Understanding

One of the places PH and I revisited on our trip to Virginia was Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson was a strange man.  He is mostly known by most people as the author of our Declaration of Independence and yes, he did do that but it was just a task of a few days.  

In reality, he was an observer and thus an inventor, a statesman, a farmer at heart and in order to have the life he lived, he was a slave owner.  

People don't like to think of that.  After all, he did say "all men are created equal" and pontificated that owning slaves was completely and totally wrong.  Yet he had oh, so many slaves of his own.  

For a couple hundred years that part was glossed over.  Even though his slaves dug by the shovelful the top off the mountain his home sits on.  If you are there you can see it clearly.  His slaves built this house, you can see hand prints in some bricks.  They tended his gardens, cooked his food, gave birth to some of his children. Only in the past few years have the interpreters started to mention the slaves.

and while Mr. Jefferson lived like this

His slaves lived like this.  And oh, my, this is all cleaned up for company.  The floor is still dirt. The archaeologists believe these 'nicer' cabins housed the Hemings family.  They are closer to the house and larger and Sally was 'special' to Mr. Jefferson.

Colonial Williamsburg has people who they call the Nation Builders, the early residents who were all part of the movement for independence from Britain are interpreted by these people.  George Washington (young and old) Martha Washington, Patrick Henry (young and old), Lafayette, Rochambeau, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson (young and old), Mrs. Vobe, and a few I can't think of at this moment.  We loved their programs and went to all of them. 

This is the man who assumes the identity of Thomas Jefferson after he retired to Monticello (he started out at Colonial Williamsburg for many, years but ten years ago went to Monticello and left the younger TJ at CW.  This man has been Jefferson for over 30 years.  The Nation Builders give a talk and then take questions.  They know absolutely everything about the person they portray, the times they lived in and  you can't trip them up. Many have tried.  We've watched it happen. 

This TJ has had to answer many slave questions lately and he claims it boils down to Virginia law at the time. He claims the slaves COULDN'T be freed because under Virginia law they were property, just like your dishes and pillows, and as such had to be inventoried and accounted for to the state and none of these people had the money to pay the state for the value of their slaves.  In essence TJ died deep in debt.  Washington had no money.  And besides, Washington's slaves didn't belong to him, they belonged to Martha. 

When we try to reason with a 20th century mind we have to remember when talking to these people they are interpreting the 18th century and what was legal then.  Moral is a whole other matter.

I am trying to learn.  I'll never understand but I'm trying to learn.  When we go into a gift shop I go straight past the mugs and t-shirts for the bookshelves.  
 

Travel Stitching

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We're Back!

 We've been gone for two whole weeks but now we're home and so glad to be here.  I love travelling and seeing new places and trying new things and learning what I can learn but oh, I do love being home.  PH always says "three days out and you're ready to go home" and he's right. I like home.  My people are here, my books are here, my stuff is where I put it.  

This was a good trip - again, we took our grand daughter to Williamsburg, Virginia.  Well, actually, she was closer to Yorktown on a peninsula, digging in dirt, which is what archaeologists do.  PH and I stayed in Williamsburg and enjoyed Colonial Williamsburg again this year.  

There is so much to see and do and learn and even though we were there for two weeks last summer we hardly did the same things this year.

I took a lot of pictures but my photos are usually a little weird.  Not many buildings - just two, actually. This year I focused on taking photos from the outside of a window in.  I like how they turned out. 

We won't bother you or bore you with miles of scrolling, but I will do a few now and then.  

This is the master tailor for Colonial Williamsburg (CW).  As all the trades people, he actually makes the clothes the people wear.  He also made a replica of the coat George Washington wore at his inauguration.  Don't we all look for good light to sew by? 

His tools

                    

The milliner makes dresses, etc. for the women of the village.  She saw me and smiled.

Sobering

 On Wednesday, July 8 at 6 pm museums across America held a reading of the Declaration of Independence. All at the same time on the same day, large or small.  And our museum was part of the event.

Our museum has new travelling sign boards displaying what happened historically nationally after we declared our independence.  The national events were on the top row and Lowell's history in perspective on the bottom rows. 

This sign board explains why there is a Lowell.  We had here, in this area, in the confluence of the Flat and Grand Rivers the largest concentration of ermine in Michigan at the time.  When you see a royal wearing a robe with those black spots?  Those are ermine hides, the black tipped tail was what the royals wanted and likely came from here.  

That cabin in the photo?  It's the only drawing that exists of the first fur trade cabin in the area.  

            A replica was built a few years ago near the best guess spot where the original once stood.  

Our daughter stood on the porch of the museum, originally a home built in 1873, and explained to the gathering about the combined meeting all across the country and specifically Michigan, for the reading of the Declaration.

We had a respectable group come to hear.  It was church quiet. 

And the Declaration was read. 

I must say here, being political for just a moment, that this was the first time I've ever heard the entire Declaration read or read it myself.  We all grow up knowing what it meant but how many of us actually read it word for word?  We grow up thinking the document was the end of our affiliation with England but it was only the start.  I used to tell the kids at school,  "No, no, no. The Declaration was a letter we sent to King George saying, DECLARING we're done being your colony. George replied, "Um, I don't think so." Then there were eight years of war to prove our point and then the work began to actually DO what we wanted.  And we had to work hard for that.   

I sat there listening and was aghast at the similarities to today, the accusations against King George III, the reasons for our turning away from his rule, the call to do so, the obligation to do so.  I kept nudging PH as point by point was read of his 'crimes' against us.  

Remember the term historically used to describe King George?  The Madness of King George?  Well, here we are.  

Peas 'n' Berries

 

It's that time of year - it seems everything comes ripe at the same time.  Strawberries are done but blueberries, cherries, black and red raspberries, are leading the way now.  Corn is very tall so will be early.

Oh, and peas.  Friday we went to the pea patch for a supply.  We get a bag like this for ourselves and one for our sin-in-law who eats them raw out of a bowl like peanuts, and we gave a bag to PH's brother.

People line up, cars line up, it's a very busy place and they run out every day. You have to be there early. No, we don't pick them ourselves, they have a machine to do it and shell them. 

I wish I liked peas.

This is a labor of love.  Picking black raspberries can be considered a chore if you didn't love the berries so much.  PH won't pass by a wild patch along the side of the road but lucky for us a friend has a huge yard, lots of it wild and in that wild are a bazillion black raspberries. You just have to go get them. We had good rain this spring and the heat we've been enduring is only ripening them quickly.

Even if it's brutally hot like we've had last week, he's out there picking along the side of the road.  And then Friend Don said, "they're ready!" 

                 

So we went.  If you do this you have to want them.  We crawl through the brambles, thick with scrub weeds and berry vines, spider webs and mosquitoes.  No pain, no gain.

                           There will be many more this week as these ripen and PH will be out there. 

I need enough for two pies in January and this morning we picked 3.6 pounds.  Plenty for the pies but there are so many more berries maybe a batch of jam will materialize, too. 

THIS is summer.

Here's a sample example of the border Adelaide chose for her quilt.  I've laid it out here as a preview. I'm using all of the yellow and green batiks so there's variety and the little bar in the middle is the dots. I like it!