I don’t know about you, but the thought of being able to travel back in time absolutely thrills me. I keep telling Emily that if they–whoever they may be–come out with a time machine, I want one for my birthday. Will they come out with one? Well, the Wikipedia tells me it’s possible, and as a previous coworker and friend of mine says, “if it’s on the Internet, it must be true.” Will to God that it is; but in the meantime, I’ve developed my own, private method of time travel. Some of you may be familiar with it while some may be very unfamiliar, but nonetheless I’m sure you all will agree that reading a book serves well the purpose of time-travel until Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple release the iTravel.

My latest time machine I picked up from the seminary bookstore on the 90% off table for a whopping $1.98. It’s titled Land, Piety, Peoplehood: The Establishment of Mennonite Communities in America 1683-1790 (Amazon). Some may be wondering why such a titled book would even pique my interest. Well, if this is the case, you are most likely duly unfamiliar with the origin of the Maust family and might be surprised to know that my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is mentioned herein. Observe:

Amish immigration began in earnest on October 8, 1737, with the arrival of the Charming Nancy, a ship that had at least nineteen Amish families on board. The Charming Nancy was evidently an unhealthful ship, for during the voyage Hans Jacob Kauffman, keeping a diary in the margins of an almanac, recorded the deaths of twenty-two children and two adults among the Amish passengers alone. Jacob Beiler, Jacob Mast, Christian Miller, Christian Hershberger, Christian Berkey, Hans Zimmerman, Henry Stehly, and Ulrich Spicher with their families were among the Charming Nancy passengers who survived, found new homes, and became neighbors along Irish Creek (Land, Piety, Peoplehood, 71).

Jacob Mast. That’s my hero right there. (You got to be careful which time machine you get into because you never know who you’ll meet!) He traveled north from his home along the border of France and Germany to the Netherlands where he set sail for Philadelphia surviving a seemingly “unhealthful ship.” Upon noticing Jacob Mast among the passengers, I re-read the preceding sentences again. Somehow this little book matters more to me now that I found my five times great grandpa in it. So I re-read, and I was struck by the precarious trunk of the Mast (“Maust” upon immigration into the United States) genealogical tree on which I find myself one of the branches. Was Jacob thinking of me when he crossed the ocean blue for the City of Brotherly Love? Doubtful. It sounds like he was just trying to survive the maritime disease of the day. It’s a cause for pause to realize that one’s forefather could have easily fallen ill and never immigrated and I would never be. The Mausts as we know them today almost weren’t. Without Jacob Mast, there’s no Joseph or Jonas or his son and so on. Thus, Jacob Mast is my hero. Now that I think about I think I have inherited some of Jacob’s superior immunity powers.