The Error of His Ways

Lafayette F. Mauzey was born in Ray County, Missouri in 1835.  His family had strong southern roots, typical for families in the newly admitted slave state. His mother's family had owned a family of African descent for multiple generations - a way of life that Lafayette eventually separated himself from.  His son Oscar, my great-great-grandfather, reported that the separation came after his father had seen the horrors of the treatment of the slaves.  Oscar detailed one such incident involving a man being tied to a tree stump as punishment from which the man died from exposure to the elements.

Grandpa Lafayette married in 1858 into a family staunch in their pro-slavery beliefs. The first years of Lafayette and Sarah's married life were spent in Platte County, Missouri in which slaves in 1850 accounted for 61% of the general population.  In 1860, the family was still at home in Platte County but by 1864 Lafayette had enlisted in the 12th Kansas volunteer regiment - enlisted to protect free-state Kansas from Sterling Price's advancement.  During his brief period with the 12th, he fought in the Battle of Westport in October 1864, which is known as the "Gettysburg of the West" and a turning point in Price's Confederate advance. 

Grandpa Lafayette's shift in his feelings towards slavery has always interested me.  Why? Surely he had noticed the horrors of slavery his whole life, was the neglectful murder of that one slave what brought on the change or was it more? My interest in other Bleeding Kansas and Civil War Kansas topics as of late caused me to take another look at possibly why Grandpa Lafayette shifted in his beliefs. I believe I found it, buried in information we already had.

Not long ago, a very distant cousin, and also a descendant of Lafayette gave my mom the Mauzey family Bible.  In it is this inscription:

"L. F. Mauzey was converted 

from the error of his ways

 in the year of our Lord 1864

 in Missouri, and moved

 to Kansas the same year." 

Perhaps Grandpa Lafayette's transformation was not just a philanthropic one, but a spiritual one as a result.  After the war, Grandpa Lafayette went on to become a minister of the Gospel, pro-Temperance and anti-gambling (both of the last two, his father was all but).  Isn't it funny how the answer to our genealogical questions are sometimes right under our noses?  This time it took a period of putting the research to the side and coming back at it with fresh eyes and asking different questions ;)

Part of my genealogy quest on this side of the family has been to pursue the histories and trails of the family that was unfortunate enough to be owned by my own.  I owe it to that family who had been enslaved by mine to preserve what past I can find on my end so hopefully it will benefit their descendants someday if they choose to pursue their past. The recent revisiting of the unnecessary murder of that poor man has pressed upon me to regroup my efforts to dig into this family's story once again.

Walking the maze

On a recent trip to Johnson County, Kansas we encountered a labyrinth at a local church.  The kids were excited to run the maze and see who could come out the end first.  After reminding them that no matter where we are we needed to be respectful, especially with items associated with religion, they completed wandering its path at a slower pace.

Hahahaha, silly kids, they thought they would be done at the walking of the labyrinth.  With homeschooling, EVERYTHING is a life lesson.  We took pictures of the explanation of the labyrinth and had Bubby read them to us as we traveled to our next destination.  We then talked about what we learned and how it agreed or didn't agree with our worldview.  One of my personal pet peeves is people not knowing why they believe what they believe or just pushing an opinion without regard to the background of others.  Hopefully one day our kiddos will be reinforced with the knowledge they need and be able to stand fast in their beliefs and listen to opposing viewpoints while being respectful <3 br="">

Field Trip: Pocket Parks

  Topeka just re-vamped its downtown area in an attempt to make it more inviting.  I've been seeing all the pictures of its new "pocket parks" and I've been dying to go!! Each park has to do with Kansas or Topeka.  We started at the south end and made the loop...

Icabod Washburn

some Kansas wheat (this is a Christmas pic I think ;) )

We HAD to stop at our favorite chocolate place - Hazel Hill. They informed us that we can check out checkers for them and monster chess pieces from the business next door for use on the boards on the sidewalk adjacent - yeah, we're going back for that and taking some buddies! After some truffles, chocolate dipped Nutter Butters and a peanut butter cup, we continued!

This picture reflects the kiddos pretty well ;)

These medallions were pretty great.  They highlighted all the state symbols.  My favorite were the box turtle (shown) and the honeybees.  My only complaint... near the medallion for the state grass (bluestem) there was some grasses....plain ornamental grass.  And near the medallion for the state tree (cottonwood) there was one of the few trees planted downtown... a ginko.  What in the world??? Yes, maybe the state symbols wouldn't thrive there, but it did seem a little confusing ;)

Bubby's favorite

 My favorite was the railroading park. The statue of Cyrus K. Holiday is utterly fantastic with a 3D map under his feet and the associated statuary of the train, signal and train wheel benches are just so cool! 

 A fun time was had by all and Topeka definitely made us want to come back downtown again really soon!

Field Trip: The Wild West

  We don't often get out to western Kansas.  We love it though.  There's something about the remote locations, land where you can see forever and the slower pace that we really enjoy.  Some of our buddies who live far away and are near and dear to our hearts were coming as close as Phillipsburg and while that is not close to us, it is close enough, and we jumped at the chance to see them. 
  We don't do anything normal, so we drove some back roads on the trip out, giving Bubby some opportunity to try out his photography skills..

When we arrived, our buddies had a field trip planned that if we had made the trip ourselves, we would have missed.  It was this excellent model train and museum in the Phillipsburg community center, open only by appointment.  Shorty was so thrilled that he couldn't stand still.  He chased the trains as they rounded the track.  I gave up trying to lift him to see the trains when they were too high for him - he was too fast!

Part of the community center's museum was a great display of the history of photography and the life's work of a local photographer (who also donated the train set). 

The time with our buddies was amazing. We came away with cherished wonderful memories and anticipation of those come :) 
  On the way home we made a stop at the Garden of Eden.  Before we got there though, we found Waldo! ;)

 I was about Mookie and Bubby's age when I last was at the Garden of Eden.  It's a quirky, cement, folk art creation of a former Civil War veteran.  One of the 8 wonders of Kansas apparently.  Now we need to research what those are, so we can add more things to our list!

Bubby ended up taping a video tour of the site.  He is going to be our videographer in trips to come ;)

There is an opportunity to "meet" the artist himself at the end of the tour.  Old Mr. Dinsmore, the creator of all of this, designed his own mausoleum and casket with glass so he could be viewed after his death.  Bubby was totally intrigued and therefore Shorty and then Mookie.  We all paid our respects and declared him not quite as bad looking as we expected, even if he was a little moldy ;)

A bit of a whirlwind trip, but full of wonderful memories <3 br="">

Field Trip: Hiawatha

  This last week has been cRaZy!  Hubby and Bubby have been volunteering at an amateur archaeological dig in Council Grove, KS (more to come on that later). Then our work took us up to Hiawatha area near the Nebraska border.  Hiawatha was among one of the first stops my family took when we started taking summer trips when I was growing up. So although it is small potatoes, I was glad to go back. 
  Of course, any time we can meet up with Ducky and Grandma is a bonus and it worked for them to come along! We started out at the Brown County Historical Society so I could do a little historical research and everyone else browsed the displays.  The top floor had a ton of militaria and Bubby was in high heaven.  Although the top and first floors had displays, the basement was the most engaging for everyone in general. They had little rooms that showcased life from bygone eras. 

And other local displays like "the birds of Brown County".  The museum, like many county museums, is based solely on donations, but this museum seemed to have a knack for putting those donations to good use telling the story of everyday life in Brown County. 
  I separated from the rest of the group after the Historical Society.   Their next stop was the Ag Museum. The museum staff there did a great job engaging the kids in finding artifacts in the displays.  Shorty also got to ring the school house bell - which is always just totally cool!

The last Hiawatha stop was the Davis Memorial, which is one of the notable Kansas sights.  John Davis memorialized his and his wife's life in stone and you can see it in the local cemetery.

It has seen some vandalism, but is still rather impressive.  The big kids took notes throughout the whole excursion, which thrilled me!
  I would be amiss if I didn't mention our new favorite place to eat in Hiawatha - The Bread Bowl.

Shorty playing with one of the lunch boxes at the Bread Bowl

Croissants, wraps, and cookies - oh my!  We enjoyed it so much, we went back the next day and got lunch again (and red velvet donuts! Ooooooh, I'd make the 2 hr. trip again just for red velvet donuts).  I have decided that after this trip we are making a map of the Kansas counties where we can check off which ones we've been to.  We've covered quite a few within this last year alone with more to come :)

What an Archaeologist Does...

  Hubby is an archaeologist.  Generally those that have archaeology for a profession love it as a hobby as well (as do us historians/genealogists!) so our home is filled with rocks and books ;) One question we always get is what does an archaeologist do?  Well, since I was given the rare opportunity to actually get out into the field with hubby this last week, I'll give you a tour :)
  Archaeologists deal with past people.  Hubby went to school for an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and then a Master's degree in Archaeology.  We often get the question about if we've found any dinosaur bones - nope!  As much as we love our fossils, paleontologists deal with dinos - us, just essentially people's discarded things which become artifacts and clues to how people lived.

Some copper artifacts

Archaeology is separated into 1)locations and 2) time periods.  For instance, Hubby is a Plains archaeologist - he deals with the ancient Native American tribes of the Great Plains.  You can get some similarities with how the ancients did things all over, but archaeologists generally tend to stick to one geographic area.  There is also historic vs. prehistoric archaeology.  Historic in the New World is pretty much anything after European contact and Prehistoric anything before that.  Many archaeologists have field experience in both prehistoric and historic digs, but specialize in one or the other.
  So you ask, how do we know where to dig?  Well, all archaeologists are born with a certain sense of where to find these things... Not buying that?  Lol, well, they do it one of two ways... They know from reading historic documents or via oral tradition where a site was located (which is how we knew where the site was that we just finished up on).  For the prehistoric digs, Native Americans chose places with surroundings that provided shelter/protection and water and so if you know what to look for you can give a good educated guess on where to start looking and if you find some surface artifacts, you've found a site. Now don't just go digging up places.  Archaeology is a science that essentially destroys the site when it is uncovering it, so there are certain things that the professionals do to ensure that all the information that can be gained is recorded fully.

  If there is a site, it needs to be recorded with the state.  That way the state knows what historic resources are out there and where they are located.  Then when the archaeologist has done his/her research and has a plan the dig can begin!  But we don't just take a shovel and start digging, this is not Indiana Jones (in fact, he's a bad example - do not be Indiana Jones!). 

Our site that we worked on had each of us professionals digging in 1x1 meter square units that we gridded out ahead of time.  We chose some areas that looked promising for giving us some insight into what was going on underground and after we took the sod off we dug with trowels (Shorty wanted to try his hand, so I let him take a turn at my trowel).  The units are dug in levels (usually 10 centimeters at a time) so you can keep track of what you are finding and where.  At the end of a level then you get to draw a map of what the bottom of your level looks like.

But, you might miss something when you're digging.  Even though you're cutting through that dirt with a little trowel.  So, most often you screen all the dirt you take out of it too!  And because every artifact can hold a clue, you want to grab those too.  Can you see what I missed in my dirt?  As an archaeologist, you need good eyes - I missed 2 nails and a piece of window glass :)

  Then when you are done with your level, have all your artifacts you pack them away in a bag labeled with where you found them and how deep.  Then if your dirt is giving you clues that tell you there's more to be discovered in your unit, you go down another level!  When your time is done you map the entire site with what has been uncovered so that the head archaeologist can go back and analyze the findings. Then you carefully cover it back up so that if someone needs to come back and investigate more they can.

  Have someone in your family that is interested in archaeology?  Many states have amateur programs that offer an opportunity for a volunteer dig every year.  Hubby and I got our start with the one here in Kansas.  We have also been a part of the one in Texas (which had a great educational program aimed at kids!).  Project Archaeology is also a great resource for teaching. 

Adventures as a Legislative Page

  He was the most nervous I'd seen him in a long time.  This morning Bubby was getting ready to go off to the Kansas capitol and work as a legislative page for the day and he was dragging his feet.  I knew he'd have fun and be totally enthralled with it all, but sometimes you just can't tell them, they have to experience it.  So, I shipped him out the door with Hubby for a day he wasn't so sure was an adventure.

But it was.  Truly, it was the best day to be a page.  He didn't get to meet the governor because it was such a busy day for politics, but the action of the day - it was the payoff.  He got to tour the capitol from bottom to top (literally, he got to go out on the cupola, which is good because after last time I told him I'd not be the one to take him up there again *shudder*).  Then he was in helping during the House session the rest of the time.  He got to bring copies of a bill to the chamber for those needing it and then watch as they debated the same bill and tried to amend it.  He was so thrilled with the entire process that when I arrived he asked if we could watch some more so he could see them vote on it again.  Now he's ready to go back again next year!
  It was a relatively easy process to get signed up.  You send your name and a short description of why you want to be a page to one of your local representatives.  We chose Rep. Ken Corbet.  Representative Corbet responded that same afternoon and gave us further instructions on what to do.  His assistant followed up when the official paperwork was sent out.  They had us arrive at a certain time on our chosen day and receive a briefing. Aside from bringing copies of the bill to those that needed them, he ran other paperwork and messages to representatives on the floor.  What a way to learn the political process!  I wish I'd had that opportunity when I was a kiddo!  Hubby was a page when he was Bubby's age and they shared stories this evening.  Bubby has already been talking up the experience to a reluctant Mookie.  Although, it sounds like she'll have someone willing to go and show her the ropes ;)

Field Trip: Wichita

  Work took Hubby and I to Wichita today.  One of the perks of being your own boss is getting to take family along.  So we met up with Ducky and Grandma and headed out.  Our first stop was the Old Mill Tasty Shop.  Ducky and Grandma knew that it was a popular eating place so we got there right at 11am to beat any lunch crowd - I'm glad we did.  We were easily seated and dined on yummy things like the lasagna special, chili and crab salad sandwiches and cherry limeades (made on site).  Our server, Oliver, was fantastic (he's my vote for best server we've had over the past year).  Afterward we took part in yummy carrot cake and shakes - can you say stuffed? ;)  When we left the place was packed with periods of people waiting to be seated - yay for excellent timing!

Tasty treats at the Tasty Shop

  Hubby and I dropped everyone off at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum to wander while we went to our meeting at WSU.  Wichita has many opportunities for field trips, but since our trips to Wichita are few and far between and our time was limited, we went for local and less expensive admission.  The kids had a blast. Although when you are with your grandparents, how can you not? ;)

There weren't as many hands on activities, but there were enough like the antique phone booth with the rotary dial and the old typewriter. 
  When they finished with their time there, they took a hike through the downtown while on their way to the Transportation Museum (which is near the Tasty Shop).  They were fascinated by the bronze statues along the way and took some fantastic pictures of them interacting with them...

And trains!  The railroad passes right through downtown, much to Shorty's joy.

But, the Transportation Museum was closed, poor planning on my part.  I had neglected to double check the hours.  However, a wonderful man who was gearing up for a display there this coming weekend heard them rattle the doors and gave them some railroading magazines and pamphlets.
  Since it was chilly they went in search of hot chocolate at Expresso To Go Go which was a little coffee shop we had seen close to the Tasty Shop with a huge disco ball hanging from the ceiling.  Mookie declared the hot chocolate the best she had ever had.

Waiting on hot chocolate

We joined the fam there for our own treat before we hit the road. Those gals at Expresso To Go Go took really good care of us, and it will definitely be a place that is worth a repeat visit. 
  One place that is on our list for a possible future trip is the Great Plains Nature Center, but that will have to wait for an even warmer day ;)

Museum Selfie Day: Kansas Riverkings

  We had a field trip planned this week.  Tomorrow is the school day symphony for kids from around our area in Kansas.  It is fantastic!  So I was not looking for another trip into town this week.  But then there came across my Facebook newsfeed #museumselfieday, January 20th. *pause* Now I really want to do it.  Something fun and spontaneous and would satisfy my 11 year old asking, "where are we going for our next field trip?" for the last several days.  So then I justify it... I do need to get the oil changed in the van... I can take some library books back... I do need to get milk from the dairy.  Well, as much as we didn't need to take another trip this week, we got one ;)
  We didn't need a big one and I had the perfect addition to our schedule The Kansas Riverkings museum is located on the Kansas riverfront in Lawrence, KS.  To find it you need to go into the Abe and Jake's Landing entertainment center.  Abe and Jake's is named for two African-American commercial fishermen who made their living on the river and had shacks just right below the current Abe and Jake's Landing.  We got our picture taken with statues of them...

Mookie and Shorty with Abe and Jake

The Riverkings museum is much of what I expected, a single room with all kinds of fishing implements.  It does an excellent job of telling the story of the local fishermen and how they did what they did.  From the making of their traps and hooks, to how they "called up the fish" with an old telephone that would electrify the water. 

Mookie taking a picture of some of the tools of the trade

I love this picture Shorty took of some of the hooks.  How do you keep a pre-schooler who needs a nap under control?  Give him your camera (with a strap to put around his neck!).

The attendant was very knowledgeable and made sure to point out interesting facts to the kids.  That's a big bonus for me - any kind of extra engagement is good for learning!
  When we finished with our tour, we headed down the stairs in the Landing to take a gander at the Kansas River.  On our way we had to stop and see the HUGE commercial fishing traps hanging on the wall...

And then look at the gulls on the frigid river.  Mookie took her "selfie" responsibilities very seriously and took several with her own tablet :)

I sure like my at home time, especially on a cold and slick day where I relish being a homeschooler.  But, we had a blast doing something new and exciting!

Field Trip: Tallgrass Nature Preserve

  We've been wanting to do this one for.ev.er!  We had printed our Junior Ranger packets out for Tallgrass Nature Preserve 2 years ago and filled them out.  Each time we've tried, we've been deflected from our goal.  But our time came!  Hubby and I had some business to do down near Strong City and today was our chance!

  On not too bad of a day for the middle of November, we dropped Hubby off at the job site and went in search of some multi-sensory learning :) The Tallgrass Nature Preserve is located just north of Strong City and like many of the smaller National Parks, has free admission.  The kids had their Junior Ranger packets in hand and double checked answers and filled in some blanks they hadn't needed to finish. 

The Visitor's Center was not very large, but it did a good job of telling the story of the prairie and the critters that live there.  After walking around and watching the short video on the area, we headed out to one of the other exhibits.

This ranch, which is part of the preserve, has been around since 1882.  It is absolutely fabulous.  You are able to explore two of the three levels of the barn...

This picture of Shorty kills me.  He had been walking around for a while with what looked like a piece of straw in his mouth - gross, but he was being a farmer right?  Well, one of the other kids asked him where he got the toothpick.  Toothpick?  Ok, now it was mom's turn to ask where he got the toothpick. "Down on the sidewalk by the horse".  YUCK!!!! This picture is us in the middle of trying to get him to PUT IT DOWN!!! :) Bleh!
 

We made a new buddy :) Then it was off to explore the house.  The house is not very furnished, but I am sure that is due to low staff.  The whole complex had adequate signage and really the architecture was so elaborate, who needs "stuff" ? ;)

Mookie working on her Ranger booklet

The "secret passage"

The kids' favorite was the tunnels that took you from one root cellar to another.

The grand front entrance

We accomplished our Ranger goal and got sworn in as Rangers of the Tallgrass prairie :) Then it was off to the Lower Fox Creek School just up the road and also part of the Preserve.

The building was furnished and had some accessories for the kids to play school with.  We played there for quite a long time.  Then we waited at the city park before it was time to pick up Hubby. It had the coolest swing!

The building in the background is an old auditorium.  It was so sad to see it abandoned.  Grand total for today's trip: lunch and gas.  There's a ton more to do in that area too with Council Grove just up the highway and Cottonwood Falls across the river.  We'll be back ;)