A decade later - Fundação Luso-Americana

‘ one thing is to learn about
your family history, another
thing is to visit the places
themselves. i was really
touched by the way my
family was treated in the
Azores. We felt honored,
as if we hadn’t paid enough
attention to our past. We
have to give our younger
family members a good
shake so that they go and
see it for themselves.
’
Fred dabney
his blue eyes sparkling with enthusiasm,
an emotion that Kate, who is standing by
him, shares.
Across the Atlantic at the same hour,
researchers Maria Filomena Mónica and
Paulo Silveira e Sousa are probably poring
over the reams of pages in the original
Annals. They are working on a new abridged
edition of the letters that family, friends,
and acquaintances exchanged with the
Dabneys over the 86-year period the family
was in the Azores. The outcome will be
an English edition that is reader-friendly.
The documents going into the anthology
will also be different from those in the
Portuguese version because, in this case,
“the target readership” will be different.
Apparently, the preface, written by Maria
Filomena Mónica, is done and is being
translated. The correspondence that will go
into the book has also been selected. “I’ve
already reviewed the translation of my preface
for the English-language edition, and
the translator is finishing up the notes. Paulo
has already cut what he had to. Naturally,
we’ve selected different passages to put more
emphasis on the letters that deal with the
Civil War ... and the notes are being inserted,”
the researcher told us.
So a version that Fred Dabney will be
able to read, and one that may pique his
daughters’ interest in the family’s past is
now taking shape. The book will most
likely be called The Dabney’s – a Bostonian
Family in Portugal. The new edition’s intended
readership, according to FLAD admin-
cuLTure
The Azores room of the new Bedford Whaling museum houses items belonging to the Faial dabneys
such the cap and braid of the second us consul in Faial, charles William dabney (1794-1871),
Fred’s distant uncle.
istrator Mario Mesquita, will be Portuguese
descendants and anybody else interested
in the topic. The new volume, containing
close to 400 pages, is slated to be launched
in 2012.
The new book has created some excitement
among the family, who seem to be
taking a greater interest in their ancestors’
sojourn in Faial. Fred and Kate made their
first visit to the Azores in 2007, and will
probably be returning next year on a trip
sponsored by the New Bedford Whaling
Museum. As Fred remarked, “One thing is
to learn about your family history, another
thing is to visit the places themselves. I was
really touched by the way my family was
treated in the Azores. We felt honored, as
if we hadn’t paid enough attention to our
past. We have to give our younger family
members a good shake so that they go and
see it for themselves.” That’s why he hopes
to organize a trip with his children and
cousins next summer.
Fred has a hot house a few miles from
New Bedford where he devotes his time to
horticulture. That’s why his family’s experience
in the islands holds additional fascination.
“The Azores is a great place to visit
because there are plants from virtually every
continent brought in by the sea captains
who stopped there over the years,” he tells
us. This modern-day Dabney recently discovered
his island-dwelling cousins’ penchant
for botany and the new plant life they
brought to Faial. At one of the family estates
in Horta, the Bagatelle, he was captivated by
the gardens, “I was amazed that many of
the original plants are still there, despite the
years of neglect,” he said. It probably
wouldn’t have been hard for him to envision
a scenario like the one described by American
writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who
spent a year in Faial in the mid-1850s: “It
would be hard to exaggerate the singular
beauty of the Dabneys’ gardens; each step
is a new foray into the tropics – a palm, a
magnolia, a camphor, and a dragon tree...”
As a horticulturist, Fred longs to link the
past with the present in his own special way.
“I would love to re-establish a link with
those original seeds and plant them here,”
he muses, particularly the recently-christened
Veronica Dabney, an endemic species
currently housed in the rare seed bank of
the Faial Botanical Gardens.
Without suspecting it, Fred was the center
of attention at the dinner with Portuguese
and Americans in the Azores Room of the
New Bedford Whaling Museum, a place that,
in the words of Portuguese Consul Graça
Fonseca, “celebrates the Portuguese-speaking
world.” Fred heard the speakers assert that
the Dabneys had been “a driving force in
the Azores of that era,” and that the Annals
were “a work of myriad voices.” The dinner
was preceded by a visit through the museum
with its director, James Russell, acting
as guide. No doubt Fred went home full of
pride in his family and anxious to return to
the Azores, because at one point he commented,
“There’s just so much history we
still don’t know about.”
Parallel no. 6 | FALL | WINTER 2011 71
DR