A visit with cousin John Adams

Over the past year, one of my sisters -a person with advanced skills in genealogy-discovered that John Adams is our fourth cousin, four times removed. That sounds like a distant relation, but our family and the Adams’ clan trace back to John and Priscilla Alden of Mayflower fame.

Ironically, we grew up in Quincy, not knowing that we had famous ancestors buried  in the vicinity. Last week, we Griffin kids walked the streets of our old neighborhood and also visited the tombs of John Adams, Abigail Adams, John Quincy Adams and Louise Catherine Adams. They are buried in tombs below the Unitarian Church in downtown Quincy. We had a delightful tour guide who spoke of these courageous figures in American history.

As we walked down the stone stairs to the crypt, I turned to see an iron gate in front of the crypt. It was ajar. The guide opened it up and we actually went IN the crypt and could touch the granite tombs. I felt a rush of gratitude and a real sense of history come alive through the spirit of this great visionary and one of the founding fathers of our country.