Camp Mattatuck

A friend on Facebook recently posted a link to Camp Mattatuck (http://www.campmattatuck.org/) the Boy Scout camp associated with the Connecticut Rivers Council of the BSA. This camp was established over 80 years ago (1939) and is in the next town from where I grew up. I’d like to take the opportunity to add to several other posts I’ve written over the past years as they all have links to this place. When I had the opportunity to attend Camp Mattatuck it was in the early days of the camp, over 60 years ago. Since then, there have been many changes to the camp (adding sailboats and canoes and other facilities), but the camp still occupies the same 500 acres of property that it did when I was there. Here is a map of the central part of the camp where some of the stories below took place.

[Camp Mattatuck]

 

Scouting Skills

There are a number of skills which I learned or improved upon as a result of my scouting experience. Here are a few of them:

Hiking – Although there are 500 acres at Camp Mattatuck, I never hiked much on that property. That was an activity that we usually did as part of our local troop. I’ve written about one such experience here. I also on one occasion hiked the blue trail from Wolcott all the way to Mattatuck and I mentioned that in an earlier posting.

Swimming – When I wrote about all the places that I went swimming in my youth, I realize that I forgot about swimming in Lake Kenosha. But that was the location of one of my more memorable swims. The BSA at that time offered a mile swim badge and I received that badge during my time at Mattatuck. In order to swim a mile, you swam back and forth between the boat dock and the wall under the diving boards (see “y” on the above map). The depth under the boards is too deep for you to touch bottom, but the area by the docks is much shallower. You are not allowed to touch the bottom at all during the swimming of the mile. So, there is a camp leader standing on the dock to ensure that you do not “cheat”. That person also counts all the laps – as I recall, it’s more than 30 times and it’s easy to lose count when swimming for an hour or so. But I was successful.

Gun range and archery – One of the offerings at Mattatuck is learning how to use a bow and arrow on the archery range and how to shoot a gun (22 caliber rifle) on the firing range. But those are not skills I ever used much in later life. We did have neighbor who went archery hunting and his sons also had bows and arrows which they could use to shoot a target in their backyard. But I didn’t have the muscle tone to pull back a bow very well so only did it once or twice with him.

I did go hunting once in my life, so my practice on the range at Mattatuck proved valuable. On Thanksgiving weekend in my sophomore year of college I went home with a friend as all the dorms were closed for the long weekend and it was too far to travel back to Connecticut from Michigan just for a few days. My friend’s father checked me out that I knew proper technique (thanks to Camp Mattatuck I did) and I got to borrow his .257 Remington (and his father’s license and hunting outfit). His father didn’t think we’d get anything (it was deer season) as he’d been out hunting on the property they owned (a quarter-section or 160 acres) everyday and had not even seen anything to shoot at. But my friend and I went out on the last day of hunting season and I ended up getting a buck (one-shot Al!) Everyone was surprised. His dad dressed it and hung it up in the garage and the next day before going back to college I got to eat part of the heart and liver (the rest was not ready to cook yet). I still have the tail and broken horns from that long ago event.

 

A Memorable Fall

The incident I remember most happened on my last time camping here one summer. I’ve written about it before, but I’d like to expand upon that story so that it can be passed on properly.

It may have been the same summer that I received my mile swim badge, but that was all about 60 years ago so I’m not sure. I was staying in one of the camping sites on top of the hill (I don’t recall whether the various areas had the names that they do on the current map above). I had to use the latrine after supper so the rest of our group had already left for the evening campfire in the amphitheater (“t” on the map). It was now about dusk and in order to get there quickly, I was running down the hill on the camp road. Back in those days, the road down the hill was pretty unimproved and there were ruts in it and some exposed tree roots from being washed out. Anyway, I caught my foot on one of the exposed roots and took a tumble. There was only one other scout around and it must have looked pretty spectacular to him!

Getting back up and dusting myself off, I continued (at a much slower pace) along the water’s edge to the amphitheater where the evening campfire was already in progress. But I was pretty bruised and sore. I was trying not to get noticed, but the other scout who had observed my escapade on the hill told one of the leaders about what had happened and he asked me to leave the campfire and go to the first aid tent (it was about where the “w” is on the map). The adult leader on duty that night happened to be a man from Wolcott whom I knew. He examined me, determined that I may have broken a bone in my shoulder and decided that I needed medical attention. He sent someone else to get my gear from the tent and bring it down while he called my parents to have them come and get me. This was on a Saturday evening, so I was getting my camping time terminated early when we were planning on being there until the following afternoon.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, my parents had been having a rough day. They were hosting a get-together of a number of couples from church that evening and in the morning our refrigerator had unexpectedly died. My father had had to drive to an appliance store in Waterbury that not only had a reasonably priced replacement, but who could deliver it immediately. They had gotten it delivered around noon, gotten all the thawing items transferred to the new one so they would not have to throw out any food (and so they had room for the extra things needed for the party). The call from the camp to “come get me” came right as they were hosting this party – not exactly an opportune moment.

Fortunately, Camp Mattatuck was not that far from our home – about 9 miles and a 15–20-minute drive. My father excused himself from the party, drove that distance, loaded me and my hastily packed gear (thanks to the unknown scout who did that for me!) and took me back home. I was then sent immediately upstairs to bed (it now being after dark) while he rejoined my mother downstairs hosting the party. I’m sure he was wondering – can anything else go wrong today?

The following day (Sunday), I was confined to bed – not so much for the potentially broken bone in my shoulder, but nursing all the other painful bruises from my unplanned tumble. My siblings went to church with my father, and my mother stayed home to keep me company and help ease my discomfort as much as she could. In the afternoon, there were apparently some conversations between my parents that I was not a part of.

(I should mention here that our family were staunch Christian Scientists. As such we relied on prayer rather than the medical profession. None of us had ever been to a doctor, we had not been in the hospital with the exception of being born, nor had we so much as ever taken any medication. While my father had been in CS his entire life, my mother had only been part of that religion since she married. So, she was not quite as staunch in her beliefs – which were now being challenged by the first medical issue in the family – the injury of her oldest son.)

On Monday morning, my dad didn’t go to work as he normally did and he was driving me to school to make it easier for me – or so I thought! But when we reached the turnoff to the school, instead of going to the left, he went right. Despite his objections, my mother had “won” the battle the previous day and my father was taking me to the ER at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury (where I had been born, and the closest medical facility to Wolcott – this was in the days before all the emergency care facilities that we now have). I was about to experience a hospital ER – which no one else in our family had ever done before.

Being a “walk-in” instead of coming in an ambulance meant that I was a pretty low priority case. As a result, it took most of the day before I was finally seen. I got an x-ray and it was determined that I had indeed broken my collarbone. The procedure for that injury was a “figure-eight” bandage around my shoulders to keep my shoulders back and the two ends of the bone in alignment. But as it was now late in the day, they also made the decision to keep me overnight for observation. (Again, this was in the days before they release people very quickly, back then even a birth required nearly a week of “confinement” instead of the almost out-patient mentality which we currently have.)

Having not many beds available, they put me in the pediatric ward where everyone else was several years younger than I was. But at least I would finally get some food (I was pretty hungry from having missed lunch) and I could also relieve myself (since I had not been able to use a bathroom all day as well). For the latter, they brought me a urinal (not a bedpan) – basically an enamel pitcher. I filled it!

A brief description of the pediatric ward… Rather than the private/semi-private rooms that we now have in our local hospitals, this was a large room with 10-12 beds around the outside. There were a number of windows, so it was a nice sunny room, but having so many beds in one room (all occupied), I was able to visit with many of the other (young) patients and see any parents who were visiting them. I was older and mobile since I only had my shoulders bound up. There was also a single private room right next door and I enjoyed visiting with the young man (probably age 8 or so) who was there and could cheer him up (since he couldn’t see any of the other beds from where he was laying). As I recall, his parents had given him a deck of cards and we played a few card games together.

The next morning, after getting checked out by the medical team making their rounds, I was declared fit to leave. My father once again had to take a day off of work to come get me. They also gave me an excuse not to have to participate in PE at school for several weeks and an appointment to see the pediatrician for the first in a series of follow-up visits later in the week. Since I was already dressed for school (as that’s where I thought I was going on Monday morning), my father dropped me off there with my excuse note and went to work late that day.

Later in the week, my mother took me to the doctor for a follow-up visit. I recall it was somewhere in Middlebury. It was very brief. She made the determination that it was not worth the effort (or the cost) and so we never kept any of the appointments for later follow-up. I just wore the figure-eight bandage for several weeks, then removed it after the bone was healed.

 

Conclusion

This was all over 60 years ago. I haven’t been back to Camp Mattatuck since as our Boy Scout Troop was lacking leadership the following year and our entire Patrol resigned after getting frustrated with that lack of leadership. I expect that the roads in the camp no longer have protruding roots. And I hold no grudges against them. The skills I learned there have stayed with me and I have fond memories of my times there. Several generations of boys have been helped in their journey into manhood since then. May Camp Mattatuck continue in their service for many more years to come!

Living Russell Descendants

One of the genealogical brick walls that I’ve always had is tracing the origin of my Russell ancestors. I’m pretty certain that my great*6 grandfather was Robert Russell who was born around 1730. He left a will when he passed away in 1811 which named all his children, including his oldest son, John, who was born in 1756. John, in turn, left a very detailed will when he passed away in 1833 which not only named his children, but where they all lived. I have DNA connections for individuals descended from several of John’s children, confirming my being descended from him, and this in turn means that I am descended from Robert as well. But the typical DNA analysis from Ancestry or 23andme only gives an idea of what parts of the world you are descended from and connections to other individuals is limited to going back 5-6 generations.

However, there is another type of DNA analysis called y-DNA which looks at a number of markers on the y chromosome and can group people into what are called haplogroups. It is limited to tracing lines of males since only males have a y chromosome.

My cousin (2^nd cousin, once removed), George contacted me indicating that he had ordered a DNA test for this type of analysis. There is already a Russell grouping to which these results can be submitted which will indicate which haplogroup you belong to and who else is in that group. He is hoping that by matching to other individuals we may be able to combine our research and potentially get matched to others who may be able to take our ancestral line back farther. One of his requests was to ask if there were other living Russell males related to us who might be willing to take the y-DNA test as well. This type of research is right up my alley.

 

Methodology

I started at Robert Russell and began building a downward descendant tree. Since we are only looking for male descendants who can pass on the y-DNA from Robert, all females can be ignored, including their descendants. Also, any of the males who died young, or did not have children can be scratched out. If all lines down from anyone terminate for any of these reasons, then that person can also be eliminated. I continued downward using information in ancestry.com (family trees, census records, etc.) until getting to individuals who were born in the early 1900s (census records currently stop at 1940). If there were family trees who had placeholders for male descendants which were “hidden” (indicating that the individual was still living) or there were other indications that the individual may have had male descendants, then I started using other sources (obituaries, phone directories, etc.) to try and find male descendants who might still be living. Most of the time I was able to find the names of these individuals and often a phone number or city where they are living. Once I found a living male Russell, I did not search deeper (for example, I would stop at myself and my brothers and not be concerned whether they had male children/grandchildren in more recent generations). Thus, most of the individuals I identified were in my generation.

 

Results

Robert Russell had three sons – John (1756-1833), James (1757-1808), and Abijah (1765-1836). John had the largest family (and the most sons), but James and Abijah also had male offspring. Below are listed each of these family and what I found.

John

Caleb (1775-1830): The only continuous male lines from Caleb are from his grandson, Walter. The eleven living males include myself and my brothers, two cousins in New Milford, CT, George and his siblings/nephews/cousins, and one other 2^nd cousin in CT. Since I know all these individuals, George be the representative of us in getting his y-DNA tested. None of the other lines from Caleb have continued unbroken.

William (1778-1848): There are four living males in this line carrying on the Russell name – one man and his three nephews. They are all over 60 years of age. I was able to locate contact information for three of them.

Lee (1800-1888): There are a total of fourteen males in this line carrying on the Russell name. I was able to get names for eleven of them and contact information for five of them.

Levi (1813-1896): Four individuals still passing on the Russell name and I was able to get contact information for three of them.

James

There are a total of eight individuals here, all descendants of James’ great-grandson, John (1828-1907). I was able to get contact information for seven of them.

Abijah

Only one individual possibly here, but I could not locate a name or contact information for him.

Summary

There are a total of 42 living individuals who have a continuous male connection to Robert Russell. That’s a pretty fair number of people, so I’m pretty sure that we will be able to convince a few of them to participate in our y-DNA contribution project.

 

Family Tree DNA – Russell group

As I mentioned above, there is already a website that is collecting male Russell individuals y-DNA results. There are roughly 340 results in this database. Russell is a very common name. Thus, there are a number of different haplo-groups to which these individuals have been linked (E1b1a, E1b1b1, I1, etc.). But 70% of the individuals who have submitted results are in the haplo-group R1b. These individuals have been further subdivided into a number of different “Lineage” groups based on their sharing a common identified ancestor or a small section of their descendant tree. In looking through these results, it appears that there may be one person in the above list of Robert Russell’s descendants who has submitted his y-DNA results. That person identified his ancestor as “David Russell, b.c. 1823, Putnam, NY, USA”. I believe this to be David M Russell (1829-1905), one of the sons of Lee (1800-1888), as Robert’s descendants lived in Putnam/Dutchess County, NY. If correct, this means that one of the three living male descendants of David whom I identified in my research may be the person who submitted that y-DNA result. This result is currently in haplogroup “R1b – No match” as there are no other individuals with whom they share a section of their tree. If George’s y-DNA results match, then we will contact the individual and confirm our shared ancestry. However, since this individual only apparently knows his ancestry back to David and George and I already know it back three more generations (David – Lee – John – Robert), then it may not add much to our knowledge of where Robert came from.

However, in looking at the overall results of all the individuals in haplo-group R1b, the place of origin (which is supplied by the individuals submitting their results) is overwhelmingly similar – with the primary places being Scotland, Northern Ireland, Unknown Origin followed by England, United Kingdom, United States, and a few miscellaneous entries. For those with common lineages, the first three greatly dominate. The other places of origin such as England and United Kingdom primarily show up among those for whom there is not yet identified a common lineage. This seems to me to be pretty good confirmation that my suspicion of my ancestor, Robert Russell, being from Scotland is correct.

Genealogical research is not simple. One needs to look at not only the obscure details given in records, but also be able to step back and look at the totality of the information and how it all blends together to tell the story of our ancestors and their history. The patterns that can be seen in the collection of haplo-groups is just one more type of information to take into account.

Tracing Inconsistencies – the George Hall Russell Story

In an earlier posting about my great-grandfather, Louis Russell, I mentioned his siblings. Referring to his younger brother, George Hall Russell, I said, “Note that his wife was only 14 and she is still at home with her parents – this is too complicated to get into here, perhaps another story some other time.” I’d like to finish that story here with the focus on some inconsistencies in the census records that I’d like to investigate.

The Story from George’s Perspective

George was the fifth of six children of my great-great-grandparents and was 7 years younger than my great-grandfather, Louis. From that younger perspective the disruptions in the family would have had a different kind of impact.

When George’s mother, Lois, passed away in early 1883, George would have not yet reached his fifth birthday. But with his grandparents, Walter and Hester, living with them, they would have been primarily responsible for raising George. Then three years later, when George was eight, his grandfather also passed away, leaving Hester to care for him. Finally, the following year, George’s father remarried and George now had to adapt to a step-mother. In addition to helping to care for her step-children, Cornelia birthed four children of her own with George’s father in the coming seven years.

Meanwhile, George’s full-siblings were getting married and moving out of the house. Louis married in 1892, Martha in 1892, and Charlotte in 1893. Then in 1895, George’s father, Walter, also passed away. George was only 17 at the time, but with no strong ties to his step-mother, he left home and moved in with his older sister, Charlotte, and her husband. His younger sister, Gertrude, being only 15, remained for a few years.

Finally, in 1897, George’s step-mother also passed away. Gertrude likely remained with her grandmother, then when Hester passed away the following year in 1898, Gertrude also married. George’s younger step-siblings were sent to an orphanage.

Thus, when we look into the 1900 census to get a snapshot of the family situation, it’s obvious that George is the “odd man out”. His full siblings are all married and raising children. His half-siblings are elsewhere in the county at an orphanage. But George is age 22, unmarried, living with his sister and family, and working as a “day laborer”. George evidently decided that he needed to finish growing up and having his own family. And so, that’s what he did.

On January 27, 1901 – a Sunday afternoon – George got married. But his new wife, Florence [Nearing] was only 14! And, possibly so she could lie about her age, instead of getting married in New Milford where they both lived, they were married across the border in South Dover, NY. Finally, George was a “big boy” too.

Over the coming decade, George and Florence had four children – Andrew Lewis in 1902, Evelyn in 1903, George Theodore in 1905, and Alice Aminta in 1910 (she lived just 3 months). In the 1910 census we find the family temporarily dislocated. George and his oldest son, Andrew (age 8), are boarding in one house while Florence and the two younger children, Evelyn (age 6) and George T (age 5), are in another house. But Florence in quite far along in her pregnancy, so perhaps she is elsewhere in order to have help with the imminent birth of Alice.

Finally, in the 1920 census, we see George and Florence living together with their children Evelyn and George T. Andrew is old enough to be on his own and is living in Washington, DC, as a chauffer for a family (the family of his eventual in-laws as a few years later he marries one of the daughters in the family)!

Then in 1923, George died at the age of only 44, His daughter, Evelyn is married by then, and his youngest son, George T, is nearly 18, and marries a few years later. George’s wife, Florence, remarried in 1929, but then died herself in 1931, also at the age of 44.

A long list of early deaths in George’s life, but the years that they had were full ones.

 

Inconsistency #1 – the 1900 Census

In the 1900 census, George is living with his sister, Charlotte, his brother-in-law, Denison Hoyt, and their two young children. But George’s marital status shows that he is married and has been for 5 years. What is going on here?

[1900 Census]

I believe that the individual in the family who gave information to the census taker was Denison. I make this conclusion because the recorded birth places of both Charlotte and George’s parents was given as “Connecticut” when, in fact, they had been born in New York. But something that Denison said to the census taker caused him to record George’s marital status incorrectly as well. We can see from the 1910 census that George got the correct information to the census taker – that he had only been married once and that was for 9 years (recall from above that he married in January 1901), and that his parents were both born in New York.

[1910 Census]

So, what might Denison have said to the census taker that caused this incorrect information to be recorded? It may have included that George had been living with them for 5 years (consistent with George having moved from his parent’s home in 1895 when his father passed away). And, while it’s interesting to speculate what Denison actually said to the census taker, getting it recorded as George being married for 5 years is obviously a mistake. To verify, I went through the census records for the entire county, to see if I could find a female, living without a husband, who had also given being married for 5 years. There was only one, and after a detailed examination of her family connections, it was quite obvious that she was not married to George.

So, an interesting inconsistency, but in the end just getting incorrect information recorded by the census taker based on his mis-hearing what was being told to him.

 

Inconsistency #2 – the 1920 Census

As note above, in 1920 George and Florence are living together with their children Evelyn and George. But there is another person in the house – a 13-month-old child by the name of Harriett Lane. Who is she?

[1920 census]

Uncovering the story of Harriett Lane was a bit more complicated that I initially expected, but in the end, it was a fairly simple answer. All the information I had about her showed that she lived her entire life in western CT (Danbury/New Milford/Washington). She was born there, married there in 1943, and died there in 1999. But at no time did she live with anyone else with the name Lane. I finally found the key in her Social Security records. It was there that Harriett herself had given her parents the name of Merritt Lane and Myrtle M Kinney. So, with those names and an approximate date of birth for them around 1895 (making them in their mid-20s when Harriett was born in January 1919, I began looking further.

I found Myrtle in the 1920 census in New Milford (ok, that’s consistent), but as a single lady of 21 living with her parents. Then I found Merritt over the border in eastern NY – but as a married man with three young children! Oops!

So, it looks like there was an illicit affair and Myrtle found herself pregnant as a result. Abortion was not an option in those days, so the more common practice was to “send the pregnant lady away” from when she began “showing”, then give the baby up and return home. Washington, CT (where George and Florence were living) is about 7-8 miles from downtown New Milford (where Myrtle was living) – just about the right distance of separation.

Since George and Florence had a couple of children of their own, all in their teens by 1919, taking in a baby and helping to raise her would be an easy thing to do. Of course, when George passed away in 1923, Florence would have had to pass along Harriett to another family, but they at least would have given her a good start in life. I wonder if Harriett ever visited her foster siblings in her later years?

 

 

 

 

Where Did History Go?

I recently read an article online with the title “Schools Using Fake 'History' to Kill America”. The opening paragraph of the article says, “Americans educated by government today are, for the most part, hopelessly ignorant of their own nation’s history – and that’s no accident. They’re beyond ignorant when it comes to civics, too. On the history of the rest of the world … Americans are generally clueless as well.”

The article goes into a fair amount of depth about how we got this way and how many are now peddling such things as the “1619 Project” as a replacement for the traditional narrative. I heartily recommend the article.

But even in parts of the country where these new concepts have not yet been introduced, we are just as vulnerable to their impact – and that’s the area I’d like to explore in a little more detail.

 

Where we were

When I was in elementary school, learning history was a key part of the curriculum. The first extended writing assignment I can remember was about the history of our hometown (Wolcott, CT). We had to write a series of papers about several aspects of that history, including Early Settlers (John Alcox), Famous People (Seth Thomas, Amos Bronson Alcott), Native Americans (they were still called Indians back then), Places in town (the story behind Potuccos Ring Road), etc. These stories were written on wide-lined paper so it was probably in 3^rd grade. (I still have them in my box of “things to keep” from my childhood.) Later we studied the history of the US, then in high school there was a second round that went into more detail as well as specific courses in Civics, etc.

 

Standardized Testing

One of the more significant items that led to the setting aside of teaching history (and all the other related “social studies” subjects such as government, etc.) was the increased emphasis on standardized testing. This can be illustrated in a summary of the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) legislation of 2001. A few quotes:

“[S]tates are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school. All students are expected to meet or exceed state standards in reading and math by 2014”

“NCLB requires each state to establish state academic standards and a state testing system that meet federal requirements.”

Whether or not you agree with the goals of NCLB, it’s important to notice what’s MISSING. With federal monies now tied to the teaching of reading and math, even if you as a teacher want to give a well-rounded education, your focus is going to be primarily on those two subjects. Your evaluation as a teacher is dependent on it, the administration is going to be measured on it! So, what is going to be set aside – among other things, HISTORY!

One of the other things missing from the original NCLB legislation was coverage of science. This was later added when the emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) was recognized as important. The ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) which replaced the NCLB now includes requirement for standardized testing in science as well.

As one source put it:

“States must test students in reading and math once a year in grades 3 through 8, as well as once in high school. They must also test kids in science once in grade school, middle school and high school.”

“ESSA encourages states and districts to get rid of unnecessary testing.”

This last quote is especially discouraging. Essentially, the federal government, with the weight of financial incentives as the carrot on the stick, is requiring schools to eliminate history and any testing related to it as “unnecessary” and to focus on only on the teaching/testing of reading/math/science!

More recently, some have begun the replacement of STEM with STEAM and adding an emphasis on Art to the other areas. But in all this, we continue to leave out History!

 

Pennsylvania – an example of the above

The standardized testing in PA is necessarily aligned with the above federal standards in order to receive federal funding. Testing in PA is called the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment). As one of the websites of the PA Dept of Education notes, the PSSA

“includes assessments in English Language Arts and Mathematics which are taken by students in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Students in grades 4 and 8 are administered the Science PSSA. The English Language Arts and Mathematics PSSAs include items that are consistent with the Assessment Anchors/Eligible Content aligned to the Pennsylvania Core Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Science PSSA includes items that are aligned to the Assessment Anchors/Eligible Content aligned to the Pennsylvania Academic Standards for Science, Technology, Environment and Ecology.”

Similarly, the assessment page of the Department of Education (located here) says,

“The annual Pennsylvania System [of] School Assessment is a standards-based, criterion-referenced assessment which provides students, parents, educators and citizens with an understanding of student and school performance related to the attainment of proficiency of the academic standards. These standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science and Technology identify what a student should know and be able to do at varying grade levels.”

Until a year ago, our grandchildren here in PA were attending Seven Generations Charter School in Emmaus. As their mission statement notes, they are “an academically rich educational community creating generations of stewards who embrace our world and each other.” Further, it states that they are “committed to a public education alternative that promotes sustainability and citizenship with an interdisciplinary, individualized, project-based curriculum.”

To be honest, they do an excellent job of living up to that mission statement. But now look at the curriculum behind that mission. Their core curriculum talks about their English Language Arts program and their Mathematics program. As an environmentally-focused school, they have separate webpages for each grade on that subject. For example, the fourth grade page says they “study the relationship between a community’s resources and its impacts on the waste stream, types of energy and alternative energy source, and pest management practices.”

Again, they are very good at what they do and very mission-focused. But the curriculum is deficient in the same way as all other PA public schools – there is NO HISTORY!

 

What We Did

Our daughter was increasingly noticing that the attitudes/language that our grandsons were bringing home from school was not always appropriate. And with the oldest one approaching middle school, we knew that it was going to be getting worse as he interacted with the other public-school students. So, this past fall we pulled all of them out of SGCS. They are now being home schooled, but under the auspices of Liberty University Online Academy (LUOA). LUOA has five subjects in all the elementary/middle school grades – Bible, Literacy/Language Arts (English), Mathematics, Science, and History. The first of these will help address the attitudinal problems we were experiencing, and the last will address the deficiency being discussed in this blog.

I had been doing some supplementing in the history area before this. I have a passion for the intersection of genealogy, geography, and history and have written a number of “genealogy stories” in my blog. When I go to visit our grandchildren in Florida, one of the things that I get asked at least daily is “tell us a Grampa story!” This is always met with enthusiasm by me and is a chance for them to get a history/geography education. And I sometimes do it as well with our grandchildren here in PA.

But with the change to this new curriculum, our grandsons here are getting a much broader exposure to history than I could provide on my own. And by “history” I include the subject areas of civics/geography/culture that make up what I used to know as “social studies” when I was growing up. One of the major end-of-year projects for our 5^th grader this year was an extensive PowerPoint presentation on the State (Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania – with slides coving history, government, geography, culture (PA Deutsch), and food. And our 3^rd graders are now thoroughly versed in the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) and its application in federal, state/commonwealth and local governments. They have also looked at Chinese history.

 

Conclusion

The article referenced at the beginning of this blog is about the teaching of what the author refers to as “fake history.” It concludes with the following paragraph:

“Whether the rot and corruption that has taken over the teaching of history and civics in America’s government schools can be reversed remains to be seen. But diagnosing an illness is the first step to treating and curing it.”

I agree with that statement. But it is also helpful to understand why we had an environment into which this “rot and corruption” could take hold. While we can all point fingers at the current liberal left (mostly Democrats) for the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory, we need to realize that the NCLB “passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2001 and was signed into law by President George W. Bush” (see article in EdWeek). The US Government probably had the best of intentions when Congress passed this legislation. But by focusing solely on Reading and Mathematics (and later Science), one of the unintended consequences was to eliminate any emphasis on other subjects (like History). That void was created 20 years ago and it was into this void that the current “fake history” has now come.

George Santayana is credited with saying (in 1905), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This has been transformed by many into “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Regardless of which wording you choose to use; this quotation has a lot of merit to it.

So, amid the current anger about those who are introducing this “fake history” into our schools, let’s not forget that part of the solution must be to reinstate the historical narrative that we pulled out 20 years ago. To quote an idiom attributed to Aristotle, “nature abhors a vacuum.” If we continue to leave the prior historical narrative out, then there will be some other form of “fake history” that we will have to deal with in the future!

Genealogy Story – Hattie Giles

 

Recently, I was contacted via my membership in ancestry.com by a lady who had found a photography from 1880 in the $2 bin of an antique store near where she lived. As the photo had a person’s name and date on the back, she was looking for a relative who might like to have it and had found this person in my extended family tree. I was not immediately familiar with the name Hattie Giles, so had to look her up in my tree (which has over 15,000 individuals in it). This is the story of Hattie Giles.

Harriet (Hattie) Giles was born on 22 Jan 1868 in the small town of Montague City, Franklin County, MA. Her parents were Frederick Asa Giles (age 33) and Julia Maria Wright (age 29). Frederick had been born in New York and Julia in Massachusetts (although there was some inconsistency in the places of birth in various documents over the years).

The 1870’s were somewhat tumultuous in the family. In 1874, Frederick and Julia welcomed another daughter, Grace, into the family, but she died just a year later in 1875. Then in 1879, at the age of just 44, Frederick also passed away.

[Hattie Giles]

 

No longer having a father (and source of income) in the family, Julia and Harriet moved in with Julia’s older brother, Charles, and his family who were also living in Montague. In the 1880 census we find in the household, Charles, his wife Martha, their three children (George-17, William-15, Julia-6), Charles’ and Julia’s mother (also named Julia), the widow Julia, and Hattie, then age 12. It was about this time that the above picture of Hattie was taken.

But this arrangement was only temporary. In 1882, Julia remarried, to Joseph Hubbard Root who also lived in Montague City. He was also widowed, his wife having passed away in 1878, and he was 15 years older than Julia. Joseph was now the third father figure in young Hattie’s life, but he, being older, passed away in 1894.

In 1897, at the age of 29, Hattie married for the first time to Gilbert Wilson Richardson. They remained in Montague City and it was there in 1902 that they had a daughter, Christabel. However, the marriage of Hattie and Gilbert did not last and they divorced sometime that decade.

In 1908, Hattie’s mother Julia died at the age of 70. In 1909, Hattie remarried to a Robert Hamilton, he also being divorced from his first wife. Robert adopted Christabel, who was only 8 years old, and changed her last name to Hamilton.

In 1929, Christabel married George Chester Burns. George’s mother and father were already deceased, having died at the ages of 35 and 53 respectively. Being older, they immediately began their efforts to have a family. Their son, George Robert Burns (who went by his middle name Robert to distinguish him from his father), was born 9.5 months later on December 1^st.

Hattie died in 1938 at the age of 70 (just like her mother). Then, in just a short span of time, all the men in Christabel’s life passed away. Christabel’s step-father, Robert passed away in 1944, her biological father, Gilbert, passed away in 1945, and her husband, George, passed away in 1947 at the age of 48. Still a teenager, Robert now had no living grandparents or father and was the only one left in his mother’s life. It’s no wonder that he remained close to her until her eventual passing in 1970.

In 1963, when he was 33, Robert married Carolyn Hill, my first cousin, who was 20 at the time. Being older, it was not a surprise when Robert passed away in 1999 at age 69 (continuing the pattern begun with Hattie’s mother Julia who passed away at 70, then Hattie at 70, and Christabel at 68) as well as the Burns men (who passed away at ages 65, 53, and 48 in the prior three generations).

As a side note, through Hattie’s Wright ancestors, Robert is my wife’s 9^th cousin, once removed. And through the Richardson line he is my 9^th cousin, twice removed. It’s a small world!

Strange Foods and Unfamiliar Places

Every once in a while, I see these “quizzes” in social media asking you how many of the list of various foods you do/do not eat. I don’t generally respond because I’ve eaten just about everything on the list – and generally enjoyed it. I’ve said on many occasions that when I encounter a new food, my response is “try it, then ask what it was” as if you know beforehand what it is you may have a reaction to the name of it rather than to the food itself. I will sometimes have to take a slight delay before eating it – just because I want to watch someone else eat it first to know if I’m eating it properly. And I’ve only refused something once – as I’ll explain at the end of this blog.

Here, in no particular order, are a list of some of the less usual foods that I’ve had the opportunity to eat. I’ve limited myself to no more than one food per country/city, partly because I don’t always remember what it was I ate for every meal and there are so many good foods in every country I’ve been to. Note that there are restaurants in the US which serve these types of foods, but having them in their country of origin is the best!

 

Peking Duck (Beijing, China) – Peking is the original name of the city of Beijing, so it’s only natural that this is the best place to find that specialty. The more famous restaurants which serve it are known by nicknames: Big Duck, Little Duck, and Sick Duck (a strange name for a restaurant, but so known because it’s across the street from a large hospital). There are multiple cooks involved in the preparation – some specialize in the cooking, and others in the carving process. Each of the pieces has skin, fat, and meat – not at all like the US tradition of slicing a chicken/turkey. Yumm!

Tortillas with Fried Bull’s Blood (Mexico City) – While in Mexico City on business we went out one day to a really nice restaurant and this was on the menu. I was feeling adventurous (as is often the case), and decided to try it. It’s just what it sounds like. They pour bull’s blood from a pitcher onto a hot grill and stir it around until it turns a brownish-red color and begins to coagulate. You get a dish of it along with tortillas. You put a tortilla on your plate, add a spoonful or two of the fried blood, roll it up, then eat it. I liked it so much I had a second one. Doesn’t this sound appealing?

Raw Fish (Sushi) (Tokyo) – Before visiting Japan, I wasn’t sure about the idea of eating raw fish. But when I was there for a few days with one of my Japanese contacts, Ishida-san, and he took me to a little restaurant where they served it, I figured, “why not?” We were at the bar with the chef right in front of us. He would make a few of one kind of fish, lay it on top of a hand-formed bit of rice, then put it on the counter. I lost count of the number of different types of fish we had that meal – but all raw (of course) and all delicious.

Slime Balls (Venezuela) – I’m not sure what the correct botanical name for this fruit is. They look like a hard-covered fruit, larger than a grape but smaller than a golf ball. You crack the hard-covering off, then pop the whitish, slimy-looking, fruit in your mouth. You can only suck them as there is a large, hard pit in the center. Not the greatest to look at, but in a hot climate the moisture is appreciated.

Fufu (Ghana) – This is a soft, doughy staple food made of boiled cassava mixed with plantains. Most foods in Ghana are not eaten with utensils. You take a small handful off the big ball on your plate, shape it appropriately (using the right hand only) and dip it in the soup/stew – often a peanut butter soup, trying to keep your hands relatively dry. After the meal you wash your right hand using a bowl of water and soap on the table. When I began my stay in Ghana the first few days I would have a very discolored hand from the soup, but by the end of the week, I would only have staining on the ends of a couple of fingers. You can read more about my Ghanaian eating experiences here.

Brazilian Barbeque (Sao Paulo, Brazil) – Unlike the US version of barbeque, the Brazilian version is a restaurant where there are a wide variety of meats. Each is cooked on a skewer and the waiters walk around with them. You select the waiter with the meat you want and he cuts off large slices/hunks onto your plate. There is a large “coin” by your plate with a red and green side and you put the red side up when you don’t want service and the green side up when you do. I lost track of the number of different kinds of meats that had! See here for more info.

Korean Barbeque (Seoul, South Korea) – Korean barbeque is also not at all like the US. All the meats are thinly sliced and available at a self-serve station. Each table has a grill in the center. You take a serving of the kind of meat you want and cook it yourself. Being very thinly sliced, it cooks very quickly. See here for more info.

Mongolian Stir Fry (Beijing, China) – Sometimes it’s not the food itself, but the restaurant experience that is rememberable. I went to a Mongolian Stir Fry restaurant near Beijing. You take a large bowl past a self-serve area that is stocked with various meats and vegetables (all uncooked). When you have what you think you’ll eat, you hand the bowl to one of the cooks who is working at a VERY hot round flat-top grill (about 5’ in diameter). He pours the contents of your dish onto the grill, and, using a pair of long wooden sticks, tosses everything around so it all gets properly cooked. When it’s done (in a very short amount of time), he takes the sticks in one hand and a clean bowl in the other, sends all the food flying in the air with a swish of the sticks, and collects the whole thing into the bowl as he moves it under the airborne food. You then take the bowl to your table and eat. Fun to watch – what talent those cooks have!

Szechuan steak (Shanghai, China) – When in Shanghai with two others, one from the US and one from Korea, we were sightseeing on our free day and it was getting to be dinner time so, since I had been in Shanghai before, I was tasked with finding a restaurant. Looking around, I saw one that looked promising on the 4^th floor of a nearby building. We took the elevator up. They had trouble locating an English menu, but we were seated. I chose a beef dish which had three peppers next to it (meaning it would be pretty spicy) and the other two chose the mildest dish they could find. When my meal was delivered, I saw why it was marked the way that it was. There were so many crushed red pepper flakes that I had to move some aside to find the meat underneath. It was definitely hot, but I knew it wouldn’t last long afterwards, so I really enjoyed it through the tears flowing down my cheeks. Afterwards, my companions informed me that I was no longer allowed to choose the restaurant on the remainder of our trip together!

Seafood Pizza (Bangkok, Thailand) – There are many, many, good foods in Thailand. But one I’d like to mention was one I had on my last trip there in 2012. I was there a day early and thought I’d wander through the small mall that was attached to the hotel. Passing a Pizza Hut, I noticed that they had displays of their food in the window and one particularly intrigued me – seafood pizza. Since that is not something that we have in the US, I thought I’d try it as I particularly like to have seafood in different parts of the world because it is often locally available fish which varies from one part of the world to another. The only thing about this dish that most folks in the US would recognize as “pizza” was that it was on a base of a circle of bread. But there was no tomato paste, no cheese, no pepperoni or sausage, etc. There were small shrimp, clams, and large chunks of some sort of fish, all smothered in a spicy, rich brown fish sauce. It was delicious!

Chilli Crab (Singapore) [Note that this is the proper spelling in Singapore!] – This is a very popular dish in Singapore. Mud crabs are stir-fried in a semi-thick, sweet and savory tomato-and-chilli-base sauce. It is traditionally eaten with bare hands (lick your fingers afterwards!). As the name suggests, it is fairly spicy, but it’s good! (More about it here).

Fresh from the tank (Jakarta, Indonesia) – While visiting our company subsidiary in Indonesia, I was taken out to lunch at a seafood restaurant. What was different about this one was that all the sea creatures were still alive and swimming in tanks around the outside of a room. You would wander around the room with a waiter following and just point to the ones you wanted to eat (“I’ll take that yellow one, I’ll have one of those, etc.”). They would take a net; catch the ones you pointed to and take them back to the kitchen area to be prepared and cooked. Fifteen minutes later, the ones you pointed out would be on a plate in front of you. I have no idea what kind of fish or other sea creatures they were, but I certainly couldn’t complain about the freshness. Fish is often one of my go-to choices in other parts of the world as there are so many different varieties available.

Regional foods (US)

Scrapple – For those not from SE Pennsylvania, scrapple is a mush of pork scraps and trimmings (the leftovers) together with a binder like corn meal. It is then formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf and slices of it are pan-fried before serving. As long as it is decently prepared and fried enough (i.e., so it’s no longer mushy), I like it with maple syrup for breakfast or with ketchup and fried eggs. It’s definitely an acquired taste.

Catfish, Hush Puppies, Grits, etc. – I’ve been on enough business trips to the SE US that I’ve gotten to like their “cuisine”.  Things like fried catfish, hush puppies, grits, okra, etc. are all part of this fare.

Frog Legs – In college the house manager of our off-campus dorm was always trying to be as economical as possible. When visiting the local food outlet one week she found that someone else had ordered a full case of Indian frog legs by mistake and didn’t want them so the outlet had a greatly reduced price on them. She snapped them up and made them the main dish for dinner that night. Many of the students, especially the girls, turned up their noses at them, but I enjoyed them. That also meant that there were lots of leftovers the following couple of nights and the cafeteria policy was that you could have as many leftovers as you wanted. So, I feasted on frog legs for several nights. Tastes just like chicken!

Ostrich Burger – While in Denver for a conference we had our lunch hour free to buy food at any of the many restaurants in the area. One served burgers – but not your standard beef – they had burgers made from Bison, Ostrich, Alligator, and other exotic animals. I only had one day there, so I chose the Ostrich burger. Tastes pretty similar to beef.

My Only Refusal

Fish Eyeball (Hong Kong) – There was only one time that I declined a new food. I was in Hong Kong and we were at a restaurant on the north side of the island right next to a fishing dock. You ordered and the cook went down on the dock, bought the fish directly from the fisherman, then cooked and served it. The plant manager ordered for the half-dozen people in our party and the main dish was a whole fish (just descale and clean it and throw it on the grill). It is delivered to your table whole, i.e., with the head and tail still on (the proper way to eat it is to NOT flip it over, you take the meat from the topside, then if you want more, you lift the tail and scrape off of the other side, but do not flip it over!) The key delicacy is the eyeball – which is staring up at you (the other eyeball which is on the down side of the fish was against the grill and is not edible). I was perfectly willing to try it, but most of the time I watch someone else so I know “how” to eat it. Since there was only one, if I accepted the offer I would not be able to watch anyone else. Eating with chopsticks (which I’m very comfortable with), I could just see myself trying to lever the eyeball out of the eye socket and sending it flying across the room! So I declined out of concern for embarrassment, not out of not wanting to try eating it.

 

 

Connecting Lives, Sharing Cultures

In 2007 I took early retirement and left behind the 40-hour work week. One of the things that I did to help occupy my time that first year was to spend additional time working with an exchange student organization, AFS Intercultural Programs. I had been acquainted with AFS (then called American Field Service) since 1966 when my parents hosted the first AFS student in our town. I was headed off to college, so Ingrid, my AFS sister from Norway, occupied my room while I was away. Then in 1996, when our daughter was a junior in high school and was interested in international business, we thought a year abroad would be a good experience for her and so she was an AFS exchange student to Norway. A few years later, we were informed that AFS was looking for host families and signed up – over the next several years hosting students from several countries. I also began volunteering for AFS which is how in 2007 I heard that there was an opportunity to participate in a volunteer activity to help write a country-specific host family handbook. This would supplement the existing host family handbook and contain information relative to the culture of a single country. I excitedly signed up (with the agreement of my wife, of course), and was accepted as a member of the team.

 

Germany

The team was going to be focusing on exchanges between the US and Germany. There were a total of 14 team members – 7 from each country, one being a staff member from that country and the rest being volunteers. We had about a year to put this handbook together – the US handbook would eventually number about 60 pages. Both teams would meet together for a week in Germany to exchange cultural information (we each had pre-work to do in the form of presentations on specific aspects of our respective cultures – concentrating on the issues likely to arise in host family – student interactions). We would then have “homework” assignments where individuals or small groups would work on specific aspects. Each team would then work in small teams to construct a draft of the handbook for host families in our respective countries. Then the entire team would meet in the US for several days to review/critique each other’s work before the pair of complementary handbooks would be published. (Note – in all the below, when I refer to the “German handbook”, I’m referring to the handbook that was written to help U.S. Host Families understand the cultural issues of German Participants. There is a corresponding handbook, written in that native language to help host families in that country understand participants from the U.S.) All work in-between would be via email exchanges. Let me quote from the preface of the handbook:

“This handbook represents the culmination of the work of fourteen AFS Volunteers and Staff – seven from the U.S.A. and seven from Germany, dubbed the Transatlantic Orientation Exchange. These group members were selected based on their level of experience in both cultures as well as their proficiency in such areas as training and curriculum design. Their work began in their respective countries the winter of 2007 as they further defined the scope of the project and conducted research on the German and U.S. cultures. This process included a survey of families from the previous three years who had wither hosted a German or U.S. American participant. Over 1000 survey responses were received resulting in a rich pool of data that informed the work of both groups leading up to their first international meeting which took place in Bad Hersfeld, Germany in the fall of 2007.

“During the meeting in Bad Hersfeld the volunteers and staff underwent a journey of intercultural discovery similar to that of the AFS experience. Through information sharing, self-reflection, and experiential activities, they gained valuable insight about their own and “the other” culture, lending the project even more intrigue to the individuals involved as they struggled at times to understand their colleagues from overseas.

“The second international meeting took place in the spring of 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. This time group members reviewed the materials and activities produced since the last meeting and developed plans to distribute and provide training around them in their respective countries. Each group will meet in the fall of 2008 in their home countries to complete an evaluation of the project and develop recommendations on how to implement it with other AFS Partners.”

That first meeting in Bad Hersfeld was unique in a couple of different ways. As the first of its kind, we had to figure out not only how to relate as groups of volunteers from different cultural backgrounds, but how to go about the task before us. We also were concerned that we needed to make this a reproducible activity – so we needed to document the process and the structure of the handbook in ways that future groups of volunteers could benefit from our learnings. Between process, structure, and content, it was challenging to keep the cultural aspects of what we were doing at the forefront of our days. As you can see from the below picture, I was one of only two male members in our combined teams – the other being a college student from Germany who was a recent returnee of the program.

[Germany Team]

 

Bad Hersfeld is a small town pretty much in the center of Germany – equidistant from Hamburg in the north and Munich in the south. It also had good train access from all parts of the country, including being just a two-hour train ride from Frankfort where the US team landed. It was a good place to experience the culture that the US team was tasked with writing about. While most of our days were spent in meetings on the various aspects of culture, we did have time to walk about the town as well as we had one “free” day where we all took a train ride to Eisenach, just to the east and in the former East Germany. Eisenach is home not only of the birthplace of Bach, but of the castle at Wartburg where Martin Luther wrote his German translation of the Bible in the 1500s.

As mentioned above, we were working on a complementary pair of handbooks. The USA team was writing a handbook for US families who were hosting a student from Germany, and the German team was writing a handbook for German families who were hosting a student from the USA. So, we needed to both think through what things families in our respective countries would need to be educated in, but we were simultaneously the “experts” in our own culture for the other team.

Over the winter, we each worked on the section of the handbook which we had assigned to us. At our second face-to-face meeting in Chicago, we got to see everything put together and could review each other’s work. And the USA team got to repay our German counterparts by being the host for their time in this country. The first version of our handbook was made available to host families that summer and, after a few tweaks, a revised version was published in June 2009.

That fall, the USA team met for a last time – at a “cabin” owned by one of the team members on a small pond in Cabot, a town in northern Vermont. Spending a weekend in a cabin with six ladies from across the US was an interesting cultural experience on its own – I had to be on my best behavior! As mentioned above, not only did we make some final tweaks to the handbook based on our reflections over the summer, but we focused on ensuring that our entire process was reproducible so that we could develop similar country-specific handbooks for other countries.

We also made two other decisions that would have impact on the future projects. The first was that in addition to a defined process and structure, it would be helpful to have an individual lead the project who was familiar with the process and structure, i.e., one of us. As you will see below, we followed this advice. The second was that we needed to have some organization to sponsor the work. The initial USA-Germany project was paid for by a grant that AFS-Germany had gotten of money that was still left from the Marshall Plan – the US funds that were given to Germany in the aftermath of WWII to help rebuild their economy. The AFS-USA office would be key in locating a source of funds.

 

Austria

Because the culture of Germany and Austria are so similar, I offered to undertake the task of retrofitting the handbook we had developed to meet the needs of USA families hosting students from Austria. This involved not just changing the word “Germany” to “Austria”, but removing the background information about the project and any German-specific cultural issues. I worked with the AFS-USA staff as well as with an individual in the AFS-Austria office to ensure that the results were culturally correct from an Austrian perspective. This second handbook was published in 2009 just as was the final version of the German handbook. While the German handbook was about 60 pages, the Austrian one was only 45 pages due to the removed materials.

 

Thailand

In 2009, the AFS-USA office procured funding for future projects from the Kennedy-Lugar YES (Youth Exchange and Study) office at the US State Department. This would only fund handbooks relating to countries to which the YES scholarships were awarded. This also meant that the resultant handbooks were in the public domain and could be used by other exchange organizations that handled students from those countries.

For the first YES country, we chose Thailand – the YES country that sends the most students to US each year. I agreed to be the team lead for this team. Many on the team chose to take an opportunity to go to Thailand in advance of our meetings and to spend some time visiting other places than Bangkok. I went early as well, but spent those days in the home of a girl, Noon, and her family. My wife and I had hosted her a few years earlier and I had visited her in Thailand previously as well.

As the first of the YES-sponsored handbooks, we needed to eliminate any AFS-specific information and replace it with corresponding information from the YES program as it would be used by other exchange agencies as well. But we found that the structure that we had established for the German handbook worked very well and we only needed a few tweaks. The resultant handbook, like the German one, was about 60 pages.

Since the AFS-Thailand office is also in Bangkok, we were able to visit it and see how their operation differed from that in the USA. I was also able to participate in the “selection camp” where AFS-Thailand interviews students who have applied and selects who gets to participate (at the time they had 14,000 applicants for 700 available slots, so the competition is pretty intense). Thailand’s culture is much more different from that in the USA than the difference between the USA and Germany. So, the task of identifying the key differences that we needed to educate our USA host families on was fairly daunting. But the resultant handbook which the team delivered later that year worked very well and also set the stage for other YES-sponsored handbooks.

[Thailand Handbook Cover]

 

I also had the opportunity a few years later, when I was serving on the AFS-USA Board of Directors, to return to Thailand for one last time and to spend an evening with the AFS-Thailand members of our group. Making friends in other countries is always so delightful! I’ve written about my experiences in Thailand before here, including more about the selection camp mentioned above. I recommend reading that additional information.

 

Ghana

While all the above was going on, we learned that there was an AFS-USA volunteer, Kathleen, who was interested in producing a handbook for US families hosting students from Ghana. Kathleen was a public health nurse and during her career had lived in Ghana for several months giving technical assistance to the CDC-WHO STOP (Stop Transmission of Polio) project. So, she had a real heart for the country and had already gathered much material that could be used for a host family handbook. But she needed help in organizing it and a structure for presenting it. While she was in California and I was in Pennsylvania, I agreed to work with her to take her raw material and convert it to a suitable handbook that could be part of our growing library of host family handbooks.

For several months, we had an active email interchange as I supplied the structure and additional material to supplement what she had already gathered. We also got the AFS-USA office involved as well as a staff person from the AFS-Ghana office to validate our work (that’s another interesting cultural aspect of preparing these handbooks – understanding the cultural workings of adults in the other country and how to elicit appropriate responses to our questions).

So, even though Kathleen and I never had a face-to-face meeting, nor did we visit Ghana during the project, the resultant handbook was equally as useful and demonstrated the robustness of the structure and process that we had defined for the original German handbook.

[Ghana Handbook]

 

Other Countries

Over the next few years, using the structure and process defined by the team working on the original German handbook, initially following the advice of having each new team chaired by someone from a prior team (toward the end the process was well-enough defined that we dropped this requirement), and going to other countries where YES scholarships were offered (and thus having funding available), there were seven additional handbooks written:

·       Egypt – including Mary Ann from the Germany team

·       Turkey – including Lynn from the Germany team and Kathleen from the Ghana team

·       India – editorial assistance by myself

·       Indonesia

·       Malaysia

·       Pakistan – including Holly from the Thailand team

·       South Africa

 

Final Thoughts

All of the above handbooks are located here on the AFS-USA website. I’m proud to have been able to participate in the development of so many of them. I’ve not only made friends from around the world and around the USA, but I’ve learned a lot myself about the cultures from these various countries.

The last of these eleven handbooks was published around 2013 when we had covered the major countries where there are YES scholarships available. It would be nice if more handbooks for other countries could also be developed using this same format, but getting funding and finding volunteers to take on these projects is not easy.

Understanding other cultures is a skill that can have many uses. Even within the US, we have moved beyond the “melting pot” of earlier generations and so we have “culture clashes” within the country as well as between ourselves and cultures from other countries. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to develop cross-cultural awareness through my many visits and interactions with individuals from around the world – not just in the examples mentioned above. I wish that more people could have these kinds of experiences – either by visiting other countries (and not just as a tourist!), or by having individuals from other cultures stay in your home.

While the entire exchange industry has been impacted by the COVID pandemic, there are still many students coming to the US for the coming year who are waiting to be placed with host families. If this is something that interests you, you can learn about available students on the AFS-USA website here.