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.

Corna Mae Trout was born in Deavertown, Ohio, in 1890, married George R. Ross in 1913, and died in Clermont, Florida in 1987. Her mother died when she was only seven, so she was raised by her father and his parents. She and her younger sister, Wilda, lived with their paternal grandparents so their father, a country doctor, could adequately care for his patients.

Culture Clash

My next book is about the clashes between 19^th century Euro-centric, east coast colonists moving west and several nations of Indigenous peoples living near where grandma grew up. The book explores the age-old story conflicts about competing assumptions and agendas regarding appropriate use of land. Grandma’s recollections date to about a century after white settlements started populating the Ohio Valley. She made no reference to Indigenous, probably because by the time she was growing up,  nearly all of the Indigenous people had been driven out of the territory.

None-the-less, I thought readers might enjoy this glimpse of a by-gone era in a place rich in both history and progress. Within a short drive of Deavertown you will find both the newly designated World Heritage Earthwork mounds and construction for the new Intel chip manufacturing plant. The past meets the future in some exciting ways in southern and central Ohio. What follows is my transcription of my grandmother’s notes, edited only slightly for clarification.

Grandma’s Recollections

When I sit in a doctor’s office waiting and I look around my memory brings into my mind the office of my Father. In 1900 I was at home and in about 1912 I helped father in his office and in many other ways. We lived in a village with no pavement or any good sidewalks, only sand and mud, and in summer dust. We were about 8 or 10 miles from good hospitals. Father always had two good horses and I learned how to hitch a horse to buggy by lantern light. We had no electricity and only heat by coal.

Father had office hours but country folks always come in afternoon and at other times if they were in the village. Pay was another thing, 50 cents as I remember, and often some form of things such as they had.

Pharmaceuticals and Automobiles

Drugs was another thing as there was not a drug store around. Father had a private room lined with shelves and drugs. Drug salesmen came by so often to see what he needed. Father mixed a lot of his medicine or taught me how and then I put it up in capsules.

Father had the first automobile in that part of country, a Buick. Now we had two horses, a buggy, and a run about. A gasoline tank and a garage had to be added. No roads – only gravel and mud.  We had a telephone of sorts. I can remember country folks calling up to see if the doctor would be out their way that day as they wanted to come to village or on to Zanesville and their horses were afraid of the automobile.

Sometimes Father would go by horseback to the country where it was hard to get to. One time he went on Bess (a horse). He knew the country well and if he could cut across fields, he could save so much time. Well, he came to a rail fence, and he got off the horse and over the fence and turned to Bess to follow him over. Well, Bess went over and turned and jumped back and Father laughed when he told me. Bess was a wonderful horse and I drove her many miles. Sometimes Father would get into trouble with his car and telephone, and I would get a call, then Bess and I would be on our way to help him.

Rural Emergency Service

Sometimes people had to be taken to the hospital in Zanesville and how to do it was a problem. There was no ambulance in the country. I remember one young man where the family put him in blankets and went into storm in a sled with hot stones around him. Then they took him to Zanesville about 12 or 14 miles from out in country. He lived for days. The doctors thought he would not.

The life of a family doctor is something else. The doctor. is always looked up to. One night I answered the doorbell of the office and as I opened door a young man stepped in holding one hand wrapped in a burlap sack and blood dropping through. Father taught me to never get excited and to always listen to him and do just as he told me. It was a great experience and great help in later life.

Postscript

That’s all she wrote about that portion of her life. My grandfather went into banking, a career that eventually moved them to Cleveland where he worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Grandma taught in a one-room school house for one year. She had to give up teaching when she married.

Sometimes when I’m frustrating waiting for traffic lights to turn or human beings to come on the line, I think about the life she lived and know that I really would not want to turn back the progress over the past century.

How do memories of your grandparents influence you?

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

I write about a variety of topics, but focus on how our 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 Rural Ohio, Circa 1900 appeared first on How Wise Then.

Decades later, with grandma and grandpa long since in their graves, I set out to fill in the blanks in her stories. A few years ago, I met the Deal family that lives next door and now owns the former Brewster farm and this home. The Deal family has farmed in the area for nine generations, so their ancestors were likely well acquainted with the Brewsters next door.

Deborah Deal told me her family bought the property from an Ozem Brewster around the turn of the twentieth century. For years I thought this Ozem was the Ozem in our family’s lineage to the Mayflower, but the data wasn’t adding up. The Ozem in our family died in Vermont a century earlier, in 1809. I had the Ohio Ozem, pictured here,  mixed up with his grandfather. My research led me to an article about the Ohio Ozem in Past and present of the city of Zanesville and Muskingum County, Ohio by J. Hope Sutor. From what I read in that article, the Ozem pictured here must be the younger brother of our Brewster link, a Stephen Brewster. Stephen and Ozem were sons of a Jonathan (also recorded as Johnson and Johnston). Whatever his actual name, he’s the man who built the farmhouse.

The article describes Ozem as one of the oldest and best-known residents born in Salt Creek Township, located in Muskingum County. This Ozem was born January 30, 1825, among the ninth generation of descendants from the Mayflower Brewsters. He was still living when Sutor published the book in 1905.

According to my mother’s application for membership in the Society of Mayflower Descendants, our family line comes through the Vermont Ozem, his son Jonathan, Jonathan’s son, Stephen, to Emma Jeanette, a twin. Emma was my grandfather’s mother. I always thought she grew up in this house, but now I’m wondering if that is accurate.

According to the Sutor article Jonathan Brewster and his wife Catherine Reise (also found as Reese) had eight children between 1813 to 1838. Their children were: my ancestor Stephen (1813), Mary (1815) Susan (1819), John (1822), Nancy (1825), Ozem (1825), W.S. (1832) and Sarah Jane (1838). Were Nancy and Ozem twins? Or did Catherine have two babies in the same year? Catherine was forty-five when Sarah Jane was born. My mother’s notes don’t include a death date for her, but whenever it was, I suspect exhaustion was part of the cause.

The article about the house matched my grandmother’s story that Jonathan built the home for his new bride in 1812. It’s not a huge house, leading me to speculate that Stephen must have grown up there but moved into his own place when he married Eliza Brown and they raised their six children. Given Ozem was ten or eleven years younger, Ozem probably lived there after Stephen moved out. The article stated Ozem farmed all of his life and cared for his aging parents, Jonathan and Catherine. He was thirty-nine when his father died.

Apparently, Ozem’s father Jonathan moved to the Salt Creek area in 1802. Here my mother’s records and the article conflict. According to the article Jonathan worked as a young boy doing various chores for a local sawmill. But according to my mother’s records, he would have been twenty-two when he moved to the Ohio Valley from Vermont, where he was born in 1780.

Jonathan settled at Chandlersville, Ohio where he worked at the salt works and a local sawmill. On November 19, 1812 he married Catherine Reise, and built the farmhouse where they raised their family. Deborah Deal who lives just up a hill from the house, told me it was built with stone quarried up a lane named Brewster Grove. She reported the creek nearby the grove was once a popular place for church picnics.

The Sutor article recounts that Jonathan had no money left after clearing a place for the house and gathering the equipment necessary to begin farming. The young  couple worked diligently to develop the farm, which eventually prospered. He and Catherine lived primarily off various kinds of wild game in the area until they harvested their first crops. Eventually the farm included  264 acres.

Ozem’s father belonged to a Baptist church in the area and was ordained one of its deacons in 1842, a position he held until his death. Sutor wrote, “He was a man of kindly, beneficent spirit, generous to those who needed assistance and always extending a helping hand to those less fortunate than himself. He was an invalid in his last few years but never faltered in the religious faith, which was his stay and attitude throughout his life. His broad humanitarian spirit was indicated by his active and helpful interest in the anti-slavery movement, and he did much to assist the down-trodden negro (sic). His life was characterized by unremitting diligence in his business affairs and yet he always found time to do good, to perform an act of kindness or a deed of charity.”

At the time Sutor’s book was published, Ozem Brewster was one of the oldest native-born citizens in Salt Creek Township. The article stated he had been interested in farming from early boyhood days, assisting his father in the cultivation of the fields, beginning to work almost as soon as he could reach the plow handles. He saw many improvements in farm machinery, the old-fashioned sickle and flail giving place to the reaper, binder, and mower. He kept pace with them all. Sutor wrote that Ozem spent his entire life at the farm homestead. In politics he has always voted the republican ticket but never had any aspiration for office. He was known for his frugality and sterling qualities that made him an honored and respected citizen of Muskingum County.

I guess my great-grandmother Emma Brewster Ross would have known him as Uncle Ozem. She would have been eight when Ozem’s father, her grandfather died. I suppose my grandfather grew up hearing stories about farm life from his great uncle, Ozem. I’ve not found any information about a wife or children for Ozem, so I wonder if he was a bachelor farmer, with the farm and  his church getting the devotion he might have shared with a wife and children.

If any of my readers know more about the Muskingum County Brewsters I’d love to hear from you. Here are the grave markers for Stephen and Eliza,  I presume Ozem’s brother and sister-in-law, and their daughter and son-in-law.

Emma J. Brewster and husband Hugh S. Ross.

Eliza Brewster

Stephen Brewster –

S

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

I write about a variety of topics, but focus on Mayflower history and stories about good people going great things.

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 The Old Brewster Farmhouse 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
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Autographed copies are available on my website.

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• Philip Van Doren Stern, author of the short story that inspired the movie;
• Frank Capra, the immigrant who produced the film; 
• Jimmy Stewart, aka George Bailey.

Before the release of this perennial favorite, none of them were having a wonderful life.

The 1930s and 1940s, the decades in which the short story and the movie first appeared in public, were challenging for most Americans. Barely a decade after the Great Depression that left millions desperate, Europe’s Second World War erupted, eventually drawing in the USA. It was not a wonderful life for families who lost sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers in the war. It wasn’t a wonderful life at home either, as people made sacrifices large and small to support the war effort.

Once again, we see conflicts all over the globe displacing millions, destroying cities and lives, and turning colleagues and neighbors into enemies. May we find encouragement from the story behind the ever-popular movie “It’s A Wonderful Life.”  

Philip Van Doren Stern

This beloved film is based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s 1939 short story, “The Greatest Gift.” He was already a well-established author and editor when a dream inspired him to write the 4,000-word short story. When he failed to find anyone willing to publish it, he ran off 200 copies and sent them out as Christmas cards in 1943.

Stern wanted readers to see the value of each person’s life, especially in the midst of challenges, conflicts, and crises. What an appropriate message for all of us today. Reader’s Scope eventually published the story in 1944. That same year, Good Housekeeping ran it as “The Man Who Was Never Born.”  Stern eventually published it as an illustrated book, which is still available from Simon and Schuster as The Greatest Gift.

Frank Capra

Sicilian immigrant Frank Capra bought the movie rights and convinced a reluctant Jimmy Steward to take the part of George Bailey. It’s hard to imagine a Christmas season without this movie, but if our broken immigration system had not granted Frank Capra’s family entrance into the United States, we would likely not have this classic treasure. Capra, born in 1897 in Sicily, immigrated with his family to New York in 1903. His family traveled by train from New York to California, where Frank’s older brother lived. Capra recalled that they ate only bread and bananas for the duration of the trip because that was what they could order with their limited English. 

When World War I broke out, Capra enlisted in the Army and became a naturalized citizen in 1920. Influenza sent him back to his brother’s California home to recuperate. While there, he answered a call for a movie extra, which began his film career. By the 1930s, he was considered Hollywood’s most successful director, but in the years prior to that, he lived a rags-to-riches series of failures and successes. 

He was frequently unemployed, writing short stories no one wanted to publish and tutoring the son of a wealthy gambler for a place to live. After several failed directing attempts, he was so desperate he became a hobo, riding the rails. After a decade of filmmaking ups and downs, he directed the 1931 melodrama America Madness, the precursor to the 1947 “It’s A Wonderful Life.” The American Film Institute put “It’s a Wonderful Life” at the top of their “100 Years . . . 100 Cheers” list, naming it the best film ever made.

Jimmy Stewart – aka George Bailey

Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey in his first movie after returning home from the war. He was suffering from what today we’d label as PTSD. Author Ned Forney wrote about how Stewart’s war experiences shaped his role as the desperate George Bailey. Both the actor and the character struggled to overcome what appeared to be hopeless situations. As a pilot, Stewart felt enormous stress to prevent the death of his comrades. By the end of his service, he suffered what then was called “flak-happy,” that is, shell shock or battle fatigue.

Stewart has given hope to millions with his gentle spirit and compassionate words. The agonizing dilemmas confronting George Bailey were all too real to Stewart. Those closest to the movie’s production observed that Stewart wasn’t acting as much as re-living the trauma he’d faced as a pilot in the war. Until Capra approached him to take the role of Bailey in the movie, Stewart was considering giving up acting.

Our Turn

We can easily identify events that are distressing, depressing, and desperate. Might we also identify aspects of our lives that are wonderful despite the challenges and disappointments? I am grateful for the perseverance and fortitude of three men who have gifted us a movie that offers hope and inspiration year after year. Watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” is high on my list of ‘must-watch’ holiday movies each year. How about you? It can still be a wonderful life when we find ways to help each other along the way to a new and hopefully much better next year.

Thank you for taking the time to read about this classic Christmas movie. 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
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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.

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