This week holds an interesting spot on the calendar – the bridge space between Black History Month and Women’s History Month, two celebrations to which our current president has said, “Nyet!” But which I shall continue to celebrate anyway.

I urge everyone to go biography diving on their own, while I take a moment to celebrate Susan Blanchard Russwurm.

We are going to run into some tricky spots. That’s the thing about history, it is rarely the exact version you want. Life is messy, and the record reflects that.

The thing to do with uncomfortable facts is look at them squarely, talk about them openly, don’t try and force it into a shape it isn’t – and don’t for a moment think that shoving it away is a better answer.

I planned, this week, to be talking about John Brown Russwurm, the first person of color to graduate from Bowdoin College as part of the class of 1826, but here I am, writing instead about Susan, his white stepmother.

This, clearly, is our first tricky bit. It is squishy (if common) ground to tell the story of a person of color from the perspective of the white person standing beside them – but I have reasons.

I’m looking at Susan because she seems to me a shining example of an ordinary person behaving decently and with love, even in times that made it difficult to do so. She inspires me.

Susan was a widow when she met and married John’s father (also named John) here in Portland. I don’t pretend to be well versed in the social strata of 1813 New England, but it seems likely that she might have been expected to ignore her new husband’s son.

After all, young John was the son of his white merchant father, and an enslaved woman from Jamaica whose name and life story are lost to history. He had already spent much of his youth living under the guardianship of others, and Susan had children of her own to think about.

Instead, Susan folded him into the family. Warmly by all indications. Young John was brought to live with them, Susan insisted her husband openly claim him as his own and give him the Russwurm surname.

After the elder John’s death, Susan continued to parent the boy, keeping him as her son even as she remarried. I wasn’t able to find sources detailing their relationship, but as an adult living in Liberia (where he had become a prominent leader) he sent two of his own children to live with Susan and attend school here. That seems to me to speak of deep and abiding affection indeed.

Stepson John went on to do great things, even serving as the governor of Maryland of Africa, a post he held until his death. I have to believe Susan’s love and encouragement played a role in his becoming who he was.

Susan lived in tricky times. She met her stepson in 1813. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery was 50 years in the future. The societal norms did not endorse the family she established. She did it anyway. Because of course you do.

Of course you see, value and nurture a child. Of course you insist upon their having a safe space to think and feel and grow. Of course you want – and work for – the very best for them; options, choices, the brightest future possible.

You do it because of love, you do it because humanity demands it, you do it because it is right.

Even if your neighbors give you side-eye. Even if the government says otherwise.

Props out to our own governor, Janet Mills, for setting her own shining example this week of looking out for kids – for all the kids, not just her own – when strange ideas about discrimination became the “norm.”

Thank you for standing up for what’s right. History will tell your story well.