I discipline churchgoers with godly lessons and sharp words if they do not change their ways. My goal is to open their hearts so that they seek forgiveness. (William Brewster) 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 […]
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Giving Thanks Again
We soon come to the annual tradition of giving thanks again in the form of Thanksgiving Day. Sadly, the original intent of the holiday has been buried in the Black Friday promo ads and non-stop athletic competitions, with some gorging themselves into poor health while others struggle to find enough to eat at all. The 2022 Midterms are now behind us. Some of my candidates won by very thin margins. Some lost by equally thin […]
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Thanksgiving History
As we approach Thanksgiving 2022, it is time to again set the Thanksgiving History record straight. The Pilgrims were not the first Americans to have a period of thanks for an abundant harvest, nor did they invite the Natives to join them. Many Indigenous North American communities had their own traditions of giving thanks for a fall harvest centuries before the Mayflower sailed into Cape Cod Bay. The Natives who gathered with the English settlers in […]
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Thanksgiving 400
Thanksgiving will soon be upon us again. This one is the 400th anniversary of the first feast between the Pokanoket people and the newly arrived English settlers. The version of this encounter we’ve taught school children for generations is a bit truncated and lopsided, but there really was a three-day feast in Plymouth, MA back in the fall of 1621. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the event, the Sowams Heritage Organization is hosting a […]
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Happy Thanksgiving Then and Now
This audio clip from “Houston Matters” producer Michael Hagerty covers some elements of the story of the first Thanksgiving we often miss – including one that might sound all too familiar to us these days. Adding Some Historical Context To The Story Of The First Thanksgiving November 3, 2020 Houston Matters Houston writer Kathy Haueisen, a direct descendant of pilgrims, discusses her book, Mayflower Chronicles – The Tale of Two Cultures. While most of us learned some […]
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