36.

I WOULDN’T ADMIT IT IF I WERE YOU

Every family has its dark horse. The summer Paul and I took Danny on a roots trip to western New York State, we found more than a dark horse. We discovered my ancestor had been stealing them.

It started out as a perfectly innocent family excursion. I read The Secret Life of Bees out loud from the backseat as we whizzed by the countryside, headed toward Richford and Moravia, New York. My great-grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Sr., was born in Richford in 1839. We took pictures of the sign erected there to memorialize his birthplace and headed west to Moravia in search of his childhood house.

It was the year 2000, and Danny was twelve at the time. He and Paul listened attentively to the book, occasionally interrupting me to point out a red-tailed hawk on a telephone wire or a giant windmill being installed in a field. I wished Adam were with us, too, but he was at a canoe camp.

We arrived in Moravia on a hot and hazy afternoon. It was a sleepy town, not much traffic, people sitting on chairs outside their stores waiting for business or conversation. I had no idea how we were going to find my ancestral home, but Paul has a gift for such things. He parked the car near a hardware store on the main street and asked a retirement-age storekeeper for directions to the town hall. The man wore green khakis and a short-sleeved seersucker shirt. He looked eager for conversation.

“Right around the corner” was his immediate answer, as if he had been placed there just for this purpose. “Where are you folks from?” He wanted to engage us, but we were on a mission. We answered politely and walked around the corner to find a building the size of a large closet. We walked inside. A man wearing a baseball cap was standing behind a counter reading the day’s paper. Paul asked him if this was the town hall.

“Yup,” he answered, “and I’m the mayor. What can I do for you?”

I had to admit he did not look like my image of a mayor, but what did I know? Maybe all mayors in this part of the world wore baseball caps.

Paul very rarely tells people my family name because he knows it embarrasses me, but in this case he couldn’t resist making me a local celebrity.

“My wife is the great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and we are looking for the house he grew up in. Could you tell us how to get there?”

I was already blushing. Usually people want to shake my hand or, if they are old enough, they occasionally tell me how they once received a dime from my great-grandfather as he passed them on the beach. I was not prepared for the mayor’s response.

“I wouldn’t admit it if I were you,” he said, turning serious. He leaned closer over the counter. “His father stole horses. Big Bill isn’t liked much around these parts. I’ve heard it told he used to steal them by night, corral them into a cave below the road by his house, and paint them a different color.”

This was not the image I’d grown up with. But there was more. “The next day he’d take them off to market, never to be seen again. And he sold snake oil, too. Couldn’t trust that man . . . there’s been a book written about him. You might want to ask the neighbors. It was their family who exposed his ways.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or run out of the building before he ran me out of town. He talked about my ancestor as if he were still committing crimes. Somehow, Paul got the directions from him and we drove a few miles north in a trail of dust. There have been many books written about my family, but I had never heard I was related to a horse thief. This was getting colorful.

We were still giggling when we found Rockefeller Road and pulled up to a plain white plank house. It sat on a ridgeline facing a hay field across the road with views of Owasco Lake in the valley below. A stocky oak tree stood in the front yard with a sign in front of it that read: BOYHOOD HOME OF JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER.

We took pictures and walked around. The house was vacant. I was just beginning to imagine my great-grandfather playing on the lawn when a man pulled up in a truck. I froze. Had he already heard the news? Would we be run out of town?

Luckily, he was friendly. “May I help you?” he asked. Paul repeated the story about my family connection. “We’re trying to find the cave where Big Bill Rockefeller hid horses. We’ve also heard that a family near here wrote a book about their conflict with him.” Paul was determined. I hid in the background, embarrassed.

“Oh yes,” the man said, with an amused expression. “The Rosecranses. They live just up the road on the left. I’m sure they have a copy of the book. Everyone knows the story around here. Word has it he and his neighbors feuded for years.” This man said it with a smile, as if he enjoyed informing us of a local secret. Much relieved, I thanked him and we drove up the road to the designated house.

Paul parked the car under the shade of a sweeping elm and walked up to the front door with Danny and knocked. I was too shy to leave the car. I am nervous about meeting strangers anyway, and I worried how we would be received. The elderly couple opened their door. “Come in,” said the woman of the house. Emboldened, I left the car and joined Paul and Danny. This time I talked. “Hello and thank you.” I shook her hand. “We heard you are related to the man who was a neighbor of Big Bill Rockefeller’s. I’m related to him and I’d like to learn how he wronged you and the others in this community. I wonder if you might have a copy of the book we have been told about.” I held my breath.

“Yup,” said the wife indifferently. “We’ve got the book right here. You’re welcome to read it, but you can’t take it with you.” She led us in as if she’d been expecting us, reached for the book from a dusty shelf, and handed it to me. “It’s the family copy.”

Paul, Danny, and I sat together on the screened-in porch. I could not possibly take in all the details while sitting in the house of my great-great-grandfather’s rival, but I scribbled the title and author as well as the publishing house in my notebook and thumbed through the pages. The book referred to Big Bill under the pseudonym Rockwell, but there were actual photographs of him. I recognized them from some I’d seen in our family archives. Danny and Paul looked over my shoulder. After a half hour we thanked them profusely and told them we hoped my family would give them no more trouble. They smiled and told us where to find the cave in which Big Bill had hidden horses.

Some stories die hard. The darker the horse, the longer they last.