The News Paper Article Reads: Thrilling Race to Save Cleave’s Life

 Was Found With His Legs Almost Amputated on the Track of the Scranton Railway Company at Dickson City—Accident Is Enshrouded in Mystery.

Never was there a more thrilling race for life run in this vicinity than last night after Albert Cleave, one of the best known residents of Dickson City, was found on the tracks of the Scranton Railway company at Dickson City, with both legs dangling from his body by shreds. The sufferer was placed in an undertaking wagon secured from his son’s establishment and the son, Undertaker Arthur Cleave, of Dickson City, and Dr. Bilheimer, of the same borough, made the wild dash into Scranton with him. The best sped that was in them was given by the horses and when they dropped exhausted at Larch street after their hard run a taxicab was secured to cover the last stretch of the journey to the Scranton Private hospital. And the thrilling race over poor roads in the darkness of last night may result in the saving of the life of Mr. Cleave, it being given out at the hospital this morning that there are chances for his recovery. Both legs were amputated at the hospital soon after his admittance there. There is some mystery to the accident. Mr. Cleave had been in charge of a carriage from his son’s livery, which was used by a bridal party in South Scranton yesterday afternoon and left the scene of the wedding festivities last evening. At about 11 o’clock boys passing Donnelly’s barber shop in Dickson City discovered the body lying on the tracks. Close by was the rig. Around Mr. Cleave’s head was a bandage. Dr. Bilheimer and Undertaker Cleave were among the first to respond to the alarm spread by the boys. The son of the victim had his fastest team hitched to the most convenient wagon, which happened to be one used by him in his undertaking business. The injured man was lifted into the wagon. Then the race for life was started. At Larch street the horses couldn’t stand the strain any longer and they fell to the street exhausted. A taxicab was hurriedly summoned and the journey was completed in that. Though it is plainly evident that Mr. Cleave was run down by a street car, no crew has reported having had any accident during the night. There was a bump on top of Mr. Cleave’s head and this leads to the belief that he was jostled off the seat of the carriage and fell to the street car tracks, his head striking against a rail and causing him to become stunned. Then a street car happened along and ran over him while he was helpless to save himself.

This man, my great, great grandfather on my mother’s side, Albert Cleave, was 20 years old when he emigrated from St. Kew Cornwall to Lackawanna Pennsylvania in America. Being a young man, he would have heard word from all the “Cousin Jacks” that had gone to America before him and whose lives were better there, in what was then a booming industrial town. Cousin Jacks were Cornish men who emigrated away from Cornwall’s harsh and unforgiving existence during the great migration to other colonies in the world, where opportunities to thrive actually existed. The desperation for a different and better life had reached its peak upon his release from Her Majesty’s Prison Bodmin (aka Bodmin Jail). He was kept for four months hard labor for the charge of “larceny and receiving”. I don’t yet have the full story behind this charge. He was one of six other young men all on trial and charged for the very same thing that day. 

Hard labor was meant to break a man’s spirit to the point that he or she was no longer unruly and was forever dissuaded from committing an offence again. Repetitive, painful and physically demanding tasks with no purpose and in complete silence. Things like picking oakum (unraveling tarred rope), breaking stones, walking wooden step treadmills, turning cranks or hauling cannon balls from one pile to another. And Bodmin Jail, was a dungeon like place of horrors. An epicenter of human cruelty.

Going to a place like Bodmin Jail is a different experience for a person like me. It is a far more immersive experience than has already been made out of the jail, which was closed in 1927 and has now, like the Nazi concentration camps, become an attraction for tourism. Going into a place like this, is like walking a beacon into a dark realm of desperation. It means thousands of stuck and confused and tormented thought forms, thrashing and ripping at my being for help. It took me four days to make my mind up to go there. To a place I would never imagine myself choosing to willfully go. Human cruelty has weathered and scarred by mother’s side of the family. A suffering legacy that continued and contaminated my own life. I understand the healing necessary for this kind of pain. And one of those critical healing elements is compassion. The necessary predecessor for compassion, is for the pain to be seen, felt, understood and acknowledged. I decided to go to Bodmin Jail in order to see my great, great grandfather’s pain. And I didn’t just end up with his. I ended up doing several days of mass exodus for thousands of thoughts forms both of individuals who were executed there and who died there due to the horrible conditions. And of people’s consciousness (imprints) that due to being traumatized, were stuck there despite being physically let out. I have no words for this place. Nor for the fact that so many people relate to suffering, horror and human cruelty as a form of amusement. Genealogical tourism is history made personal. It is unlike any other form of travel. It turns travel into a shamanic journey. You are not hearing about experiences that happened to someone way back when. Those memories are inside of you. They are inherited. And as such, I have had several panic attacks in Cornwall.

I have come to Cornwall to track down a few branches of my family tree. To understand this part of my heritage on my mother’s side and to deepen my own ancestral healing. And it has been completely surreal. Surreal to run my fingers over their gravestones. To stand in the exact spot on a floor of The Church of Saint James the Great, where each one of my ancestors (going back to at least the 1500s) was christened and married. To touch the stone walls of the houses that they lived in, which still stand today.  

According to local lore, my family on the Cleave line of my family tree originally came from Ireland, but long, long ago. Cleave means cliff in their ancient tongue. And so, the surname literally means people of the cliffs. Upon arrival in Cornwall, they settled in a tiny, rural village called St. Kew. And they stayed there. Generation after generation after generation, until Albert left to the Americas. Many of the descendants of the Cleaves that didn’t leave, are still there. The Cleaves were millers that owned multiple mills and farms. They grew and milled “corns” (grains), cider orchards, dairy and meats. Albert hated his youth enough that when he left Cornwall for America, he never looked back and he did not speak of it again. Nor did his son. Or his grandson.

I have spent the week leading up to speaking at the Mind, Body, Spirit event in London visiting these epicenters that were the home place of whole collections of my ancestors in Cornwall. St. Kew, Launcells, Week St. Mary, Bude and Padstow. Albert wasn’t the only one to board a boat bound for the America’s. As fate would have it, in the very late 1800s, my Great, Great, Great Grandfather, Thomas Francis Pearce put his very large family on a boat to Lackawanna Pennsylvania too. I’ve spent the week getting to know him and his family heritage too. This is a very easy thing to do in a place like Cornwall, where the past is not in the past at all. I have also been exploring Cornwall so as to arrive at an energy diagnosis.  

The dominant negative vibration of Cornwall, England is: Pertinacity. This vibration is in the family of the negative side of perseverance. It is essentially the vibration created when a person sticks with a belief, an opinion or a course of action, even when faced with extreme hardship, opposition or proof to the opposite. This vibration also causes a stagnancy. It is a very oppositional force to change. Instead, it favors nothing ever changing and being stuck on a cycle of repeat. The people of Cornwall are thrashed and scarred emotionally. Many are deprived. But they will not acknowledge the impact of what they have experienced. To not acknowledge the impact, coupled with this pertinacity, is to keep on going despite everything. It causes a person to cope with the hardship, opposition or impact, rather than to stop and re-evaluate and make a change or do something different so as to have a chance at things actually improving. Pertinacity guarantees suffering and eventually getting to the point where you are so burnout, you can’t fight to preservere anymore and just want to give up.

The dominant positive vibration is: Natural Enchantment. This dominant positive vibration of Cornwall does not owe itself to its human inhabitants. Instead, it owes itself to the special energy and physicality of the geography and landscape of Cornwall. Cornwall is a deeply mystical land. Natural enchantment touches it both physically and non-physically. It is touched by something special. Cornwall bewitches. It puts you under a kind of spell. This mysticality is what bore the Celtic people. On a physical level, it is so beautiful that it provokes awe. And the esoteric field of Cornwall is separated from the physical plane by a very, very thin veil. This makes interaction with things beyond the physical (be it thought forms or aether creatures or times past) a part of everyday life. The land itself is the most important thing in Cornwall. This is something that the Cornish people, even of today seem to know in their hearts.             

To give people a picture of the feeling of Cornwall, you should imagine a pirate movie, something like Pirates of the Caribbean (To get a feel for the rough, stand offish, cold, sea swept vibe of ocean faring piracy). And imagine the movie Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit (To get a feel for hobbit life at the Shire). And then, smash the two together into one culture. Imagine the greenest English fields you can think of, leading straight to black, craggy cliffs and ocean rocks. And now photo shop that image into a screensaver of a Caribbean beach with tan sand and deep, clear turquoise water (make sure to edit out the palm trees). You’ve got to make it look like people are gonna think it’s warm, but realize its way colder than they thought it was gonna be. Now, add Pastys (a semi-circular, short crust pastry case with a crimped edge, filled with beef, potato, rutabaga or turnip, and onion). Along with a “cream tea” (scones with jam and clotted cream… make sure the jam goes on the scone first, before the clotted cream). And then, add a maze of tiny, one lane roads (which are none the less for two-way traffic) with blind curves through the country side, every one of them flanked by five- to eight-foot-tall hedges, squeezing you in on both sides with no margin for error. Fill the air with the earthy scent of cow dung, being used as fertilizer, petrichor and ocean. Make sure the weather is “mizzle” (a mix between a fine drizzle and thick mist or fog). And then, blow some tin dust over the whole scene. And just like that, you have distilled the essence of Cornwall.

One of my favorite things about Cornish culture, which you will notice straight away, is the deeply affectionate relationship they have with their dogs. Of course, like anywhere, you will find some people who are the exception. But Cornwall is such a dog friendly place. Many restaurants, shops and cafes welcome them. In fact, the places that don’t, are emotionally distrusted and looked down on by many. The streets are full of people perusing with their canine companions, as if they have come specifically to give an enriching experience to their dog by visiting the place. There is a deep  historical and cultural connection between the Cornish and their dogs. Dogs are not related to like pets, but rather like family members. In any town you visit, you will pass so many people with their dogs, talking to them in whole sentences. And in loving, high pitch tones, as if they were talking to a toddler. This is something I immediately recognized in my grandfather (part of the Cleave family). His relationship with the family dogs were such that if you didn’t share the food from your plate with the dog who was patiently begging at your side, you were scolded for being selfish.        

Cornwall sounds idyllic. And in many ways, it really is. And yet, life in Cornwall never was easy and is not easy still for a very large percentage of the population here. Deprivation, which is poverty’s bedfellow, is not a thing of the past. It is still a real issue in Cornwall. And the tourism industry both helps and hurts the people of Cornwall in this regard. Cornwall is like England’s vacation area. It is both very affordable and very accessible to the British on holiday. It boasts exquisite coastline, stunning beaches and ideal surfing spots. As well as lush countryside. It is full of holiday parks, hotels and bed and breakfasts. It is full of attractions and activities, like museums, culinary hot spots and ancient Celtic sites. And it caters to people on every budget. This tourism brings an influx of money to Cornwall. At the same time, it has created a huge housing and pricing crisis for the residents. More and more people are coming to Cornwall from other places to buy vacation homes as well as investment homes to rent out to people on holiday. This has not only made houses scarcer, it has also driven up prices of homes and prices of rent in general. Rising rents have outstripped the housing support offered by the Local Housing Allowance (which is in charge of government benefits which help people afford rent). The divide between the rich and the poor is growing ever more extreme.

As I write this, I am sitting in a cottage garden, watching three boys who were playing outside in a state of absolute boredome, stop to walk around and admire the rental car we parked in the driveway. They ran out of every car they had at the tiny Newquay airport and so they gave us an electric sports car. It is the fanciest car these boys have seen in their life. They already ran over to ask us to see inside it the day we arrived. One of them said “I’m gonna grow up to own a car like that some day!” It was a precious moment. But now, knowing Cornwall like I do, watching these boys makes me think of my own grandfather (Howard Cleave). Who absolutely did grow up to own his dream car. It was a Classic Lincoln Continental.