Seventeenth-century women had few choices or rights. Most went from the homes of their fathers to the homes of their husbands. Pity the woman who had neither looking after her. I have somewhere in my family genealogy files the will of my great-great-grandfather. He left a double portion to his first-born son and split the rest among his other sons, leaving nothing to my great-grandmother and her sister. He assumed, as did most men in that era that his daughters would have husbands to provide for them. It was also assumed a first-born son would look after younger siblings should they need assistance.

Husbands of the Mayflower

My great-great-grandfather wrote that will a couple hundred years after the Mayflower voyage, but things hadn’t changed all that much in the way society was structured. Men decided. Women, for the most part, complied. The $5 theological term for this is ‘Complementarianism.’ It means, according to some interpretations of scripture, God ordains men to be overseers of women and children, with rigid roles assigned to each.

I’ve heard presentations from Biblical scholars with a working knowledge of both the culture and languages of the first-century church. The English word “submit” in scripture is translated from Latin, which was originally translated from Greek. It has a double meaning. One meaning relates to military rank. Subordinates are expected to follow orders from superiors with no questions asked. But another meaning, and I highly suspect the understanding among first-century Christians, has more to do with team work. It’s more like a couple dancing or rowing a canoe. Those activities require mutual cooperation, working together to make it around the dance floor or across the lake.

Our Mayflower people no doubt had a more hierarchical understanding of family life. Should a woman have any property or assets of her own, perhaps an inheritance from her father or income from her labors, those became her husband’s property upon marriage.

To Go or Not to Go

When it came time to decide who was going on the Mayflower voyage, it was up to the husbands to decide what was best for their families. Some brought their wives with them. Some brought their children or left some behind in the care of family or friends. Others left their wives behind, fearing the little woman would be too frail to endure the rigors of the adventure.

All the wives aboard the Mayflower had husbands who essentially said, “Pack. You’re going.” Three of those women were well into pregnancies.

The Survivors

Elizabeth Hopkins should get two medals of honor. She was one of the four alive a year after the Mayflower arrived and she was one of the three women to deliver a baby on the ship. She traveled with Stephen Hopkins, his children from a previous marriage (Constance and Giles), and her own daughter, Damaris. Stephen’s first wife, Mary, died while Stephen was on an expedition with others to go to the new Jamestown colony. He and others got shipwrecked, built a new ship from the wreckage, and eventually made it to Jamestown. While there, he learned his wife Mary had died. Elizabeth was born circa 1585 in England and married Stephen on 19 February 1617/18 (depending on which calendar system you use). As the Mayflower made its way across the broad expanse of the Atlantic she went into labor and delivered a son they named Oceanus. The child survived his birth but did not live more than a couple of years beyond that.

Susanna White has bragging rights for surviving, delivering a baby while on board, and being the first bride in the new Plimoth Plantation settlement. She married William White circa 1614 in Amsterdam, where the future Pilgrims lived in exile from 1608 to 1620. She traveled with William and their son, Resolved. Her son Peregrine was born while the ship was anchored off the shore of modern Provincetown. He lived to adulthood, married, and has numerous descendants. William died the first winter, as did Elizabeth Winslow. Edward Winslow and Susanna married on 12 May 1621. They had four children who lived and another who died young. Susanna lived to at least 1654.

Eleanor Billington, one of the four still alive a year later and the only one of the four who didn’t start the journey with the Separatists coming from Leiden in Holland. She sailed with her husband John and sons John and Francis. The Billington family has the dubious reputation of being the troublemakers in the community. Francis, probably a teenager on the voyage, nearly caused a fire when he shot off his father’s gun and sent sparks into a nearby gun barrel. Once off the ship, he wandered off, climbed a tree, and spotted a body of water. The pond is still known as Billington’s Sea four centuries later. Her husband was executed for murder. Later, she was sentenced to sit in the stock and suffer a whipping for slander against John Doane. After John died, Eleanor married Gregory Armstrong circa 1638. Her death date is not known, but she was still alive as of 1642.

Mary Brewster was the fourth woman to survive and likely the oldest or certainly among the oldest women on the ship. Genealogists have not yet confirmed her maiden name. She married William in Scrooby, England, circa 1591. She and William had five children and at least one recorded stillborn baby. She sailed with Elder William Brewster, who was designated the community’s spiritual leader once they left Holland. Their pastor, John Robinson, stayed behind with the rest of the Separatist community in Leiden. They brought their two younger sons, Love and Wrestling, with them. They left behind Jonathan, by then a young adult, and their two daughters Patience and Fear. Mary was among the few who didn’t become gravely ill during the first brutal winter. She stayed busy nursing others back to health and comforting those whose parents, children, or spouses died during those first perilous months.

Mary assumed responsibility for two of William’s orphaned young cousins when they lived in Leiden. Those children did not sail with them. On the ship, she assumed responsibility for two of the four abandoned More children foisted on the passengers at the last minute. Once Mr. More realized the children were not his biological children but rather the result of his wife’s long-standing affair with a neighbor, he paid to have them shipped off on the Mayflower.

Mary lived to be reunited with Jonathan and her daughters and see them all married. She also met a couple of her grandchildren before she died in April 1627 at an estimated age of 58 long years.

To Be Continued

I’ll have more about the other fourteen Mayflower wives next week. Meanwhile, Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower delves into their stories in much more detail. It is a historical account of what Mary and the other wives may have experienced. It is a fictional diary. If she left an actual diary behind, I’ve never read anything about it. The book is a combination of her fictional diary, and her account of her amazing life told to one of her daughters once they were reunited two years after Mary left them behind with friends in Leiden.

Most of my books are available wherever you get your books, including libraries. I share a portion of profits with various non-profits.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Paperback, hardback and Ebook. Bookshop.org
Mayflower Chronicles: Paper, audio, Ebook. Bookshop.org
Asunder: Paper. HowWiseThen.com
A Ready Hope: Paper, Ebook. Rowman & Littlefield
40 Day Journey with Kathleen Norris: Paper. Augsburg Fortress
God in the Raging Waters. Paper. Amazon.com 
Married & Mobile. Paper. HowWiseThen.com

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Shawnee Chief Glenna Wallace delivered the keynote address at the ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The designation puts the 2,000-year-old ceremonial mounds scattered around Ohio on par with other sites such as the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, the Coliseum in Rome, and the Pyramids in Egypt.

World Heritage Sites History

In 1978 the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Galápagos Islands as the first World Heritage Site. That same year, UNESCO designated Mesa Verde and Yellowstone National Parks as the first World Heritage Sites in the United States. As of April of this year, 1,199 sites in 168 countries have been designated World Heritage Sites. Natural wonders account for 127 of them, with an additional 933 being designated for their cultural significance and 39 as a mix of both cultural and natural significance deemed important to preserve for future generations.

Sarah Hinkelman, the Historic Site Manager at the Newark Earthworks, said one of the most exciting outcomes of this project was that the planning team included representatives from five of the Indigenous nations that once roamed freely in the areas where the mounds are located. Chief Wallace was among them.

Appling for UNESCO Status

Earning a World Heritage designation requires that a site meet at least one of ten UNESCO criteria. The Ohio team had to verify that the mounds they listed in their application were already recognized for their historical significance and are being protected.

Additionally, the team demonstrated that the mounds have universal value. Though Ohio has more mounds than those included in the WHS designation, only eight met the UNESCO criteria. Two of the mound clusters are in Licking County, a short drive from the over 1.3 million people who live in nearby Columbus. Serpent Mound in Southern Ohio, is well worth the drive, but is in a more rural portion of the state. This mound represents the pinnacle of prehistoric effigy mounds found anywhere in the world. The mound, easily recognized as a serpent, aligns with astronomic passages of the season.

Adding Ohio Mounds to the List

Effort to get Ohio mounds listed as World Heritage Sites started with Dr. Richard Shiels, now retired, but formerly an Ohio State University professor at the Newark campus. Brad Leaper, a senior world Heritage Site archeologist and recognized authority on precontact (with Europeans) archaeology, was also instrumental in seeing the project through to completion. Others on the team included  Talon Silverhorn, a citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe and director of Great Council State Park near Xenia, Ohio, and Logan York, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

The term “Hopewell Mounds” is deceiving as that is not the name of the Indigenous people who built the mounds. Archeologist Warren K. Moorehead made the name Hopewell popular. In the early 1890s he excavated ancient mounds located on property owned by Mordecai Hopewell.

Logan York is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. He is the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) for the Miami Tribe. He is also super knowledgeable about the history of his tribe AND was there during the inception of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks on the World Heritage list.

Previous Uses of the Mounds

The mounds have not always enjoyed the respect afforded them today. The Great Circle Mound in Newark is a perfect circle, encompassing 30 acres of undeveloped land. It was the perfect site for the annual Licking County Fair from 1854 until 1933. Then it became the property of the Ohio Historical Society  (recently renamed Ohio History Connections). That usage likely saved the mounds from the plow and bulldozer, as today the mounds are surrounded by commercial businesses. In the late 1800s, James Lingafelter, a local businessman, announced plans to make the Great Circle a selling point for Idlewilde Park. He claimed the park would be a premier amusement park with rides, entertainment, a race track, four ponds for swimming and boating, and even a hotel. When the Ohio Historical Society obtained the property in 1933 the Civilian Conservation Corps dismantled the park.

Other ancient mounds gave way to urbanization, modern highways and other plans of private individuals who acquired them. Once upon a time, the Licking County Mound area covered nearly four square miles. Today, all that remains open to the public are the Great Circle Park and another set of mounds a few miles away. That site includes a circle and an octagon — and the Moundbuilders Country Club and golf course.

Reclaiming the Past

In 1910 Licking County leased the property to the golf club, The lease stipulated that people could visit the mounds when golfers were not using the course. In 2018, as part of preparations to achieve the World Heritage designation, the Ohio Historical Society took legal action to rescind the Moundbuilders Country Club’s lease. It was set to expire in 2078. The country club filed a motion to stop OHS from taking over the property through eminent domain. In December 2022 the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Embracing the Future

A World Heritage designation contributes to the local economy. Park manager Hinkelman reports 478 people visited the site in May 2023, before the park was approved as a WHS site. In May 2024,  1,336 people visited, partly because of the mounds new status.

On the day I toured, our group included a family from Utah and another from Tennessee. Hinkelman reports they’ve already hosted international visitors. These are people who will likely stay to dine, and maybe sleep in the area. Equally important, sites sacred to the people whose ancestors built these feats of geometry, astronomy, and engineering, are now protected in perpetuity

Thank you for reading along. I learned most of the content of this article while doing research for the upcoming historical novel about the Ohio Valley before and after settlers started moving into the region. My ancestors were part of that migration. You can follow along on Substack.

I write about a variety of topics, but focus on how history influences our present and informs our future.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post UNESCO World Heritage Sites appeared first on How Wise Then.

Now that I do know, I can’t unknow it. What do we do when things we thought were true turn out to not to be? How shall we respond when things we’ve managed to not know come knocking on our conscience demanding to be acknowledged.

Acknowledging events of the past seems to be a good starting place. With that in mind, I offer this land acknowledgment statement:

As I prepare these words for you to read, I acknowledge the sacred lands on which I now live, giving thanks to those Indigenous Peoples who nourished this place, and who are still among us today, in spite of the many broken promises that I mourn. As I know more, may I do more to help pave a path forward, working together to nourish this land for the benefit of all people.

Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890

Ever hear of the Morrill Acts? I did not until I was trying to figure what was located on the land currently occupied by the Ohio State University Newark Campus. It turns out that campus is not the result of these acts. However, The Ohio State University main campus, sprawling over 1,700 acres of Columbus, is one of two land grant institutions in this state. The other one is Central Ohio State University. Curious to know more, I read several articles about land grant colleges.

These are institutions designated to receive funds from the Morrill acts. A total of 57 institutions of higher education benefitted from the 1862 act and another 19 from the 1890 act. In 1857 Congressman Justin Morrill of Vermont introduced a bill that eventually passed in 1862. It seems it’s always taken a long time for an idea to meander through the legislative process.

After the Civil War, Congress established a funding system to assist states in modernizing their higher educational systems. The 1862 Morrill Act gave federal land to states to establish colleges. The intended purpose was to teach agriculture, science, military science, and engineering, without eliminating other scientific and classical subjects. The goal was to expand higher education beyond Latin, Greek and mathematics.

The 1887 federal Hatch Act established an agricultural experiment station at these institutions to do research on best agricultural practices. The second Morrill Act in 1890 required former Confederate states to either provide access to land grant universities, regardless of race, or to provide separate educational options for white and black students. The result was the creation of nineteen additional HBCU – Historically black colleges and universities.

Expansion and Shifting Priorates

By 1914 these land grant institutions had strong political support, enabling them to expand the definition and scope of university course offerings. Over time most land grant institutions evolved into a network of large state universities. For example, the Ohio State student enrollment hovers between 45,000 to 50,000 every year. Today large state universities often dominate the news because their premier athletic events more than their focus on researching agricultural advances. Universities do what they can to attract and keep donors.

Revisiting the Past

According to an August 18, 2020  High Country News article, 52 of the Morrill Act institutions were funded with land stolen from Indigenous Peoples. The article includes the content of a letter preserved by the family of a Native American known as Captain Jim. He received the letter from a U. S. Indian Agent on Department of the Interior, Indian Service letterhead. Written from Fort Hall May 18, 1900, it reads, “Captain Jim, an Indian of this reservation, has permission to be absent for a period of ten days to visit Boise, Idaho. Captain Jim is a leading Indian and chief on this reservation and his tribe formerly roamed in the neighborhood of Boise. He is commended to all persons as being a good Indian, friendly to the whites and deserving of consideration.”

Wow. An adult man needed to carry a letter verifying he had permission to walk about the land that once belonged to his people. The article states that nearly 11 million acres of land was acquired, from an estimated 250 tribes, bands and Indigenous communities. Over 160 deals were brokered through violence, treaties made and later ignored, or pressured transfer of land ownership. The 1862 Morrill Act stipulated that those receiving the land sell it for the benefit of the new institutions. The plan raised close to $18 million for the initial 52 institutions by early in the 20^th century.

Doing Better

When I wrote Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures I learned about a partnership between a university and the Pokanoket people in the area. Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, is named for the 17^th Century minister who helped establish Rhode Island. Over the past few years university leaders have partnered with Pokanoket leaders to learn, retain, and disseminate the history of the area Indigenous people who once roamed freely where the university is now located.

For example, a group of students produced a booklet that documents the oral history Pokanoket people have passed down through a dozen generations, dating back to the 1600s and earlier. Massasoit Ousamequin called on the early English settlers in Cape Cod to work out the first treaty between Indigenous people and the English speaking people we know as the Pilgrims.

Historical facts don’t change, but how we preserve, record, and teach them does from generation by generation. Though some of what I learn is hard to accept, it also gives me hope that by learning more, together we can do more to partner more going forward.

Are there any historical discoveries that have influenced how you think about things? Click this link to check out land grant colleges in your state.

Thank you for reading along. If you’ve enjoyed this bit of history, you might also enjoy  my posts on Substack.

I write about a variety of topics, but focus on how history influences our present and informs our future.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post Land Grant Colleges Research appeared first on How Wise Then.

A popular local pub.

When I moved back to Ohio a year ago, I spent a weekend in Cleveland, where I grew up and where “A Christmas Story” was filmed. I made the rounds of places from my childhood in the 50s, including the house where this movie was filmed. In case you’ve somehow managed to never see it, the movie tells the story of nine-year-old Ralphie Parker in the 1940s. He needs to convince his parents, teacher, and Santa that he’s old enough to handle a Red Ryder BB gun. During my childhood, my grandmother lived a few blocks over on West 14th Street. The movie was filmed in the 80s.

A Movie Re-vitalized a Neighborhood

The house in which the exterior scenes of the movie were filmed, along with two other houses nearby, is now a museum complex. A man living in the neighborhood told me how much he and his neighbors appreciate the positive impact the movie and museum have had on their community.

THE famous leg lamp.

This West 11^th Street neighborhood seems to be thriving. in part thanks to the efforts of entrepreneur Brian Jones who says he’s been “A Christmas Story” fan since his childhood. In 2004 he bought the house on E-Bay for $150,000, paying for it with money he made from the Red Rider Leg Lamp Company. Who could make a living reproducing that iconic plastic leg lamp? Brian Jones could and did.

The people from whom Jones bought the house had remodeled it, and he wanted to restore it to the movie version. He studied it frame by frame, making detailed drawings of the interior and exterior. The producer filmed the interior scenes in a Toronto studio, but they filmed all the exterior scenes in the Tremont neighborhood. Some $240,000 later, Jones had a near-perfect replica of the movie version.

From Short Story to Big Screen

“A Christmas Story” is based on Jean Parker Shepherd’s short story published in In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. Shepherd, a writer, humorist, satirist, actor, and radio, television, and film personality, had a gift for telling stories. He mingled memories from his Hammond, Indiana childhood with his adventures in the Army Signal Corps to create nearly three decades worth of radio content that delighted and amused his radio audience. The home in the movie is based on a home in Shepherd’s hometown. Some of Shepherds’ own childhood inspired the Ralphie character.

Director Bob Clark, Shepherd’s wife Leigh Brown, and Shepherd adapted the original short story into the screenplay in 1983. Clark got the idea for a movie version when he heard Shepherd telling the story on the radio on his way to pick up his date. The story so captured his attention that he drove around the block until Shepherd finished the story.  He was nearly an hour late to pick up his date. He chose the Cleveland neighborhood primarily because it is close to the Higbees Department Store on Cleveland’s Public Square, where the store scenes were filmed.

From Near Flop to Resounding Success

The opening weekend for the movie did not go well, and that might have been the end of the movie. Except TNT decided to air it for twenty-four hours over Christmas Eve and Day in 1997. Running the Parker family’s Christmas story non-stop allowed the majority of the station staff to spend the holiday with their own families.

Look carefully to see Shepherd’s cameo role in the movie. He’s the angry man informing Ralphie, “The line ends here! It begins there!” Shepherd’s experience in radio made him the natural choice to narrate the adult Ralphie. Director Clark made a cameo appearance as the Parker family’s next-door neighbor.

Production Challenges

Shepherd challenged Clark when he kept trying to take on the role of director as well as scriptwriter and voice-over narrator. Clark had a budget and a deadline, and Shepherd’s constant interruptions made his job challenging. He eventually had to ban Shepherd from the set to complete the filming.

Clark realized he’d created a hit when he overheard other guests in a restaurant reciting lines from the movie. The restaurant maître d’ told Clark the family had an annual Christmas Eve ritual of dining there and amusing themselves, quoting lines from various movie scenes. Clark said, “That’s when it began to sink in. This low-budget fluke of a movie had become a quintessential Christmas tradition.”

If A Christmas Story can rejuvenate a community, I’m all for it. But I do hope Ralphie will be careful. Guns are dangerous. I triple-dog-dare you to watch the movie and not laugh.

Thank you for taking the time to read about one of my family’s favorite Christmas flicks. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information. SPECIAL DECEMBER SALE – BOTH MAYFLOWER HISTORICAL NOVELS FOR $35 OR EITHER ONE FOR $22. EMAIL kathrynhaueisen@gmail.com FOR DETAILS.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

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Praying for Peace and Respect

In response to the recent spike in attacks on our Jewish neighbors in this country, I have chosen to shed a little light on this Festival of Lights being commemorated by faithful Jews around the world. this coming week. May they find strength, hope, and ways to achieve peace from their celebrations.

I am not condoning the Israeli attacks on Gaza, nor justifying the atrocities inflicted on the Jewish people by the Hamas October 7 attacks that started the current surge of horrific, heartbreaking tragedies. I am advocating for less blaming and conclusion-jumping about who’s innocent and who’s guilty. This is the latest eruption in a conflict between two ethnic and religious groups dating back thousands of years.

The best way I know to end violence is to learn more about those we so easily vilify as enemies. Until we understand their perspectives, we are doomed to keep repeating cycles of violence and bloodshed.

Five Alarm Fire of Disrespect

To that end, I invite you to consider a recent speech by Senator Chuck Schumer about the many ways people of Jewish heritage and faith have worked for peace and justice in our global village over the decades. You can hear it on YouTube or read it in a press release. This is not about politics as much as it is about choosing to actively work for peace or passively allow violence and prejudice to dominate our interactions. In Schumer’s speech, he refers to the current uptick in violence against Jewish neighbors in our country as a “Five Alarm Fire.”

History of Hanukkah

The term ‘Hanukkah’ comes from a Hebrew word meaning ‘Dedication.’ The eight-day festival is connected to the rededication of the Second Temple in ancient Israel. In 586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the first temple, built under the reign of King Solomon in 1000 BCE.

The events that inspired Hanukkah took place during another turbulent time, around 200 BCE.  According to I Maccabees (a book contained in some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testament scriptures), Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Judea, intending to convert the Jews to Greek ways. He outlawed the Jewish religion and ordered Jews to worship Greek gods. In 168 BCE, his soldiers invaded Jerusalem. They massacred thousands and desecrated the Second Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs within its sacred walls.

Celebrating Victory

Led by Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus, the Maccabees were the first Jews fighting to defend their religious beliefs rather than their lives. After a three-year struggle, the Jews defeated Antiochus. Judas Maccabeus ordered the temple restored. After they purified it, they installed a new altar and dedicated it to Kislev 25.

Judas proclaimed the dedication of the restored Temple should be celebrated every year for eight days, beginning on that date. In II Maccabees, the celebration is compared to the festival of Sukkoth, which the Jews could not celebrate when Antiochus invaded them.

Remembering Through Commemoration

Although not mentioned in the books of Maccabees, the traditional practice of lighting candles at Hanukkah likely started relatively early. The Talmud describes the miracle of the Temple oil. According to the Talmud, when Judas Maccabeus entered the Temple, he found only a small jar of oil that Antiochus had not defiled. There was only enough oil in the jar to burn for one day. But it miraculously burned for eight days until they could find new consecrated oil. That established the precedent for the festival lasting eight days.

Some information for this article came from history.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Hanukkah. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information. SPECIAL DECEMBER SALE – BOTH MAYFLOWER HISTORICAL NOVELS FOR $35 OR EITHER ONE FOR $22. EMAIL kathrynhaueisen@gmail.com FOR DETAILS.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

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William and Mary Brewster are my great x 12 grandparents. While doing research for the two historical novels I wrote with them as the main characters, I spent as much time in the 16th and 17th centuries as I did in the 21st one. The more I learned about them the more I concluded they were truly an amazing couple. Now both Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures and Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower are published and available in print and eBook formats. Mayflower Chronicles is also available in audiobook format.  

I am in awe of the Brewsters and the others who made the dangerous journeys from their peaceful Scrooby village in Northern England to Leiden, and on to the Mayflower.

Most people pick up the Pilgrim story with the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod in 1620 and drop the story after what is widely claimed to be the first Thanksgiving. The story starts much earlier than 1620 and has repercussions that are still unfolding today. In recent years the descendants of those whose land and way of life were devastated by the arrival of thousands of Europeans have been more organized and vocal in telling us the rest of the story. We need to listen. However, for this blog, let me introduce you to this remarkable couple.

William at Peterhouse, Cambridge University

William was the only Mayflower passenger with any college education. He studied briefly at Peterhouse in Cambridge University but did not graduate. Historians do not know why, but I suspect he returned home to help his father as his mother was nearing the end of her life.

William and Mary married at St. James (Later renamed St. Wilfred) in Scrooby. We do not know with any certainty which family Mary comes from; though genealogists and historians have been trying to figure that out for years. One popular theory (it is only a theory) is that she was the daughter of Thomas Wentworth, who was the Bailiff and Postmaster at Scrooby until his death.

William’s father assumed that position after Thomas Wentworth died. When the senior William Brewster died, our Pilgrim William Brewster, Jr. assumed the role.

Before taking over his father’s role at Scrooby Manor, young William was a secretary or administrative assistant to William Davison, who was in diplomatic service to Queen Elizabeth I. She appointed him to her Privy Council. He served Her Majesty as Ambassador to the Netherlands and was named her Secretary of State. Pilgrim Brewster accompanied Davison on many of his court visits trips to the Netherlands on her behalf.

Mother Mary Brewster

William and Mary had five children, and one stillborn infant. Jonathan, Patience, and Fear were born while they lived in Scrooby. Fear’s rather unusual name is based on their commitment to rely on their fear of the Lord rather than the dictates of the Established Church. By the time Fear was born, her parents were deeply involved in the highly controversial Separatist movement. The term ‘fear’ does not mean to be afraid, though their defiance of the Established Church was certainly cause for fear. Rather the term means to be in awe or wonder at the mysterious ways in which God provides.

Two more sons were born after they emigrated to Leiden in Holland. Love was so named because the Separatists in Leiden felt such close kinship with one another they were as one large extended family. Wrestling’s name may be because when he was born, the Leiden community was contemplating migrating to the New World. Such a move was obviously very bold and precarious. They wrestled with the possibility for several years before committing to take their chances.

William the Underground Printer

The decision to take their chances in the New World was solidified when Dutch authorities, under directives from King James, confiscated Brewster’s printing business. Like Martin Luther a century earlier, Brewster printed pamphlets and books that criticized the Established Church. Others smuggled them back to England. Authorities eventually traced them to Brewster’s garret workshop on the top floor of his home in Leiden.

To avoid arrest, William hid for most of the year before the families going to the New World boarded the ship for the voyage. The majority of the passengers were strangers to their close-knit congregational friends. They referred to them as Strangers. The Adventurers, businessmen who financed the trip, insisted they join the Leiden folks. Given their extreme devotion to their religious convictions, they were sometimes called the Saints. Together they made up the English settlers who established Plimoth Plantation on the site of a deserted native village Patuxet along Cape Cod Bay.

Mary said goodbye to her three older children – Jonathan, Patience, and Fear – when she left Holland. She traveled to Southampton with her two younger sons to meet up with William and the other settlers. She and William were eventually reunited with three older children – Jonathan a year later; and the daughters two years later. By the 1600s European ships crossed the Atlantic frequently.

In addition to her own two young sons, Mary assumed responsibility for two of the four More children sent on the journey. History is unclear why these children were sent; one theory being their parents separated and the father didn’t want them to have access to his estate. Again, only a theory.

Survival of the Fittest

As more and more passengers died from extreme hardships, Mary assumed responsibility for newly orphaned children and young adults.  Being one of the older women in the group, she functioned basically as the colony Matriarch. History has recorded very little about her life, in spite of the major role she must have played nursing the sick, raising orphaned children, feeding family and friends, and other chores necessary for survival in the strange new world,

Mary Brewster was one of only five adult women to survive the first winter. She was one of four still alive for what we consider the “First Thanksgiving.” It really wasn’t, since many cultures set aside a time to give thanks for a successful harvest. But there was a three-day feast in the fall of 1621 and the local Indigenous people were in attendance. Mary died on April 17, 1627, the day after the birth of a granddaughter, also named Mary. William died peacefully in his own bed and surrounded by his family and friends on April 10, 1644.

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies, Pilgrim: A Biography of William Brewster by Mary B. Sherwood (Great Oak Press of Virginia, Falls Church, Virginia), and William Brewster: The Making of a Pilgrim by Sue Allan.

Thank you for taking the time to read about the Brewsters and some of the story behind our traditional Thanksgiving. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post Elder William and Mary Brewster appeared first on How Wise Then.

Armistice Day 2018 marked the 100^th anniversary of a day set aside to honor all those who have fought in wars. President Eisenhower, himself a veteran, changed the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day to honor all U.S. veterans, living or deceased. It is now recognized on November 11. The first Armistice Day was set aside to commemorate the signing of the 1918 WWI Armistice. The hope that war would be the end of wars obviously has happened.

Longing and Hoping for Peace

We wait for world leaders to use what finite influence they have on other leaders waging war on neighbors. It feels hopeless. The images of small children and vulnerable adults watching the total annihilation of what was once their homes are heart-wrenching. Words don’t seem to matter. Relief workers are stymied trying to deliver much-needed medical supplies and the essentials of life. I have no useful observations to make. However, I have found solace in the thoughts of others and have gathered them together here for us to ponder as the conflicts continue to tear apart communities and countries.

Winston Churchill

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

George Santayana

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

Albert Einstein

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. Also: Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

Ernest Hemingway

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

Bertrand Russell

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Mahatma Gandi

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

George Orwell

The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. Also:  The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Hate multiplies hate, violence multiples violence, and toughness multiples toughness in a descending spiral of destruction . . .the chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Isaiah 2:4

He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. 

Signs of Hope

I do see signs of hope. When I went to vote early, the woman assisting told me they’d processed over 4,000 people the day before. Voter turnout is growing, which tells me more of us are tuning in and paying attention. Slowly but surely I am seeing an increasing diversity among our elected leaders.

Armistice Day. A day of hope. Perhaps we can yet learn from the past and work together, in spite of our differences, for a more peaceful future. I hope we can create and sustain communities that promote justice, embrace mercy, and truly let people worship in their own way. May we turn our weapons of war into tools for construction and cultivation.

To all who have served or have lost loved ones who have served, may we never forget the sacrifices you have made for us all.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. Share it with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary BrewsterAmazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

PS: For the month of December I’m offering a special two for $35 sale for these two historical novels. See details at HowWiseThen.com.

The post Armistice Day appeared first on How Wise Then.

In 1972 Browne established an academic Department of Popular Culture at the university. He was also the founding editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of American Culture, and the Popular Press (a university-based press) which has published hundreds of books about popular culture. The library’s collection is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.

Not Your Typical Library

The Browne Popular Culture collection includes research materials on popular fiction, popular entertainment, and the graphic arts. Though the collection does not circulate, the staff is available and eager to help visitors explore and find items of interest to them. Many of the items in the collection are included in the library catalog where you can find such categories as Rock & Roll, counterculture, peace and protest, and British popular culture from 1950 through 1975.

Also available at the Browne Library are vintage paperbacks, film and television collections, and a literature index. It has thousands of works related to all sorts of popular entertainment, with materials documenting mass media in the form of television, motion pictures, and radio.

From Comics to Romance

Love comics? Here you’ll find one of the largest comic collections in the country. If you lean more toward romance you’ll be pleased to know this library is the official repository for the Romance Writers of America’s papers. The collection includes graphic novels, tens of thousands of book covers, trading cards, and posters. The counter-culture section has 250 radical, anti-establishment titles from 1950 until 1989. As if that wasn’t enough to keep a visitor browsing for hours, information about cookery and cookbooks is also part of the collection, along with advertising images for movies, cosmetics, mail-order catalogs, and magazine ads.

Voice of Democracy

Browne believed, “Popular culture is the voice of democracy, democracy speaking and acting, the seedbed in which democracy grows. It is the everyday world around us, the mass media, entertainment, and diversions. It is our heroes, icons, rituals, everyday actions, psychology, and religion—our total life picture. It is the way of living we inherit, practice, and modify as we please, and how we do it. It is the dreams we dream while asleep.”

He admitted Popular Culture is a poorly understood academic specialty in which “Scarcely any two persons agree on what Popular Culture really is. Some scholars believe pop culture is what people do when they are not working. Some use terms such as ‘High-Brow’ and ‘Low-Brow,’ omitting terms such as ‘Folk-Cult’ or ‘Folk-Brow.’”

Embracing Society

For Browne, “the working definition of ‘PC’ is those elements of life which are not primarily intellectual. “PC” embraces all levels of our society except Elite culture.  The interests of the Center include the study of most of the aspects of life that impinge daily on all of us. The voice and the music of the people, the movements, sometimes glacial, of its past, present, and future. PC provides a kind of audio-video profile of a nation.”

Detroit native Bill Randle (March 14, 1923 – July 9, 2004) saw the collection’s potential and made one of the earliest and largest contributions in 1968. An academic at heart with 3 master’s degrees, a law degree, and a doctorate in American studies, Randle worked as a pioneering disc jockey. He DJ’d at several radio stations, including WERE in Cleveland, Ohio. Time Magazine named him the top DJ in America in 1955. He introduced Elvis Presley to a national television audience on January 28, 1956, the first DJ to do so.

Overcoming Resistance

Before retiring in 1992, Browne published Against Academia: The History of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Movement. He maintained that despite the enormity of success he’d experienced establishing the field of study of popular culture, he’d faced academic opponents who railed against it. However, after twenty years the Popular movement was firmly established. His work earned him the opportunity to serve as a consultant to the Smithsonian Institute on Popular Culture.

Today, over half a century later, the Browne Popular Culture Library he formed has over 250,000 items and continues to grow.  Some of that expansion is due to the efforts of Nancy Down, librarian at the Browne Collection until her recent retirement at the end of June 2023. She spent 27 of her 34 years with Bowling Green overseeing the Browne collection, first as cataloguer, then acting director. The Popular Culture Library gave her the opportunity to put her Ph. D. in English and her library degree from the University of Indiana to good use.

Librarian Nancy Down

For 27 of her 34 years with Bowling Green Librarian Nancy Down tended to this unique library, first as cataloguer, then acting director, and finally as director. She retired at the end of June 2023,  She gave her Ph.D. in English and library degree from the University of Indiana a good workout tracking the eclectic items in the collection.

“I became interested in growing the collection and seeing how far it would go. It is really different than any other library with items ranging from mysteries to Star Trek. I was especially fascinated with how cataloging fiction expanded from just the author’s name and book title to a great variety of genre classifications. Now there are dozens of genres for fiction and some cross categories such as romance and science fiction.

“It’s been fascinating to be part of a library system that has been chronicling the changing scene in America around diversity issues. One of the more unusual items in the collection is a book that translated a Shakespeare play into Klingon.  We also have a large collection of three-dimensional items and movie scripts. It’s been exciting to see how big the popular culture phenomenon has become. Other libraries also collect popular culture items but tend to specialize in one area such as science fiction or cartoons. This library is more of a generalist collection.”

Thank you for taking the time to read about this unique library. You might also enjoy what I wrote about my  Library tour or the importance of community libraries. Share this with a friend or sign up for your own free subscription at HowWiseThen. I will not sell your information. I look forward to introducing you to more libraries this fall, along with more details about the life of Pilgrim Mary Brewster.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post Popular Culture Library appeared first on How Wise Then.

History Doesn’t Change, But Interpretations Do

The post Columbus or Indigenous Peoples’ Day appeared first on How Wise Then.

Since last Monday was our annual Labor Day holiday, this seems a good time to reflect on some of the labor arrangements in the earliest days of what became the United States. Less than half, only 41 of the 102 passengers on the famous 1620 Mayflower voyage, were seeking a place to establish their own first-century style Christian community. These Separatist religious rebels had a vision and a plan, but lacked the funding to sail away to a new future. They sold what possessions they could and then sold themselves into indentured servanthood for a period of seven years.

The rest of the Mayflower passengers consisted of merchants, craftsmen, skilled workers, other indentured servants, and several orphaned children. The religious refugees referred to them as strangers, and strangers they were to the Separatists at the start of the voyage. The Investors from the Virginia Company had the financial wherewithal to finance the trip. Reluctantly, the Separatists agreed to a contract with them that secured financial backing in exchange for receiving the profits from their labor for a period of seven years. To boost their profits, the stockholders insisted the Separatists accept the strangers into their close-knit community as part of the deal.

Delayed Financial Gratification

Each adult male was granted a share in the joint-stock company. After seven years, the accumulated earnings were to be divided among the shareholders. During the seven-year indentured servant period, settlers were required to work in common, with each settler contributing everything to a typical store and withdrawing from it to meet their own needs and those of their families.  One-fifth – or about twenty – of the Mayflower passengers came as indentured servants. Most of the others were members of the Established Church of England (Anglican). Ironically, this was the very institution the Separatists had emigrated to Holland to escape a decade earlier.

When the Mayflower crew finally spotted land after two months at sea, they discovered they’d arrived north of the jurisdiction of the Virginia Company. Some among the group immediately decided their commitment as indentured servants was null and void. They believed they could now do as they pleased. To avoid chaos and conflicts before they even started establishing their new settlement, they worked out the details of the Mayflower Compact. Every adult male either signed it or had his mark, or “X,” witnessed on the document before anyone left the ship.

Those who came as indentured servants owed whatever they could grow, make, hunt, or fish to the community and the benefactors back in England. The labor was grueling, as were the living conditions. Half the indentured servants died within the first months in the new location. The other half of the non-indentured new arrivals were also in graves by the spring of 1621.

Send More Workers

The remaining few dozen colonists were desperate for help to establish a stable, long-lasting Colony. Several previous attempts to establish English settlements along the East Coast had failed. To avoid becoming another failed colony, the settlers sent appeals back to England, Scotland, and Ireland, requesting more assistance.

In the ensuing years, hundreds of others joined them. For most, their passage was paid for by their future masters. Between the arrival of the Mayflower and the Revolutionary War, it is estimated that as many as four out of five new immigrants came initially as indentured servants. They came believing they’d get food, clothing, and shelter in exchange for their labor. For people in the British Isles contending with grinding poverty and few prospects for a better future, this was an appealing deal. Men who accepted the offer could anticipate finishing their term of service and then getting their own land and financial compensation for their work. There was also the hope they might participate in local government once they were freemen.

Managing Indentured Servants

Early Plymouth law governed the fate of these indentured servants. When still more labor was needed, the Natives were sometimes forced into slavery. Europeans intentionally destroyed Native crops and means of supporting themselves. According to numerous cases recorded in the Plymouth Court Records, governing these indentured servants was a complex process.

After their period of indentured work, they would become free citizens of the Plymouth Colony. Colonial officials sought to ensure that they would be law-abiding and God-fearing citizens who would contribute to the well-being of the Colony after completing their service.

The servant’s master was responsible for the servant until the term of the contract was completed, and the length of the agreement could not be shortened. Thus, servants typically became adjunct members of their master’s household. This protected the Colony from assuming responsibility for those who, for whatever reasons, could no longer be productive members of the master’s household. Occasionally, the Court ruled the community, not the master, was responsible for a servant who was sick or mistreated. That may have laid a foundation for a future welfare system in the Colonies.

Immigration Issues Are Ancient History

Migration has been a part of the human experience for as long as humans have existed. Clear back in Genesis, God instructs Abram (Abraham) to pack up all his belongings and head out to a place he’s never been before, to receive the blessing God has in store for him. Famine, floods, wars, droughts, persecution – all these factors motivate an individual or a whole population of people to strike out for a new place. People immigrate from and to every continent, sometimes fleeing trouble, and at other times migrating in search of a fresh start.

Most immigrants make incredible sacrifices for the chance of finding something better. In the early 1600s, immigrants sold themselves into bondage to get to the New World. It was a price they were willing to pay to establish their own community based on their understanding of what the earliest Christian communities were like. Today, immigrants come eager to scrub floors, clear tables, wash dishes, cut lawns, pick crops, and work long hours at hard labor for low wages – hoping to create a better world for themselves and their children.

We set aside one Monday a year to pay tribute to the people whose labor literally built this country. For nearly two centuries, the majority of these laborers came as indentured servants.

Some information for this blog came from Plymouth Colony Archive Project and the Constitutional Rights Foundation. If you enjoyed this blog, you may also enjoy reading about Child Labor.

Thank you for stopping by to read about some of the earliest days of labor in our country’s history. If you got this blog from a friend, you can get your own FREE subscription at HowWiseThen.

Mary Brewster’s Love Life and Mayflower Chronicles: The Tale of Two Cultures: available wherever books are sold. Bookshop.org/Mayflower; Mary Brewster
Amazon.com/Mary Brewster’s Love Life
Amazon.com/Mayflower-Chronicles
BarnesandNoble.com/w/mayflower-chronicles
BarnesandNoble/MaryBrewster
Autographed copies are available on my website.

The post Labor Day in 1620 appeared first on How Wise Then.