Sweet Home, Rhode Island

We also visited Ashton, RI, where my maternal grandmother was born and raised. I found out: one, Ashton is a village located in the town of Cumberland, RI; and two, the row houses and mill she lived and worked in still exist. They are being converted into condos and are completely green (ecologically speaking).

I was thrilled. Even though I knew three-quarters of my heritage was from New England (my father was born and raised in Maine), it was good to see a place. I became more aware of why place is important. The reason people seem so attached to a place makes more sense to me now.

While I'm still not a preservationist to the degree that everything needs to be kept in it's original form, it is important to keep places that can be pointed to and say "This is me. This is home. These are my roots."