1 Dec 2024
Dear Jaclyn,
My husband’s father is an artist, and he has always signed his work with the name “dregge,” although it is not his given name. Rather, it belonged to his great grandfather. J. P. Dregge changed his name to J. P. Johnson when he came to Minnesota from Norway in the mid-1800s. John Peder’s son Bennie’s son Floyd’s son Brian’s son was Brett Johnson, a boy I’d barely met who invited me to get a tattoo one college weekend. (I politely declined and we were married two years later.)
One of the first things Brett and I talked about when discussing our future was that we would both sign the marriage license with a new last name. Reagan Dregge had a nice ring to me—it practically rhymed. The family story is that Dregge was a place name but also is related to drag, dredge, or anchor. We promptly chose the anchor as our family emblem and Hebrews 6:19 as a scripture for our wedding, of which the main result was to have anchor decor thrust upon us at every opportunity since. A brass bell. A barometer. A wall decal. Iron bookends. Dishware. Fabric. Coasters galore. Fortunately, we like the nautical theme and have collected more than one authentic ship’s wheel, or helm.
We bought a house just after our 3rd anniversary, and although I’d named each place we lived, naming a place we owned felt different and significant. We’d moved from Iowa to Maryland to Minnesota, a region known for lakes, waters, and the great inland sea, Superior. Our house was in town, but I carried a longing to live on a gravel road, so our home was named The Portage, to point toward the betweenness not only of places, but time itself. When our gravel road acreage came along at last (just before our 7th anniversary), we considered possibilities such as Anchor’s Rest or Ankersted before landing on the name that paralleled our first dwelling’s. The year we both turned 30, we moved from the age of ports to the age of anchors. Our homestead would become a haven, a harbor, a safehold. Simultaneously, an outpost amid the waves of grain. More ship attributes quickly followed: a crow’s nest attic, a fo’c’sle porch, a galley kitchen, and even a poop deck, or room of requirement, if you will.
The Anchorage lives out its name the way all of us do. Reagan ‘of the king’ means my actions are royal by default, and I mustn’t forget it. Our daughter is named for a flower that shines with the light of stars, and she catches and emanates a lot of brilliance. Our little house on the prairie showcases certain stark natural characteristics. The wind is unrelenting. The sky is inescapable. The soil sustains. Wild creatures flourish and perish year after year in astounding array. We endure floods and droughts and polar vortexes. Not just meteorologically, but in our relationships as well. Seasons of gathering darkness and seasons of dispersing it. Each day ends with the beginning of another, mysteriously, at midnight, and somehow, as I watch snow swirl through the air, I know those same currents will soon carry the scent of lilacs and appleblossoms. More slowly, I am learning that the same is true for financial and emotional vortexes. Here has rooted us in hope.
Have you watched a person or place live out a name? How do you live out yours?
I have never been as thoughtful about a place name (though that’s one of my favorite things in books I’ve read). But people’s names are important to me, so our children’s names were all very deliberate. One, specifically, is Clarissa—brilliant light. She broke into the world with all vim and fire, and she has continued to grow into her name.
" of which the main result was to have anchor decor thrust upon us at every opportunity since." That is so funny.
I love thinking about this... I love your exhortation to us (by way of yourself) that a Christian mustn't forget that one's actions are royal by default.
Charles means "free man," and our Charlie has definitely assumed this liberal posture in life. Maybe I would have chosen a more mild name had I known...