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It seems like a good time to trot out one of my civil war stories.
My great-great-great grandfather was disowned by his father, a Carolina plantation owner, for marrying a Cherokee woman in 1846. Along came the Civil War and my great-great-great grandfather fought for the Yankees--he was even on Sherman's March! which passed mere miles from his own father's plantation!
Meanwhile, his father lost everything in the Civil War. When he was old and sick, none of his other children would take care of him except for the disowned one. (Maybe they couldn't; I don't know.) My great-great-great grandfather went from Alabama to South Carolina with a horse and buggy and brought his father back to Alabama, where he and his Cherokee wife took care of the old man till he died. But before he died, he reinstated his son (though it was only symbolic at that point--he had nothing.) He said "That Cherokee woman is the best woman I know."
