Surrounded by 150 years of memories that fill her antebellum house, Virginia Morrison runs an aging hand across the thick leather binding of her family’s Bible.

The warm light of the parlor fire catches the gold etching of a New York Episcopal church that decorates the cover as she opens to the dedication page and begins to tell the Bible’s story – a story that is interwoven with that of her family’s.

“A sacred token from George Koontz to Mary B. Koontz.” The inscription, though faded yellow by the years, still carries the grace and strength of its author, Morrison’s great-grandfather.

From record-keeping to tradition

Morrison explains George Koontz presented the Bible to his wife in 1849, most likely in celebration of the completion of their new house, Greenleaves.

The Bible itself, perfectly preserved down to the gilded page edgings, is copyrighted 1846 by Harper and Brother Publishers. But the Bible has not withstood the years by being left unused. From the first entry to the most recent – the marriage of Morrison’s nephew in June 2000 – the Bible chronicles each birth, death and marriage in the family over the last century and a half.

Morrison points to the recording of her grandmother’s birth, with whom she shares her name, in April 1861, exactly one year into the Civil War.

“That’s why they named her Virginia Lee, after the state of Virginia and (Confederate General) Robert E. Lee,” she said proudly. Further down the page, another entry shows the birth of her granddaughter, the third to carry the symbolic name.

Over the years, signing the Bible has become an integral part of any significant event in Morrison’s family. In times of death, it is part of the mourning process, and at births and marriages, it serves to add to the celebration and joy.

When her nephew was married last year, Morrison said his new bride was thrilled to become part of the tradition. “I got the Bible out on this table and said ‘Now you have to come sign the Bible,'” she said.

The Bible has never had to travel far for the traditional signing. Many family members hold their receptions at the house and Morrison, her grandmother and her daughter were all married at Greenleaves. In fact, Morrison believes the Bible has probably never left the house on South Rankin Street since it was given to Mary as a gift in the 19th century. Between events, the Bible sits tucked between Civil War memorabilia in an armoire.

“It’s here. It has a place, but if you took it out of the house, I don’t know what you’d do with it,” she said.

Morrison said she believes the family Bible was begun as way of keeping records, and though it has become a tradition over the years, it is also valuable as a resource for genealogy.

Many times, she has found information in the Bible that could not be found in other records, and pointed out the genealogical information found in family Bibles is an accepted form of proof in societies such as the Daughters of the American Revolution.

But Morrison said a family does not have to have a history as rich as her own to begin a family Bible, or any other family tradition that helps to remember the past. “Time goes by so fast and before you know it, you’ve forgotten,” she said.

Morrison also keeps an older Koontz family Bible, one that travelled with the family when they immigrated from their native Germany in 1751. In the 1930s, scientists from Louisiana State University visited Greenleaves to look at the Bible, which they determined to be a 1670 first edition printing.

Only a few entries are written inside the metal-bound cover and those are in German, a few of which Morrison has had translated. But the penciled figures scattered across the bottom of the page need no translation, and Morrison likes to imagine what her ancestors were thinking when the Bible lay open under their hands. “It looks like they used it to figure how old people were,” she said laughing.

Pressed flowers and shamrock

Margaret Burns doesn’t pull out her family Bible often, usually at a family event to show a visiting relative.

Most of the time, the 1882 Douay Bible sits on the bottom shelf of a crowded bookcase in the dining room, where Burns said she gets a certain satisfaction “just knowing that I have it.”

Burns became the keeper of the Bible, which first belonged to her maternal grandmother, following the death of her mother.

Flipping through the delicate pages, Burns points to mementos wedged in the binding that have become as much a part of the Bible’s value as the book itself.

Many of the cards, letters and Sunday school ribbons can be traced to her grandmother when she was a student at a Catholic school in New Orleans before the turn of the 20th century.

Others chronicle church events, dedications, marriages and deaths – like the pressed flowers Burns said were probably plucked as tokens from loved ones’ graves.

Pulling out another family Bible, this one belonging to her grandfather’s family,

Burns passes over the papers and ornate illustrations quickly in the search for the records page chronicling the life events of several Burns generations.

According to the record, Burns’ grandfather, Patrick Burns, was born in 1837 in Northern Ireland. After immigrating to America, he married twice, the second time to his housekeeper, Bridgette, after his first wife died.

“With four children, he had to have a housekeeper and he ended up marrying her,” Burns said.

One letter in the Bible is to Patrick from a home-sick Bridgette who was apparently away attending to an ailing relative.

Like Morrison, Burns said she wonders what her ancestors were thinking, feeling, what their life was like, when they penned the entries in the Bible.

And she hopes younger generations will realize the value of preserving the Bible along with the rest of the family’s history after she’s gone.

Burns said she doesn’t recall a time when people held family heritage as of much importance as they do today and wonders if the sparked interest is the result of families becoming more spread out across long distances.

“In my age, looking back, you didn’t look back on your roots. Not like they want to now,” she said.

Religion under a magnifying glass

Ronnie Herbert remembers his grandfather, Ernest Granville Herbert, as a quiet man with a life-long legacy of helping others.

“He was a farmer who let people come in and pick up pecans out of the yard. And in the summer, he’d peddle vegetables,” Herbert said.

When Ernest died in the 1970s, Herbert was willed possession of the family house on Palestine Road. According to family tradition, the historic plantation house served as a hospital to Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

While cleaning out the house following his grandfather’s death, Herbert stumbled upon the family’s Bible tucked away on a dark shelf where his grandfather had last placed it.

“I was just going through some things and found it. When I found it, I just about took sick,” he said.

The discovery was both joyous and disappointing, as time and moisture inside the house had severely disintegrated the Bible, copyrighted in 1893.

Unlike earlier Bibles – or almost any book published prior to the 1850s – the Herbert Bible was printed on wood pulp paper. Similar to newsprint, the pages have become yellow and brittle to the point where a touch sends fragments falling to the floor.

Even so, Herbert treasures the pages that remain and has enlisted the help of the Historic Natchez Foundation to help him preserve it for generations to come.

Though the Herbert Bible contains only a few recordings, including Ernest’s own birth in 1894, it holds a personal value for Herbert.

He remembers many occasions when he stopped to visit his grandfather to find him pouring over the Scripture with a magnifying glass.

For those who grew up in his grandfather’s day, Herbert said reading the Bible was not only a Christian responsibility, but a form of entertainment.

And remembering the lesson his grandfather’s example taught him, reading the Bible daily has a practical value for Herbert.

“That’s where you get your problems solved,” he said. &160;