Good Bye, Columbus

There is an effort to remove Columbus from our collective memory.  I am not sure how I feel about it.  I never thought that Columbus was a role model.  I know there are a lot of feelings about the damage brought about by the explorers.  The age of discovery caused a terrible toll on indigenous populations.  Columbus by all accounts was not a great guy.  Most of those daredevils who risked their lives doing dangerous things probably weren't all that nice.  Think of today's daredevils, motorcycle gangs, drug dealers, and the like. Columbus is not someone to hold up to the light and expect to find a saint.

But, there are people who were saints and nobody knows them and maybe nobody should.  They lived lives full of quiet responsibility and duty and kindness.  The risky things they did like immigrating across the world is only known and revered by their families.  I think of my great grandma Mathilda who I never met (she died in the 1920s). She is legendary for being the driving force behind moving her family (husband, daughter from her first marriage, one year old son and her sister and her family) across the world from Poland to the Midwest in the late 1800s.  She went to church and had among her descendants a priest and a religious sister or two and many faithful Catholics who do the lay work in their churches.

So, there is a town (village) near where Mathilda and her husband farmed, raised their family and went to church named Columbus.  Maybe we should name the village Mathilda.  But, I am sure families of other people who lived the same kind of good lives would have other suggestions. The town has been Columbus for over 100 years.  Changing the name would confuse everything. Even though Mathilda would be a great name and I dare anyone to find a spot on her character, I suggest we just leave the name Columbus.  I acknowledge that it is good that we are thinking of such things, but in the long run, I am not sure what I think would be accomplished by changing the name.