For 120 years, the DeVeau- Neal Family has thrived through plowing, praying, paying, and poisoning. It might be fate that the last of this series is written from the Lowcountry of South Carolina during a family reunion.

The morning was clear, the breeze was gentle but familiar, and the currents rolled in and out humming and moaning a bittersweet song. A glance up the coastline was purposely done in an imaginative manner that erased the towering condos and hotels. Then, there was a turn to the ocean and after a long silence, it was spoken, "Wonder what Jim and Tina and their children must have thought as they were loaded off a ship somewhere on this coast in the early 1800s?"

We stared out across the waves and searched far out on the ocean's horizon for some thing, some past or some explanation.

The ocean is too wide and too deep to overcome. So, one takes solace in knowing that our typical family from the Lower Richland area who were brought across that ocean to work the land, survived slavery, acquired farms, and educated themselves and their children. There is pride in knowing this, but still there is sadness in knowing that Carrie Sims (1878- 1907) was poisoned, leaving four young orphans, including Grandma Martha (1901- 1979).

The DeVeau- Neal Fami ly Reunion on Thanksgiving 2008. Even sadder is the insult now added to that past injury. The infusion of carcinogens into our precious land are greater poisons! Polluted air from manufacturing and generating plants on the Wateree River are desecrating our historical artifacts and our sacred ancestral gravesites. One wonders if we will be killed off by pollutants or be run off the land because of devaluation.

There is still a "charge to keep." There is a need to be fully informed. There is a need to reach back to inform others that we must insist on industrial manufacturers maintaining the highest levels of safeguards when disposing of wastes.

Through the Internet and print media, we are now able to be better informed and to better communicate with each other. We also are better able to be notified in a timely manner when public and community meetings are called. (The generating plant's management inviting the affected community to a meeting on New Year's Eve is an insult.)

We must insist that testing be performed by third party laboratories, be done more frequently than what is now scheduled, and that test results be a matter of public record. We must protest the damage that has already been done. We should seek restitution for those whose related illnesses have not yet manifested and for restoration/ preservation of our ancestral gravesites.

The response of those attending the reunion was encouraging. They listened carefully and took copies of the summary information. We promised our family newsletter would include more than photos and birth notices.

The family was charged to be actively concerned and to protect the land where Jim and Tina DeVeaux were settled on a plantation and where some of our ancestors are buried. We were also reminded that the poisons in the soil can migrate, just as Ephraim (1844- 1905) migrated to Hopkins and settled the land by the side of that creek.