Maternal Inheritance: Stories, Courage and Faith from the Women Before Us
Image Credit: Roots of Peace
This is the first in a series of blog posts honoring Women’s Legacy Month.
Heidi Kuhn is the founder and CEO of Roots of Peace, the only woman-led non-governmental organization (NGO) working with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Heidi has walked the minefields of the world for the past 25 years, boldly taking footsteps for peace in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Angola, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and more. Today, Roots of Peace is in its 25th year and Heidi is on her way to be recognized as Forbes 50 over 50 in Abu Dhabi. Heidi is also my first cousin once removed.
One of the things I love and admire about you is how you’ve unearthed and passed down so much of our family history. Can you tell me about some of the women in our family?
I’m fascinated by the pioneer women. The men get the headlines. What are great men without great women who bear the children and follow them across the seas?
We are descended from John Augustus McNear and Hattie Salinas McNear. John had traveled from Wiscasset, Maine, where his seafaring ancestors had lived for 150 years, and arrived in Marin County. He first married Clara, but she and their two children tragically died when the Steamship Golden Gate exploded in a freak accident. John A. purchased Cypress Hill Cemetery in Petaluma to bury his wife and children. He remarried in the late 1860s, a brave Californian named Hattie Salinas, who helped him heal from his loss and move forward with determination and compassion.
Hattie ran the ranch homestead on the 2,500 acres the McNears owned in San Rafael. She was an artist who painted beautiful paintings and carved her own bed out of wood, with grapes and figs and a painting of the Marin coastline over the headboard. She was curious and independent, she forged her own path. Having grown up on a ranch in her family’s town of Salinas she was used to forming her own customs. When she and John A. married, there were quite a few boats going back and forth between San Francisco and China. Hattie sailed to China because she wanted to see what it was like and admire their art.
Her exploratory spirit became an important part of our family history when Hattie inspired her husband to provide work and refuge to the Chinese as early as 1855. The Chinese were being expelled from San Francisco even before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Hattie spoke with her husband about employing them at the family businesses, which included a dairy ranch, a brickyard and a quarry. John A. agreed to rent them shoreline of San Pablo Bay for a dollar a year, where the Chinese supplemented their income by fishing for shrimp. This land is now China Camp State Park. People sometimes came to the land to threaten or intimidate the Chinese. Hattie was reported to have ridden down with her shotgun and say, “Get off my property. These are my friends.”
It was my grandmother Lucretia who told me these stories. She grew up in a house on the same ranch land farmed by Hattie and John A McNear. She told me that my middle name was Lucretia because it was a secret code passed through generations, back from the McNears of Scotland through Wiscasset. It was a code of respect for nature, curiosity for learning, and compassion for people. One of the Lucretias we are related to married Peter Tufts and moved to Massachusetts. They were a part of the abolitionist movement and in 1892 Tufts’ brother opened his university to women. We have that name and we carry that code, too.
My grandmother Lucretia was a very wise and peaceful woman. She valued education, she loved nature, and she respected the core humanity that each of us have. She was very spiritual rather than religious. She felt connected to the creator, and recognized all faiths, whatever our path to divine may be.
She was a strong partner to my grandfather. Our family was a leader in transportation before there was a Golden Gate Bridge. The original visionaries of the Bridge gathered at the McNear family ranch and built a model of the bridge on the dining room table. As these men were discussing the plan, she listened and told her three children, “Never believe your dreams are too big.” Later, she served dinner to the designers, including Joseph Strauss, Charles Ellis, and Leon Solomon Moisseiff. She understood that bringing people together for a good meal could help things get done.
On the other side of my family, my grandmother Helen Mello was a huge force in my life. She was born along the shores of Mendocino, beneath the redwoods. Like Granny Lucretia, Helen had a huge love and respect for nature. She married Al Rowen, who became the first director of education at San Quentin. My mother literally grew up on the campus of San Quentin prison. Throughout her life she instilled in me the importance of redemption through education— no matter what your past has been there can always be a meaningful future.
Image Credit: Roots of Peace
How has learning their stories shaped how you’ve lived your life?
My grannies Lucretia and Helen were pillars of courage and inspiration in my life. I greatly admired Hattie Salinas McNear, who stood by one of the greatest pioneers of Marin & Sonoma county. These women inspired me to be of service in the world and believe in my own ability to make change. My grandmother gave me her home so I could have the security to do something profound in the world. I even have the same bed that Hattie carved and the dining room table on which the Golden Gate model was built. It was a sacred promise, a maternal inheritance.
The concept of Roots of Peace was a prophetic vision out of the front door of my home, with the support of my husband and my children. It took a lot of great sacrifice on behalf of my family to share their mother with the world. Our neighbors wondered what was wrong with me, why did I want to leave my home on a hilltop in Marin to remove landmines in Afghanistan?
The work I do today is all about bringing redemption to the Taliban and others who have made poor choices. I believe people can be educated, mindsets can be changed. I learned that belief from the women in our family. And it hasn’t just been my ancestors who’ve helped me in my work. When I founded Roots of Peace, my cousin Nancy McNear Menary would come and babysit my four young children. I thought I could take out a landmine in the world. She said, “This is your dream, you go do it.” Here I am, 100,000 landmines later.
This weekend I’m going to Azerbaijan to detonate a landmine at their invitation. With all that’s happening in the Ukraine I was asked by DC to consider whether the plan still made sense. But there are 60 million landmines in 60 countries. If I pulled the covers up over my head and stayed in Marin, I wouldn’t be true to my roots, to Hattie who defended the Chinese from harassment or Helen who helped educate the inmates at San Quentin. The courage of women to take intrepid footsteps for peace has never been more important. When I think of our legacy, I can’t think of any better place to travel to right now.
Image Credit: Roots of Peace
The work you do leverages partnerships with women with whom you share a language and a homeland, and women who dress, speak, and live differently. How do you build those partnerships and what have they taught you?
When I was younger, I had cancer. I prayed, Dear God, Grant me the gift of life and I will do something special with it. When I saw Princess Diana walking across a field of landmines, I thought, “Landmines are a cancer to the earth, the solution is removal.” I understood in my soul that landmines were a violation of the skin of Mother Earth that has been permeated, violated with seeds of hatred. I felt so privileged to have the gift of life and whatever footsteps for peace I could take. I was inspired by a woman far away from me but she helped me see the link between my life and a society even further away.
The universal bond with women around the world is the love we have for our children. Women are the bearers of life. The planting of a landmine in the soil and soul of land is a violation. Women around the world who love their children can understand in whatever language, the importance of eradicating landmines from the face of the world. Mines are indiscriminate weapons of destruction, they hold the land hostage.
Women have the wisdom and love to speak with one another in voices of common understanding. They have the desire for a more peaceful world for their children. People contribute what they can— their treasure, their time, the tending of crops— in hopes that we can remove these indiscriminate threats that break down bodies and replace them with an agricultural economy that brings bounty to the community.
How do you think women are shaping the future of our world?
Right now more than any time, women are stepping up to shape our future. On March 6-10 I’m going to Abu Dhabi to receive the 50 over 50 award. Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi are fellow recipients, along with women who have made important contributions to ameliorate sex trafficking, malaria, etc. As guns of war are blazing, these women are working towards peace. We will be gathered in Abu Dhabi, a place where women have traditionally been oppressed.
Forbes is bringing the elders, my group, together with award recipients in their 30s in mentorship. We haven’t done this type of mentorship with such a collective organization. I couldn’t be more proud to arrive there having come from a minefield having taken action for peace. I am expecting a miracle on International Women’s Day, our gathering has the potential to reverberate around the world.
Women don’t want their children going to war. Women don’t want to become refugees. Women are by nature peacemakers. This is the energy that we need in our world today. I’m asking myself, and you, how can we beat the drum and get our families to reunite for peace? We need to wage peace, we need to draw our families together even though we live so far apart.
I guess that’s my question to you and your readers. What are we going to do as women to take footsteps for peace?