mckenziehousepublishing

Homeschool Conference Season Is Here Again

What a blessing and a privilege to be able to meet home school families and share tools and ideas that they might not have considered using to help their children be more interested in and engaged in the topics they are studying – especially in history!

We had a great time at The Great Homeschool Convention in Greenville, SC a few weeks ago. In addition to visiting with families at our booth, Matt gave his presentation, “A Fresh Approach to 20th Century American History,” where he challenged families to use “untraditional” resources to teach history and also to focus on the experiences of their own families at different points in history. Most often, the history written in traditional textbooks impacted the typical citizen, but not always as much as the textbook may imply. Our families were often impacted by more local and regional events that may not be covered in a textbook.

In our current social media driven world, it can be easily forgotten that people weren’t always as “connected” or aware of events that occurred across the state where they lived – much less across the county or even the world! A family living in a rural community was probably more concerned about that factory in town shutting down and most of the workers there suddenly being without a job than they would be about the big news of the day happening in larger cities like Chicago, Los Angeles or even whatever was happening in Washington, DC. Keeping that in perspective when you study history – and then ‘digging in’ a little bit to the story of your own family can breathe new life into your history studies.

If you are planning on attending The Great Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio this weekend, Matt will be giving the same presentation on Friday morning at 8:30, and he’d love to see you there! We will also be in booth 818 in the vendor hall. In addition to The Great Homeschool Conventions, we will also be attending the NCHE’s Thrive! Conference in Winston-Salem, NC May 23-25 and will be in booth 57. If you are attending either of these conventions, we’d love to have you stop by and chat with us! We do have some “Conference Special” packages, and we have new resource DVDs/flash drives that are only available at conferences and conventions.

Hope to see you at one of the conventions soon!
Amy

mckenziehousepublishing

George McKenzie Turns 120 on 30th Birthday!

My grandfather, George McKenzie, a “leap year baby” born February 29, 1904, always enjoyed referring to his age by the number of birthdays he had celebrated. Thus, were he still living, George would just now be celebrating his 30th birthday!

For me, he was a family connection to two of my favorite parts of American history – the Old West and the Great Depression years.

George was born in Oklahoma Territory (Oklahoma became a state in 1907), where his father, William, worked as a cowboy for twelve years. This likely accounted my grandfather’s love of western stories. From my father I learned that George was an avid reader of Zane Grey novels during my father’s childhood years. He said George was sometimes known to stay awake long into the night reading Zane Grey’s latest work. During my own childhood, I have cherished memories of watching episodes of Gunsmoke and Bonanza while the family was spending an evening at Grandpa’s house.

By the time the Great Depression was in full swing in the 1930s, George was living in Illinois, married, and the father of four children. Like so many others, he was often without a job. He eventually accepted a job with the WPA driving a truck as part of the road and bridge work being done in the area around Litchfield and Hillsboro. The WPA, the Works Progress Administration, was one of the Federal government’s New Deal agencies that provided paying jobs to the unemployed, mostly in construction work.

A bridge in a low-lying farmland area a few miles west of Hillsboro was built during those Depression years, and George was part of the team that built that bridge. When the concrete for the bridge’s pillars was poured, the weather was very cold, especially at night. To allow the concrete to properly set up in the cold temperatures, fires were built around the pillars and kept burning through the night. George was the man who stayed up through the night tending those fires. My father, still a young boy at the time, was able to be with him during those nights. As of the summer of 2008 when I saw it, that bridge was still standing and still safe for automobile traffic!

When I think about my grandfather, that “leap year” baby of 1904, I also think of how much change has happened in the past 120 years. He did not survive to see home computers, or cell phones. However, he lived through some incredible times during his life, including: the beginnings of the film industry; the first airplanes; the development of the personal passenger automobile; World War I; the rise of radio; the Great Depression; World War II; jet aircraft; the debut of television; satellite communication; and man’s first walk on the moon!

His story is a wonderful part of my family’s intersection with our 20th Century American history and heritage.

mckenziehousepublishing

Happy Thanksgiving!

If I had to choose my favorite holiday of the year, it might well be Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful convergence of fun, changing seasons, and anticipation, due to the food-centric family gatherings, the sense that autumn is about to yield to the onset of winter, and Christmas is just around the corner!

In my youthful days, Thanksgiving always meant our family would gather with available grandparents and other relatives to enjoy a family-reunion type of day filled with lots of turkey, homemade dishes, and pumpkin pies. After a brief recovery from stuffing ourselves, my brothers and cousins would usually drift outdoors to play a game of touch football. That was usually followed by watching NFL football on TV during the afternoon. Back then mid-week football on TV was an NFL novelty, as there was not yet any such thing as Thursday Night Football.

Its a Wonderful Life - lobby poster

More often than not, the day would conclude by sitting in front of the TV watching whatever channel was broadcasting the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. For our family, the broadcast of this classic movie seemed to signal the official beginning of the Christmas season. In September, I had the privilege to meet Karolyn Grimes, who played the little girl Zuzu in the movie. At the time the movie was being filmed, she was growing up in sunny, southern California, with no siblings and no personal experience with snow. In the course of filming It’s a Wonderful Life, she had a chance to sample life within a larger family, and snowy weather (even though the snow was fake). Regarding filming of the movie she later commented that, “Being from the land of sunshine, it was a tremendous fascination which gave me a whole different feeling about Christmas and families.” (“Zuzu’s Wonderful Life in the Movies”, Christopher Brunell) As many know, the film highlights the value of family and prompts us to consider what truly is important in our busy lives today.

Zuzu's Wonderful Life in the Movies

Often lost in all of the activity of Thanksgiving Day is the need to actually pause and be thankful for how one has been blessed. Even in years filled with setbacks, worries, and grief, there are things and people in our lives for which we can be grateful. It reminds me of a hymn I recall from my younger years – “Count Your Blessings.” Here are a couple of my favorite stanzas from that hymn:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

 

So amid the conflict, whether great or small,

Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

 

On Thanksgiving Day, it’s good to remind myself there is more to be thankful for than just the turkey.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

mckenziehousepublishing

Reflecting on Stories from Grandpa and Dad

Imagine walking into a room with wood floors and walls, and a wood-burning stove providing heat for the room. An elderly man sits on an old sofa, wearing a western style shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, and smoking a freshly-lit Camel. Behind him is a shotgun set on a large window sill and leaning against the window frame, and in a nearby corner is a hat stand on which is hung his off-white Stetson cowboy hat. The man is my grandfather, and he is watching that week’s installment of Gunsmoke on his black-and-white television set. To me as a 10-year old boy, this had the feel of being in the old west, even though it was really southern Illinois!

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Grandpa multi-tasking by talking on the phone while watching TV. Note the shotgun propped up in the window behind the sofa!

One of my slightly-older cousins told me of the time this same Grandpa visited his family in Nevada, and while walking outdoors, the two of them encountered a rattlesnake in their path. Grandpa told my cousin that he would hit the snake’s head with his hat, then my cousin was supposed to quickly step on the snake’s head with his boot heel. After my cousin twice froze when he was supposed to do his part, Grandpa then did the whole job himself – striking the rattler with his hat, then quickly grinding his boot heel on the snake’s head and allowing safe passage along the path.

My grandfather was a cowboy at heart. He was the son of a real-life cowboy, his father having been a cowboy for about 12 years in late 1800’s Oklahoma Territory. During my growing-up years, Grandpa commonly wore a Stetson cowboy hat, western style shirts, jeans, and cowboy boots. He was known to be up late at night when reading Zane Gray novels, and was a regular viewer of TV westerns – especially Gunsmoke and Bonanza (his favorite characters seemed to be Deputy Festus and Hoss Cartwright).

My father was a kid growing up through the Great Depression before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. His stories about basic training, army life, and being shipped overseas for combat were certainly interesting to me and my brothers. He told us of how it felt to be marching through the streets of the just-liberated city of Paris as young French women hailed them as heroes, giving out hugs and kisses to Dad and his comrades. However, things were tougher for him during the Battle of the Bulge, where he witnessed his lieutenant being blown to bits by a German grenade. It was a moment that stayed with him as a painful memory throughout the rest of his life.

Pvt JM
Dad’s army photo, approx. 1943.

My sense of history was greatly influenced early in life by such family stories told by my grandfather and father, as they shared memories of their experiences related to the Old West and life during World War Two. Both of them are now gone, but I am grateful for the personal stories they shared with me and my brothers. Now that I’m older, I have so many more questions I would love to ask them, but, of course, it’s too late now.

A suggestion: During this Father’s Day holiday, take time to ask your father (if possible) for a special memory, a story. And if you have children of your own, make sure they hear it, too!

Wishing all you fathers a Happy Father’s Day!

Matt