History is Fun!
History is fun and it’s important! It’s a link to the past and a clue to understanding the present. And it’s everywhere from a name on a street sign to a statue or a plastic gizmo in your kitchen window.
Look At Your Home With History Eyes
Your home has history looking you in the face every day much like the bulletin board in your room gives evidence that you are in school and have gone to a dance, graduated from a school or participated in sports. There is evidence from the past, and it means something now and in the future.
Persons and objects can become valuable history lessons, and they make life vastly interesting.
Is there an old chair in your home? Where did it come from? Sit in that chair and look around with your history eyes. A reminder may be a piece of furniture that went to Kansas in a covered wagon, or an old washboard that your aunt used when she took in washings. Why did she take in washings, and what was her lifestyle? Or it could be a piece of jewelry that is valuable or a piece of costume jewelry that a family member wore on a special occasion. It could even be a walking stick made for your grandfather by Davy Crocket. How did he know Davy Crockett? The reminder could be a scrapbook or an old Bible with names written in the front. That old trunk in your attic may have come with a reluctant immigrant from Germany or Japan, or it may mean that you have moved many times to a new house or apartment. What was brought in the trunk? If your home was destroyed by fire, flood, tornado or hurricane, that is part of your history, and perhaps something was salvaged. My house was flooded completely under water, and the blue Christmas ball left on the roof now hangs in my kitchen as a reminder.
Is there a picture of your grandmother? Where did she live and what did she do? My children’s grandmother marched in a parade to get women the right to vote. Your grandmother may have been one of the first women to work in a factory during Second World War, and your grandfather may have served in the armed forces in a war or in peacetime. If so, ask him what he did and if he has reminders such as discharge papers or a bullet that hit him. Believe it or not, his service is part of your history, and where he has been and what he did is interesting.
State History
Events and persons give us pegs to hang our ideas on. Are you related to anyone who was a pioneer and helped settle your state? You might be surprised. Someone did it, and it could be a family member or neighbor. What year did they come to your state, and how did they get there?
I was born in Kansas, moved to Oklahoma then to Texas. In Kansas I lived near Bender’s Mound where Ma Bender was well known for knocking off travelers for their possessions when they checked in to her country rooming house for the night. The famous outlaws, The Dalton Brothers, were killed in Coffeyville, Kansas where I worked. In Oklahoma I met a woman who rode in the covered wagon race to cross the border into Oklahoma Territory to claim land in what was to become the new state. In Texas I met German descendents of the characters in the story of Rika in The Reluctant Immigrant. You may know someone who heard Martin Luther King speak or someone who survived the Holocaust. A man across the street from you may have raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Never heard of it? Look it up. If he did this, he is very brave. Do you know a senator who is making history? These persons or events make history with a twist of real life beyond the history books.
Who is the governor of Texas? If you know the first governor of Texas, you might want to meet his wife and find out where he lived and why.
Resources:
TexasHistory.com
Lone Star: A History of Texas and Texans, T. R. Fehrenbach, 200, DaCapo Press
View map of New Braunfels and early Texas, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/badeker-tx-1849.jpg
View time line of San Antonio and area, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/badeker-tx-1849.jpg
View index of Texas history resource offerings, http://www.teacheroz.com/Texas_History.htm
Watch for the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum’s soon to be traveling exhibit about immigrants that came through Galveston. Home base in Austin. Texas.
Other states have historical commissions and archives that can be accessed through Google.