WEBVTT - Bonus Episode 3: Family Reunions 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.040 The Quest for the North Pole is a production of 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:11.479 I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. Picnic tables grown under 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.920 platters of homemade barbecued chicken, corn bread and collar greens, 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.479 a vast buffet of yams, corn rice and okra steams 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.279 in the early summer afternoon cakes and ice cream a 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:30.040 weight dessert. The whole spread, laid out in the elegant 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.919 backyard of a home in Milton, Massachusetts, has been prepared 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.480 to welcome visitors from a tiny village in northern Greenland. 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:42.960 It's late May seven and the eighty year old sons 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:47.440 of explorers Robert Peary and Matthew Henson, named Callie Peery 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:51.760 and a Naucock Henson are in America to meet their relatives. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:57.120 Matthew Henson's great niece, all of Henson Fulton cooked the 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.160 lunch for the family reunion and cousins friends all gather 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:06.080 on the lawn to welcome their inuite kin. After introductions 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.160 made through an interpreter, Kelly Analco, and their family members 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.399 have their initial taste of soul food. They proclaim the 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.560 chicken as tasty as Greenland birds and the ham as 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:23.200 sweet as polar bear. They play music and dance to 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.600 eighties pop, and the Inuite sang songs to thank their 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:32.080 American hosts. They offer beautiful carvings and other crafts as gifts, 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:35.559 while Fulton gives each of the men a combination radio 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.120 and tape recorder so they can listen to a nooktone 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:43.800 radio broadcasts back home. As the celebration winds down that evening, 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.559 and now Cock's Sun remarks, this has been a great 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:53.040 day for our family, perhaps the greatest ever. The cookout 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.000 was the result of a huge multinational effort led by 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:02.080 an unstoppable Harvard neuroscientist named sell Encounter to bring the 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.280 Intuite and American branches of the families together for the 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:11.600 first time. Here we're living, breathing representatives of Perry and 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:17.520 Henson's history, making expeditions in the flesh. It was a joyous, 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:22.440 unforgettable experience, but the occasion also brought up some painful 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:37.760 memories and uncomfortable questions. From Mental Floss and I Heart Radio. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.320 You're listening to the Quest for the North Pole. I'm 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:45.280 your host, Cat Long, science editor at Mental Floss, and 0:02:45.360 --> 0:03:01.959 this episode is family reunions. In several episodes of the 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.880 Quest for the North Pole. We looked at how Robert 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:09.520 Perry engaged Inuite assistance to perform essential tasks on his trips, 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:15.640 from sewing to building igloos to driving sleds. Women, usually 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.160 the wives of the hunters, prepared furs for new clothing 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.880 and were an omnipresent but under appreciated part of the expeditions. 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.320 Perhaps it is not much of a surprise that the 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:33.560 men on perious expeditions, including Henson and Perry himself, had 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.160 relationships with Innuhite women. There's a long record of Arctic 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.480 explorers having intimate relationships with women they met in the 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.920 polar regions, going back at least as far as the 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:50.160 British search for the Northwest Passage in the early nineteenth century. 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.560 Many of those upright naval men were shocked at the 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.840 relative freedom between Innuwit wives and husbands, and the ease 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.000 with which husbands share their wives or wives chose to 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:07.680 be intimate with white explorers. That trend continued into the 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:12.520 twentieth century with Perry's quests to reach the poll Even 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.480 before the first expedition, he was already mulling the dynamics 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.039 between his crews of American men and the inuite women 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.359 they did encounter in the Arctic. He wrote in his diary, 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.520 it is asking too much of masculine human nature to 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.640 expect it to remain in an Arctic climate, enduring constant 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:39.080 hardship without one relieving feature. Feminine companionship not only causes 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:43.120 greater contentment, but as a matter of both mental and 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.360 physical health and the retention of the top notch of manhood, 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:53.680 it is a necessity. Of course, these relationships were not equal. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.359 Perry's arrival in the inuite community meant a disruption to 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:02.960 their daily life and sometimes to their family dynamics. Peary 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:07.360 was seen as the man who supplied guns, knives, materials 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:12.400 for sleds and homes, and many more essential goods. In return. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.200 As ken Harper mentioned in our previous Bonus episode, the 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.960 inuite worked for Peery in whichever capacity he needed. Both 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:26.240 Peery and the inuite seemingly viewed Perry's intimate relationships as transactional. 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.200 None of this went over well with Josephine Debitch Perry, 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:36.200 his wife, whom he married in Though she was just 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.480 as adventurous as her husband and accompanied him on several 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.520 of his expeditions, she also raised their two children, Marie 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.920 and Robert Jr. In Washington when Peery was up North. 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.400 Josephine was humiliated and crushed when she discovered her husband's 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.240 infidelity with an inuite woman named ale Cassina, who had 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.840 given birth to a son, A N. Alcock, not to 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:06.640 be confused with Henson's son in d Ala. Cassina's second son, Callie, 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.679 was born on the S S. Roosevelt in nineteen o six, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.760 suggesting that Peery maintained his connection with her over multiple expeditions. 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.960 For many of his expeditions with Peery, Matthew Henson was single. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:25.760 He and his first wife, Eva Flint, divorced in and 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.040 he married his second wife, Lucy Ross in en seven. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.600 He had no children with either woman, but in the 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.120 ten year gap between marriages he had a relationship with 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:41.160 an in a white woman named Akatingwa. Exactly when they 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:44.960 met and how long the relationship lasted are unclear, but 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.560 we do know that it was happening during Perry's second 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.240 real attempt at the North Pole from nineteen o five 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.719 to nineteen o six. Henson's son, an Alcock, was also 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.560 born aboard the S. S. Roosevelt in nineteen o six, 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.320 the year before Henson married Lucy Ross. He may or 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.760 may not have known that he was An Alcock's father, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:10.160 and Alcock's children and their children are Henson's only direct descendants. 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.160 Pierry and Henson returned to Greenland in nine eight for 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.400 their final quest for the poll. When Peery declared that 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.600 he had done what he had gone there to do. 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.440 Neither men ever returned to Greenland or saw their sons again. 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:32.040 Peery's son, Analcock, died when he was twenty seven. As 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.200 Callie told the anthropologist Jean Mallory in nineteen fifty one, 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.240 I never heard a word from my illustrious father, nor 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.400 did I ever receive any money. All I have of 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.160 his is a photograph I cut out of a magazine. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.360 Yet I remember him very well. We lived on his 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:51.880 big ship with our mother, and he was nice to us. 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:58.040 Mallorie met Kellie and Nalcock Henson while living among the Inuite, 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.680 and found the fact that Peery and Sen where their 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:05.960 fathers was no secret. Both sons peppered Mallory for information 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.840 about their families in America. At the time, Matthew Henson 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.760 was still alive and living in New York City, but 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:18.200 Pierry had been dead for over thirty years. Mallory revealed 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.720 the existence of Kellie and a Nalcock to the rest 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.480 of the world in his best selling book The Last 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:29.480 Kings of Tuli, but afterwards, seemingly no researchers contacted the 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:35.000 explorers in Nui descendants until s Allen Counter went looking 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.440 for them in the nineteen eighties. We'll be right back, 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.559 The Amsterdam News called s Allen Counter the most interesting 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:06.319 man in the world. Raised in a segregated neighborhood of 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.880 Boynton Beach, Florida, Counter grew up on the grounds of 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:14.599 the tuberculosis hospital where his mother worked. Perhaps that experience 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.840 influenced his interest in studying medicine. He joined Harvard Medical 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.560 School as a post doc, then rose up the ranks 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:26.240 as a neurophysiologist. He also conducted field research in the 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.240 Andes in the Amazon Basin as part of a wide 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:35.200 ranging career at the university. In nine, Counter spearheaded the 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:40.839 Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, which promotes intercultural awareness. 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.720 During his time as a visiting professor in Sweden, Counter 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.520 began hearing rumors about Arctic descendants of Pierie and Henson 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:54.280 from his colleagues. In his book North Pole Legacy, Counter 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.160 writes that he read every book and article he could 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:02.760 find about the explorer's descendants found nothing beyond rumor or innuendo. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.520 Apparently he missed Maori's account. He decided to go to 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.880 Greenland to investigate a task that involved asking the Danish 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.280 and US governments for permission to fly to Tooley Air Base, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.360 the northernmost American military base in the world, and then 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.520 helicoptering to the tiny village of more Usuk and there 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.680 he met a Nalco Henson and his large family, who 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:32.200 assumed Counter was their relative because of his dark skin. 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.200 A few weeks later, he met Kelly and his family 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:41.240 in a village about forty miles away. Counter discovered that 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.880 for generations, the Greenland descendants remembered and retold the stories 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:49.880 of Pieri's in Henson's time in their communities. All were 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.600 proud of their American heritage, especially an Alcock. Because the 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.960 whole community held Matthew Henson in extremely high regard. They 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:04.480 also expressed a strong interest in meeting their American half siblings, cousins, nieces, 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:09.480 and nephews in the US. Counter decided to make it happen. 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.960 He called the plan the North Pole Family Reunion. He 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.880 promised an Alcock and Kelly that he would find out 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.160 as much about their American relatives as possible. When he 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.959 returned to the US and Cold called members of the 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:32.360 American Henson's and Peery's, they had opposite reactions. Henson's great niece, 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.880 all of Henson Fulton, and her family were ecstatic. As 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.079 a young girl, Fulton told him she had been kicked 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.240 out of class for telling everybody about her great uncle 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.720 who had reached the North Pole. Her teacher had thought 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:51.160 she was lying. The insult made her determined to share 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.120 Henson's story with as many people as she could. When 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.560 Counter told her of his discovery, she couldn't wait to 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.920 welcome an Alcock and his family to Boston. The Peries 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:08.480 reacted differently. A family spokesman seemed to suspect Counter of 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:13.120 trying to call Peri's accomplishments into question, or, worse, stir 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.200 up the bitter controversy between Peery and Frederick Cook over 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.720 who conquered the North Pole first. They wanted nothing to 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:25.800 do with their Arctic relatives. Edward Peery, Stafford the Explorer's 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.680 grandson later told The Washington Post that the family was 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:34.640 well aware of Peri's infidelity, but that obviously it's not 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.320 something you talk about because it was very hurtful to 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:42.240 my grandmother. Stafford added, Henson and Perry were up there 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.559 at one time for four years. It's a miracle there 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.600 was only one descendant of each. Human beings are human. 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.319 You can't send a man into a situation like that 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:58.640 and expect otherwise. Despite that lackluster response, counter went ahead 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.440 with the reunion plans, and some of the Peries did 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.760 join the festivities. When counter bypassed the family spokesman and 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.880 called Robert Pery Jr. Directly, Robert and his wife agreed 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.160 to a visit with his half brother, Calli and his 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:17.520 family in their home in Maine. Two distant Peri relatives 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.920 attended a reception with the Henson's and Arctic visitors before 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:25.520 the big cookout. In the days following the party, Callie 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:28.600 and a Naucock attended a lavish banquet in their honor 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:32.120 at Harvard University, then traveled to important sites in their 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:37.080 father's lives. They toured the Explorers Club and Harlem's Abyssinian 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:42.040 Baptist Church to which Henson belonged. They visited Henson's birthplace 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:47.080 in Nanjimoy, Maryland, and Peri's grave at Arlington National Cemetery, 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.360 and now Cock paid his respects to his father at 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.000 Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where Henson was buried in nine. 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.720 At each stop, throngs of dignitaries and invited guests welcomed 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.160 the visitors and jostled to shake their hands while newspaper 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:10.760 reporters and photographers clicked away. Their whirlwind tour lasted two weeks, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:16.480 after which the Inuite returned to their home villages in Greenland. Sadly, 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.320 less than a month later, the Nalcock died of cancer. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.200 Counter continued his efforts to share Matthew Henson's story and 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:30.560 give him the recognition he deserved. Before the north Pole 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.040 family reunion took place, he had launched a campaign to 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.560 have Henson's remains removed from Woodlawn Cemetery and placed next 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.680 to Peery's in Arlington National Cemetery, and honor he felt 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:47.040 was befitting a co discoverer of the North Pole, and 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.720 to honor Henson's wishes, he promised a Nalcock that if 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:55.160 he succeeded, his children and grandchildren would be there to 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.040 see it. Counter wasn't the first one to try to 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:03.880 make this happen. In nineteen sixty six, Senator Joseph Tidings, 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:07.680 a Democrat from Maryland, introduced a bill to remove Henson's 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:14.160 remains to Arlington. Evidently, it went nowhere. In five Counter 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.040 had written to President Ronald Reagan and the military asking 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.960 for permission for the reburial, and it was denied. He 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.800 then wrote to the First Lady, Cabinet secretaries and the media, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.440 which got behind the idea, especially after a now Cox 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:34.800 and Callie's visits to their father's graves. In October seven, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.040 the Department of the Army changed its mind and granted 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:43.480 Counter's request. A group of Henson relatives and John H. Johnson, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.240 the publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines and a longtime 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:52.200 admirer of Henson, joined Counter in organizing and planning the undertaking. 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:58.480 They chose April sixth, the seventy ninth anniversary of the 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.640 date PEERI claimed to have reached the North Pole for 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.280 the ceremony, re entering Henson and his wife Lucy, who 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:10.840 had passed away in three of a now Cocks sons 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:15.520 and two grandsons, and Olive Henson Fulton represented the Henson family. 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.280 Among the two hundred invited guests was civil rights leader 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.720 Dorothy Height, a good friend of Lucy's, who delivered her eulogy. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.600 Members of the Peerie family were invited but couldn't make it. 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:34.320 According to The New York Times, NASA astronaut Guy Blueford, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.240 the first black American in space, delivered a salute to 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.480 the explorer who came before him next to the granite 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.800 headstone featuring a likeness of Henson. The new burial plot 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.920 was right next to Peery's resting place, marked by its 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.760 huge globe shaped monument. Speaking for the in a white 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.520 branch of the family and now Cock's youngest son, Kidlock, said, 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.560 now the old friends are together again, they can talk 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:22.760 about old times. The Quest for the North Pole is 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.000 hosted by Me Cat Long. This episode was researched and 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.960 written by Me, with fact checking by Austin Thompson. The 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.640 executive producers are Aaron McCarthy and Tyler Klang. The supervising 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.200 producer is Dylan Fagan. The show is edited by Dylan 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.760 Fagan for transcripts, a glossary, and to learn more about 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:49.119 this episode, visit Mental flaws dot com slash podcast. The 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.280 Quest for the North Pole is a production of I 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.920 heart Radio and Mental floss. For more podcasts from my 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:59.120 heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:12.280 or wherever you get your podcasts. For more podcasts for 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.960 my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.679 podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.