, still seeking to follow God’s plan for my life.

I haven’t had as much luck tracing my grandfather’s lineage; I’ve only gone as far back as my great-grandfather, Paul Lubin, and my great-grandmother, Eva Rougeau. However, the family legend says the Lubin family came from Virginia, where they adopted the surname of the slave master. I even have a name - Levi Lubin, who my notes suggest is my 2nd-great-grandfather. That is a lead I hope to pursue one day; it’s unlikely but not out of the realm of possibility that my ancestors landed at Point Comfort, Virginia in 1619.

I have traced my father’s lineage to west-central Georgia, which is where Frederick “Fed” Miller and Lucy Ann Mathews, my third-great-grandfather and third-great-grandmother, married and began the Miller family, many of whom reside in Macon County and nearby counties to this day. My father was born in Marshallville, south of Macon, to Lula Mae Fuller, but he moved to Detroit to be with his father, Lafayette Miller, Sr., and his wife, the former Edna Clayborn. My father enlisted in the Air Force in 1957 and was eventually stationed at Chenault AFB, Louisiana, near Lake Charles. That is where he and my mother met and married and where they had me.

I haven’t devoted as much time to researching my paternal grandmother's lineage. I only met Lula Mae Fuller twice; the first time was unexpected. In 1972, my family and I drove from Lake Charles to Charleston, South Carolina, where we would catch a military transport to Torrejon AB, Spain, outside of Madrid, for my father’s next duty assignment. After a stop in Birmingham, Alabama, my father turned the wheel over to my mother, who took the wrong route while he napped, and we found ourselves heading for Macon rather than Atlanta. That’s when my mother suggested that since we were already headed that way, we should stop and see my grandmother, and let’s just say the suggestion was not well-received. I was 12 years old at the time, and it was pretty apparent to me that my Dad had no desire to see his mother; watching my parents fight in the front seat of our Oldsmobile Delta 88 as it hurtled in the wrong direction from our eventual destination was a little frightening! Mom won the fight because we soon pulled up to a small house amid some farmland in Marshallville. I remember my dad going up to the porch, and as his mother came out of the home, he said something like, “It’s Pap.” “Pap” was his nickname as the oldest child, but that was the first time I’d heard it. She became very emotional and hugged him, and whatever reservations he might have had about seeing her faded.

It was a whirlwind of a visit, but I remember thinking the house wasn’t big enough for everyone living there and that their lifestyle was much more modest than I had ever experienced. Whenever we were in trouble with my Dad, he would start the punishment by lecturing us about how much we didn’t appreciate the fact we got to travel the world and live the safe and comfortable life the U.S. Air Force afforded us. Looking back on that visit, I imagine growing up in that environment would give him a different perspective on life than we had. I don’t know much about his upbringing; he’s mentioned working on a farm belonging to his uncle, and I don’t know how old he was when he moved to Detroit. His mother and father were not married, so I imagine that introduced some complications in his upbringing. One of these days, I would love to sit down with him and see if he’s willing to share his story with me.

I mentioned meeting my paternal grandmother twice; the second time was at a reunion in Atlanta. I got to sit down with her and ask her questions about the family that my oldest daughter, Amanda, was supposed to ask her because of her own curiosity about our family history. However, she chickened out at the last minute!

I learned that she had borne 11 children from five different fathers, and since she never changed her family name, I assume she never married. I remember thinking she must have had a very difficult life, but she was joyful and pleased to be among the two matriarchs honored at the reunion. That was in 2000; I never saw her again, although I know she visited my parents in Lake Charles on many occasions, and it always warmed my heart that a chance encounter in 1972 led to a reconciliation between my Dad and his mom.

I’ve recited a bunch of facts about my family history, but it’s the stories like the one I just shared that bring that history to life and make it part of America’s story.

I know that Frederick “Fed” Miller and Lucy Ann Mathews, my third-great-grandparents on my dad’s side, were slaves and the offspring of a slavemaster’s rape of their mothers. The family legend says that because they acknowledged them as their children, the slaveowners vowed never to sell them or break up the family. I don’t know who Fed’s father was; Lucy Mathews was the child of Dr. William Asbury Mathews, a prominent physician and state legislator who helped incorporate Fort Valley, Georgia. While he was alive, he never disputed his parentage of Lucy Ann Mathews and her sister, Louisa, but in death, it would seem some descendants are not keen on publicly linking his name to the Mathews girls. A distant cousin I met on Ancestry.com said another cousin was very upset that she had linked the Mathews sisters to their father in their family tree and “hit the roof” when she included a picture of the man in her gallery. She took it down, but no one has asked me to do so, so it is displayed in my family tree and accessible to anyone on the site that wants to see it. I consider it my stand for historical truth!

Speaking of Fort Valley, Georgia, my 2nd great-granduncle, James Isaac “Ike” Miller, was, as his obituary described, “a self-made man.” Born into slavery, he was determined to make his own way in life, and he purchased his first 50 acres of land in 1885. By the time of his death, he owned about 1,300 acres in Crawford and Peach counties, and he had over $82,000 in the bank along with bonds and other assets. He was one of the founders, a benefactor, and a Board of Trustees member of what is now Fort Valley State Univesity, one of the few colleges in the country to be founded by former slaves. The Isaac Miller Science Building was dedicated on campus on November 24, 1963, the day after President Kennedy was assassinated. Miller Hall, which featured science laboratories, lecture halls, and an assembly auditorium, was renovated in 2012 and converted into academic classrooms and office space. You’ll find Isaac Miller in a collage of some of FVSU’s founders if you click here.

The Miller family is influential in Marshallville to this day. Decades ago, my father learned he had another son, and he made us aware of him and welcomed him into the extended family. My older brother, Al Steven Lane, is a community leader in Marshallville. He previously served on the Marshallville City Council and was elected mayor last year.

My oldest daughter, Amanda, lives in Atlanta, and while the fact that Georgia is an ancestral home for the Millers wasn’t a factor in her decision to move there from Los Angeles, it feels like a loop has been connected. She’s met some of our relatives who live in or near Atlanta, and I’ve promised her that she and I will travel together to Marshallville one day to visit.

Amanda also met some family members while living in Los Angeles. Many of my Louisiana family migrated to California after Hurricane Audrey in 1957. I recall my grandfather taking a detour to California after visiting us in Idaho in the late 1960s to see his brother and other family members who lived in or near San Francisco. The collective family clusters of which I’m aware are in Louisiana, Georgia, California, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Texas, and Delaware. There are probably more I’m not remembering or haven’t discovered yet.

My ancestors in both my mother's and father’s family trees were farmers, and as you saw with Isaac Miller, many of them owned the land they worked. Therefore, I consider it ironic that I cannot subsist in nature, as I am allergic to the environment, particularly horses, for the record! To me, the outdoors is dirt, pollen, dander, heat, sweat, bugs, and an unpleasant place to be. I prefer to appreciate nature’s beauty as I gaze through the window from an air-conditioned enclosure!

Michel DeVille and his wife, Marguerite, owned the largest tobacco plantation in Louisiana at one time. Michel and three of his sons served with the local Spanish militia, and the Spanish government granted Michel a large portion of land to call his own. The Spanish tried to convert the local population to adopt the Spanish language and customs. However, they always reverted to French, meaning an interpreter was often required for official government transactions. In 1803, the Spanish, who were mostly absentee landlords, ceded their claim to Louisiana back to the French, who days later began the transfer of the Louisiana Territory, which stretched from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Canadian border and from the Mississippi River west to Colorado, to the United States, nearly doubling the nation’s size overnight.

My third-great-grandfather on my mother’s side, Alexandre “de Franc” DeVille, was a farmer who also found the time to be a womanizer. He was married several times, including to the woman with whom he was having an affair while married to the woman who preceded her in marriage! He eventually had nine children with a former slave that he tried to sell when she was younger. He may have decided to keep her upon discovering she was pregnant, presumably with his child. The sale notice, dated July 3, 1858, lists her as “Augustine, mulatto-girl aged about 14 years.” “Mulatto” is a word used then to describe someone with white European and black African roots and is considered offensive today. However, the family oral history claims she was a full-blooded Choctaw Indian. I can’t confirm this, and my historical research suggests it would be unlikely for a full-blooded Choctaw Indian to be enslaved. However, the only known image of Augustine, one that multiple family members possess either in photo form or as an illustration of the photo, reveals a brown-skinned woman with high cheekbones and her dark straight hair in braids. As you can see, she certainly looks like an Indigenous American!

I mentioned that Clementine DeVille, Augustine’s daughter and my maternal 2nd-great-grandmother, began my family line through her marriage to her 2nd husband, Francois Toussaint. Her 1st husband was Ambrose Antoine, who died of pneumonia at 25. However, there was another distinguishing factor between these two marriages that had a significant impact on the family’s history. Clementine was fair-skinned, and her facial features would have allowed her to pass for white. I am assuming Ambrose was equally “acceptable.” Francois, though I’ve never seen photos of him, must have been more obviously black because the story is that the family disavowed Clementine as a result of her marriage to him. Decades after Clementine’s death, an “old white man,” as my mother and other relatives described him, began visiting my great-grandmother, Eva Toussaint Stevens. I believe it was Clementine’s brother and my 2nd great-granduncle, Basile DeVille. Perhaps this was an attempt at rapprochement, but the episode is a reminder that Louisiana, where French, Spanish, German, African, Irish, and Native American cultures came together to form something unique in America, was also a former state of the Confederacy and complicit in the horrors of slavery, domestic terror, and Jim Crow laws that institutionalized discrimination against black Americans and relegated them to second-class citizenship.

So that is my American story. My children will have their own American story because their mother, Annik Aeschbach, an immigrant and naturalized American, has a lineage rooted in the Regio TriRhena, where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet. In this era when Americans are deeply polarized, the chances of reconciliation seem remote, and we attempt to dehumanize segments of our population by declaring who is or isn’t a “real” American, we need to read and hear the stories of the millions that have come to these shores from all over the world. These stories serve as a reminder of the timeless American creed expressed in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We are not a nation in a traditional sense, built around a common language, history, ethnicity, culture, or territory. We are built around an idea rooted in the universal, divine truth that none of us has ever encountered anyone who was not made in the image of God.

I have said before that my family history allows me to have hope in the potential for America to heal. My story is a microcosm of American history. I am the descendant of slaves and slaveowners. My ancestors have been racists and victims of racism. My past is filled with great achievers and great scoundrels.

I live with multiple contradictions in my story. Yet, here I stand, whole and justified, because it is not America’s triumphs or tragedies nor my family’s history that defines me. My Imago Dei was granted to me by the Creator of the Universe and redeemed from sin and death by His son, Jesus Christ. My American story is a human story, and all of us are a part of it in the sight of God.