But it's quite a while later and what are my feeling now about all this? Well, I think Tom MacWood wrote a very good article on Crump and I've told him so many times and I've told this site the same thing many times. But am I glad he did it? Not at all, even if it was a good and considerate article.
Back then and even on reflection, even if I certainly understand the need to find the truth on most things and how much this site likes that and respects it this will always be one I'd make an exception on that way.
I have no idea why Crump shot himself, and Tom MacWood doesn't either. Noone does and they never will. But obviously his mother didn't want what happen to her son to be known and it had to be her who constructed that story that night in Jan 1918 of how he died even if the police could clearly see it wasn't the truth (matter of fact I'm almost completely sure he did not kill himself in Merchantville as the DC says, I'm almost certain he shot himself right there in his little cabin at his beloved Pine Valley and his body was removed to Merchantville obviously on his mother's request). I believe her's was the story that held for many many decades (sudden death by poison to the brain from a tooth abscess) and the thing that most all thought happened although there were some who knew about that suicide rumor. I heard about it around thirty years ago. Should I have been a good researcher and gone sniffing around to prove he committed suicide?
Not in my book--not ever. Call me a less than dedicated or ambitious researcher, I don't care. I love that place and a lot of the people from it and I never would want to do that to them or Pine Valley or the memory of Crump.
Call me a sentimental sap, I don't care, I wish the hell they'd left everything about the Titanic down there where it is with all the people who went down with it too. I think some things should be left to the mysteries and mist of time. I think there's a certain respect in doing it that way.
This is just so well said, and so obviously truly felt.....
It is the product of the emotion that comes with a personal connection to something that is the subject of outside scrutiny, whether it is well-intentioned research or not. There's no argument or rhetorical device that can talk someone out of a feeling like this. The obvious other side to the equation is that there are a lot more people out there who don't have a personal connection to the bit of history that is being scrutinized, and have a curiosity about things, sometimes scholarly and sometimes prurient.
I've never had the experience TEPaul has had, where something near and dear to my heart is being opened up and examined in a public way, so I can only imagine the feeling. But I have had instances where I was reading about something or watching a show about it on television where I felt like an intruder, like I didn't really have a right to see what I was seeing, or to know what I was being told. It's not an argument against research or history-revealing endeavor to say this, again, it's just a feeling I had.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I've found all of these threads, the Pine Valley threads, the Merion threads, to be some of the most interesting reading I've had on this site, and not all because of GCA revelations - sometimes it's more the revelation of personal character. I've heard say that golf reveals one's character more than other games, and now I'm finding that golf course discussion can do the same thing.
For myself, I don't really care if they bring up artifacts from the Titanic, they're just things. The people left them behind long ago. I'm fascinated by the contents of King Tutankhamen's tomb, even though its discovery and display can be termed desecration or archaeology, depending on your perspective. But I'm wholly OUTSIDE of those situations, and so it's easy to feel that way. Your position, Mr. Paul, is a more difficult one, to be close enough to have revelations like those regarding Mr. Crump be painful, and yet wise enough to know that in cases like this the truth tends to come out eventually anyway, as painful as it is.
My last comment - was Wilson an esteemed enough figure at the time he purportedly went on his pre-1912 voyage to the British Isles that some mention might be found of his visits at the courses themselves? Just wondering. Probably already asked and answered.