The subtitle A Maryland Family's Turbulent History 1695-2002, explains this fictionalised story well. GOOD ENDEAVOUR is the name of a farmstead in the woods near Joppa Towne not far from Baltimore, and author Ned Tillman uses his family’s history in this location to paint a broad canvas.
From the early settlers carving a living out of the forest and fields, to the eventual coppermine toxins and soil degradation, we see knowledge of and concern for the land. A land that kept people fed, supplied, and agile. One generation grew tobacco as a cash crop, and later generations tomatoes, turkeys, and Christmas trees. The moves which seem sensible at the time, like a general forest clearance, prove destructive as the soil is thinned and fruits and nuts lost, the wild birds are shot and the crops fail. Of course, the farm is the backdrop for massive movements of humanity, immigration, wars, and protests.
I don’t know how much of the character list is true and how much romanticised. Wouldn’t every family love to have a returned sea captain, like Peter who leaves his father Caleb and mother Molly to go to sea, while his brother Eli stays to farm and marries an Algonquin-speaking Native woman? Peter proves to be a way to enlighten the reader about events and living conditions beyond the immediate area.
The Good Endeavour homestead houses some of the more tolerant and forward-looking American people in this novel. At the start, we see that Molly is a Quaker, so her concepts of equality and improvement for all are absorbed into the fabric of the family, and the experiences of later generations prove that helping others is better than being at odds. Sadly this isn’t everyone’s view. While presenting hard truths, the tale tries to give all sides of the story.
I enjoyed reading GOOD ENDEAVOUR and learned a great deal. History books give names and dates; this remarkable social history gives the people, hunger, diseases, and unexpected happiness of finding the right woman to bring home to the farm. The sad start – in which we see time has bypassed a small farm outside a large town – leads to a voyage of discovery, a finding of time capsules, treasure chests, and heroes. Ned Tillman has preserved his family’s story, and that of many other families too, with marvellous attention to detail.
In this historical novel full of colorful characters, Ned Tillman conjures up five generations of his family in an engaging look at how they might have dealt with the critical social, economic, and political issues of their time.
The book, centered on the 300-year-old Good Endeavor homestead (where the author grew up) incorporates a slew of family stories, unusual family traits, and artifacts passed down through time.
The protagonist discovers artifacts which inflames a desire to know more about this past. The book takes the reader through the lives, the loves, and the losses of five generations and brings the reader right up to the present day. Along the way the family members encounter vigilante justice, piracy, bounty hunters, abolitionists, suffragettes, land conservationists, barnstorming, union strikes, integration, and war and climate protests.
The novel humanizes our collective ancestors and brings their stories, our touchstones to the past, to life. These examples of their lives throughout the great American experiment might help us all find our better selves in the struggles we face in the twenty-first century.
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