Tag: bringing history to life

A Bookshelf Full of Thanksgiving

Leave a comment

Amy stood in Scrooby, England, in the very chapel where 400 years ago many of the men, women and children who sailed on the Mayflower met to worship God. She saw Scrooby Manor where they planned their journey to Holland. She understood that the little band knew the venture risked both their lives and their fortunes and  yet would allow them to keep their sacred honor.

From childhood, stories of the Pilgrims flitted through Amy’s imagination. She dreamt of what it would be like to talk with William Bradford or Squanto. She admired their courage, she learned from their sacrifice, and she wanted their faith. 

Then here she stood where their feet once trod, sat in the pew where (supposedly) William Bradford once sat, and sang a Psalm that the Scrooby congregation may have sung all those years ago. 

Her Plymouth day was over all too soon. 

How did these people whose lives are so distant from Amy’s become real to her? Through stories, of course. Historical fiction, radio drama and even video may play a role in giving personality to names like Bradford, Brewster and Squanto. 

Here are several of my favorite stories. Many of them are for younger readers (not that older readers aren’t allowed to enjoy them!), but there in one tome on the list sure to satisfy the most sophisticated bookworm.

Problems in Plymouth (AIO Imagination Station Books) by Marianne Hering and Marshal Younger: Fueled by a mystery, this chapter book may be just the thing to get a young reader interested in these people called Pilgrims. 

The Mayflower Adventure (The American Adventure Series #1) by Colleen L. Reese: This was perhaps the first historical fiction book I read about the Pilgrims’ journey to America. You can time-travel all the way through WWII if you read the entire series.

“Stepping Stones – Parts I&II” by Paul McCusker: A pull-you-into-the-story audio drama for children that shares the story behind the Pilgrims coming to America and what it took for them to get here – a story many schoolchildren may miss out on today.

The Legend of Squanto (Radio Theatre) by Paul McCusker: Take a different look at the story of the First Thanksgiving as you step into the life of Tesquantum (or Squanto) narrated by Massasoit. If heroes are measured by how they respond to challenges, Squanto could be among the greatest.

Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford: I haven’t actually read all three-hundred-plus pages of this book, but I’ve read some and am rather fond of it because Grandma liked it. I believe she actually said it was “fascinating”. Beyond that, as any student of history knows, primary sources are the best if you want to get the real picture.

I hope you enjoy these stories and that you have a richly blessed Thanksgiving full of sweet times with those you love. However, as a recent conversation reminded me, sometimes we get so caught up in the “doing” of holidays, we can forget the point. For this holiday, the main thing is Thanksgiving.

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! – Psalm 118:1 (ESV)

 

A School of Her Own: Bringing History and Heart Together

Leave a comment

I gazed around the room one more time. The teacher’s bell, the hooks for hanging lunch pails, the well-used desks and the well-loved McGuffeys. Even though I was heading toward new adventures, it was hard to say goodbye.

We had shared quite a bit of history, this room and I. Once I was a little girl who sat at a little desk and used a slate pencil. Back then, I thought it would be pretty awesome to be a teacher with a school just like this. Why not? I had read about it in books like the Little House series or the Boxcar Children’s Schoolhouse Mystery. But there was a problem: I was in a century that wasn’t very one-room school friendly.

Then, in a snap and a whirl, I grew up and found myself behind the teacher’s desk of that place of childhood dreams. And a roomful of students gazed back at me!

Yes, I had become the one-room school teacher at the living history museum. Children came by the busload to learn about life in bygone days. You can imagine the fun of ringing the bell as various-sized students propelled themselves in my direction. 

However, there would be no running into my school “like a herd of pigs headed for the trough.”[1] At my instruction, the students lined up with girls on one side and boys on the other. Then they walked in, took their seats,
and we began our lessons. IMG_9295

Looking back, I felt quite a bit like Mabel O’Dell welcoming students in A School of Her Own. At eighteen, Mabel finds herself teaching in a one-room school in Michigan, dodging a vicious goat, grading papers, getting lost in a blizzard, dealing with the challenges that come with a classroom and a small town, and learning about the Lord. Inspired by the life of and stories from the author’s grandmother, this book brings history and heart together.

What is the point of bringing history and heart together? It’s about making history alive with real people who faced real problems and had real stories. It takes the facts (which are important) and goes beyond them to the relationships. I think that sums up what I hoped to share with my students in my one-room school. With the groups, I had only fifteen minutes (or less) to do it. Talk about a challenge! My history manual and older folks who had attended one-room schools or taught in them were my best resources for true stories to put a sparkle on the facts. Sometimes I think I may have shared more of the fun stories – like the skiing to school and the recess games – and given a somewhat sunshiny picture of life back then. However, I know I tried to communicate facts like how school children really had to work hard to help their families. A School of Her Own  balances the fun with the realities that people were still sinners and life definitely had its hard moments in the 19th century just like in the 21st. 

So there I stood in my school, admiring all the familiar details. To think I had come so very close to being a real one-room school teacher! While I hadn’t faced life-changing decisions with surprising answers quite like Mabel, I had learned, as I suppose many teachers do, as much as I had taught in that room. It was now part of my history, and it was definitely part of my heart. I hope sharing the story brings it to others’ hearts as well, maybe even yours. 

If you’d like to read all about Mabel O’Dell’s escapades and learn about life for a one-room school teacher, check out A School of Her Own by Arleta Richardson. Perhaps you’ll even decide to visit a one-room school! Whether you read or visit, I’d love to hear your thoughts on bringing history and heart together. Note: As I mentioned, the book does touch on some of the more complicated issues of life. Parents may want to check it over before handing it to young readers. 

Special thanks to my childhood friends Katie and Ann S. who, I think, introduced me to Arleta Richardson’s books. I guess you never know what a book recommendation might bring about! 

1 Arleta Richardson, A School of Her Own, Grandma’s Attic Novels (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 1986), 49. 

A Suggested Spring Outing: Treasure Hunting

4 Comments

For a couple of seasons, I had the pleasure of working at a living history museum. Most of the time, I could be found in the one-room schoolhouse, looking like I had sprung off the pages of Anne of Green Gables. Along with the joy of meeting new little ones each day, my favorite part was listening when the “old folks” started talking.

“My school was pretty much like this, except all of our desks faced this way.”

“When I was a one-room school teacher back in the ‘30s, my students each brought a potato for lunch, and we baked the potatoes in the stove during morning lessons.”

A particular visitor even testified that the tricks of schoolhouse lore, like dipping a girl’s braid in an inkwell or tying her apron strings to her seat, really did take place.

As much as I tried to convey my delight, I’m not sure these dear story-givers ever truly grasped how much I relished the glimpses they gave me into these bygone days. They were like pots of gold on my treasure hunt to uncover true stories to share with the 21st-century schoolchildren who visited my school. To the history-bearers, their schoolhouse days may have seemed just ordinary life, but to me and the boys and girls who came running as my bell rang, they were as beyond ordinary as fairy tales! You see, most of today’s children will never do farm chores before they head to school, much less ski to school – Little boys often burst out in exclamations of envy at that point! – or listen in on the lessons of their brothers and sisters or go ice skating with them at recess. And today’s generation of seniors are pretty much the last ones who can share these stories firsthand.

With that in mind, as often as I could (and when I remembered), I would encourage my students that their grandparents or another older person in their lives may, in fact, have attended a one-room school not so different from the one in which they were sitting. My hope was for the children to go on their own treasure hunts.

This is one of the beauties of living history museums: they make history tangible. Just like it’s one thing to read about Anne Shirley and quite another to wear ridiculously puffed sleeves yourself, so it’s one thing to read about a one-room school and quite another to sit at a desk where someone sat a hundred years ago and take a slate pencil in your hand to work arithmetic problems given by a teacher. And if you have someone with you who can tell you firsthand how it really was, that’s even better!

That’s why this spring, as you plan your outings or field trips, I encourage you to visit your local (or distant) living history museums and to take someone who is just a little bit older with you. Besides enjoying fresh air and learning history facts, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions – Was your school anything like this? What was different about your farm? Did your mom bake bread like that? Did you really butcher the pigs? – and be a part of bringing history to life. Make it your own treasure hunt. Who knows what riches you’ll uncover along the way!