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.

Field Trip: A Visit with George

  A family trip took us to the Ozarks of Missouri.  We had a little time on the way home and made a side trip to take in a field trip destination: The George Washington Carver National Monument just outside of Diamond, Missouri.  I had always thought that GWC was a pretty neat guy, but I came away from this museum thinking he was pretty fantastic!
  The National Monument is a Junior Ranger site so the kids were really excited.  While we were there we picked up booklets for the Historic Preservation badge and the Bicentennial badge.  Those we can turn in at a local NPS site later.
  The site is a no cost site, which is always nice.  The galleries were very well done.  The kids loved learning more about George.  Mom had made them read a couple of books on him before this trip and so they were filling us in on some back story along the way.

The lab area was a neat place for on-site demonstrations.  We missed one just by a couple of hours - darn! No worries though, we were totally content to wander on our own.
   For this Junior Ranger badge, you needed to do a total of 6 activities.  We had completed all of them, but couldn't pass up the chance to walk the trail too! So off we went.  It's 3/4 mile for the main part with about an extra 1/4 mile if you walk around the pond as well.

When we visited the statue of George as a child, the kids spotted a little orange lizard which thrilled them to no end.  The little guy was a bit shy and refused to make an encore appearance ;) The walk was totally lovely: a beautiful spring, bridges, the Moses Carver house tucked into the woods...  Hubby had a great time playing "what tree is this?" with Bubby (who actually didn't do too bad).

And we kept Shorty busy on the trail with a game of Red Light, Green Light.  That idea will be kept for future reference for sure! 
The cemetery of the Carver family was a peaceful addition to the walk...

The last stop on the walk was a bust of George where he would "tell" you (via recording) his favorite poem "Equipment" by Edgar Guest.  I loved it! This is only a part...

"You are the handicap you must face,
You are the one who must choose your place,
You must say where you want to go,
How much you will study the truth to know.
God has equipped you for life, but He
Lets you decide what you want to be."

 And then the swearing in.  This part never gets old.  It brings a thrill each time to all of us.  Mookie dubbed this park her new favorite (as has been each successive one ;) ).  Over all, this was an excellent site.  Hands on, colorful and intriguing displays, a walking trail - this site ranks among the best we've been to.  We have our sights set on learning more about this fascinating man and are eyeing up new possibilities for Ranger badges in the upcoming year.  Oh boy!

Field Trip: Hannibal

   Another trip out to see Hubby and some more stops on the way.  Right now Hannibal is a great place to stop and stretch our legs and wait for Hubby to get off of work.  This time we did a little more exploring of the town.  Our travels took us out to Lover's Leap which has an amazing view of the landscape.  We saw train tracks, barges, the steamboat, and speedboats.  When we told Ducky and Grandma where we had been they sent pictures of when I had gone to the same spot when I was Bubby and Mookie's age.

Mookie, Shorty and Bubby at Lover's Leap

Me & Ducky at Lover's Leap

  While we were there we compared the story of the two Native American "lovers" to the story of Romeo and Juliet that the kids had been reading over the past week - edged in a little literature discussion there ;)
  One of our favorite, and cheap, places to go is the local library wherever we are visiting.  So far both the ones we've been too have been great historic buildings.  Hannibal's was really neat because of all the fun things to play with, and Bubby discovered they had every single Hank the Cowdog book and maybe each Boxcar Children - that's important you know! 

  The day ending up with seeing Hubby and some treasures he found for us - a coral or crinoid fossil and coal, which leads into a science/art study just because - I love homeschooling!

Bubby drawing his new fossil

Huck Finn Freedom Center: Jim's Journey

  Hubby is away so we're in high gear for some rather large field trips!  This series included a perfect fit into our schooling too!  We've been plugging along through Mark Twain's Huck Finn for longer than I care to mention.  It is a wonderful book but anything of length usually gets put to the back burner with everyday life ;) This trip took us through Samuel Clemmens' hometown of Hannibal, MO.  Our first stop was the Huck Finn Freedom Center: Jim's Journey.

   Jim's Journey focuses on the African American history of the area.  It features a display on Daniel Quarles (who was the inspiration for Mark Twain's character Jim in Huck Finn) but also continues up to the present age.
  It is just a little one room museum, but stuffed full of artifacts and memorabilia.  They won me over right away - our host had a scavenger hunt for the big kids. Then she further won the kids over by telling them they'd get to choose a prize for completing it!

   It took the kids about an hour to complete.  They gained a wealth of information!  The museum was wonderfully organized and was essentially like one big I Spy book :)
  After a long drive and no nap, Shorty was not so interested so he watched the fountain nearby...

  He really, really, really wanted to go in, but we managed to convince him otherwise. Our host gave him his "prize" (a bottle of bubbles) early and then he sat on the front stoop blowing bubbles for a while and explored some of the artifacts outside.
   The museum was free, but they would gladly accept donations.  This was the best display of African American history and memorabilia I have seen so far in our travels.  I would venture to say that they could at least double their space without any problem with all the artifacts and stories there are to tell! 
  We didn't explore the town too much more beyond a couple of photo ops, but odds are we are going to end up there again soon. The kids enjoyed Jim's Journey so much that they asked about a return trip :)

a bit of good timing thanks to Mookie

the Hannibal light house

 

Museum Crawl & the Tabernacle

  Daddy has been gone a bunch lately, so we've been savoring our time with him when we can.  Last week he was based out of St. Joseph, MO again, so guess what we fit in to our schedule - museum crawl! Now the actual museum crawl is over, but we're still using it as a guide.  This time we visited the St. Joseph Museum which housed 3 stops on the museum crawl: the Black Archives, Native American museum and the Glore Psychiatric Museum.  The Glore was the biggest part of the museum, but I figured it would be more of an adult subject matter so we skipped it (much to Bubby's dismay, he's made us promise to go back with Ducky and Gigi so he can take it in).  The other exhibits were great!

Mookie loved the doll exhibit

Bubby hard at work on the Museum Crawl questions

  One of the great parts of the museum was the Black Archives.  While a little broad in its scope it was great to see a timeline of black history in front of us.  Something that struck Bubby was the "white" water fountain and the "colored" water bucket side by side.  One of his best buddies is of African descent and it bothered him that they would not have been treated equally.

    Our next day included a trip to Platte City.  We fit in a detour to the Platte County Museum.  It is a house that was built around the time of the Civil War and furnished for the time period.  The kids were really good, even Shorty who was a little bit of a handful the day before (you notice I left that story out...). 

Shorty's favorite exhibit - the trains!

The kids on the back porch and their picture

The house really reminded me of the Amelia Earhart birthplace in Atchison. I think I would be content to live in either one;) The kids were thrilled that our tour guide gave us a picture of the house.
    After our tour it was on to the Tabernacle Experience.  It is a traveling exhibit that was hosted by the First Baptist Church of Platte City. All I can say is - wow! I can't regale you with pictures because cameras weren't allowed in the tabernacle area, but I would highly suggest it if you are interested in the ancient Jewish temple practices. Each person gets an Ipod for an audio tour (either a child or adult version).  You walk through in pairs at spaced intervals.  Mookie & Bubby went first, Shorty and I next and then Ducky and Gigi.  Its very hands on, essentially taking you thru each step that the priest would do (you get to throw wood on the altar, wash hands in the laver, light candles, etc...).  I am so glad Shorty and I were in the middle!  He did get kind of bored, so I would let him bebop forward or backward to the others in our group and do the activity in advance of our learning about it, or redo it.  It worked pretty well.
  Something I thought was cool was that when we were in the Holy of Holies, there was a hole in the tent that cast a sunbeam directly down on the Ark of the Covenant, kind of reminded me of a movie I saw once...  We did make it out of there without succeeding in burning the Ark down with our incense stick (just a brief flick of a spark, but with Shorty, you never know).  The kids were totally thrilled to see parts of those Old Testament books right in front of them.  You can't beat hands on, touch it and feel it stuff:) 

A Wedding, Silver Dollar City, a Battlefield and Guttenberg

  This last field trip was one we've been waiting for for a few months.  One of our very dear friends was getting married in Springfield, MO. A bit of a trip, but something we wouldn't have missed for the world.  Of course it sparked thoughts of what can we do along the way.  One thing presented itself when Mookie won a couple of Silver Dollar City tickets through our local library's summer reading program.  SDC also had a special going on where people born in 1976 could get in free, so that took care of my ticket too and Shorty was free because of his age!  We only had to purchase one ticket - not bad for a family of five!

A picture of the Co. I boys I found recently

  On the way down we stopped at Wilson's Creek Battlefield.  This was great for the kids because it gave them an opportunity for another Junior Ranger badge, and great for me because some of the Burlingame, KS Civil War Veterans from Co. I of the 11th Kansas Cavalry fought there. 
  The battlefield had limited displays when we were there because they were in the process of revamping the old ones.  They had a really interesting auto tour and they also have one of the biggest collections of west of the Mississippi Civil War items.  You can find their virtual museum here.
 

Looking up at Bloody Hill at Wilson's Creek

  The staff at Wilson's Creek was excellent.  They gave Shorty a Junior Ranger badge so he could be like big brother & sis.  They also copied items for me from their collection & told me to contact them if I thought of anything more. 
  On we went for a short stop at Silver Dollar City and then out to supper.  We ate at McFarlain's in Branson where they placed us at a table that rose during our meal.  Hubby and I were let in on the secret.  They couldn't figure out what mom & dad were snickering at.  They kept looking around to find someone that was going to sneak up on them with a wacky sombrero or sing a silly song to them.  It wasn't until the table was up to their chins that they finally caught on.

 The next day we arrived at the City as soon as it opened and we shut it down.  My family has been going to Silver Dollar City every five years since I was five.  It is one of our favorite trips as a family.  We can't wait to go with my folks on our regularly scheduled on in a couple of years.

 Before the wedding celebration on Saturday we needed something to occupy our time.  Hubby found the exhibit "Passages" was in Springfield.  Passages is a collection artifacts that take you through the history of the Bible.  When we were in Dallas last year we had seen that it was there, but didn't make it.  Boy are we glad we took it in in Springfield! The collection included actual Dead Sea Scroll fragments, cuneiform tablets, Bibles throughout the ages as well as other Biblical texts and artifacts.  Essentially the whole exhibit was full of Bible history, world history, science and just a perfect side trip for us in general! They had wonderful interactive displays, hands on things for the kids to do, as well as animatronic characters.  They even had a scavenger hunt for the kids.  I'll tell you what, if you want a kid to get absorbed in a museum, give them a scavenger hunt!

Transcribing a line of text in Latin with real ink!

Shorty listening to St. Jerome talk about his life

Watching a working replica of a Guttenberg press

They even had a play area for Shorty

The exhibit said that it would take you 2-3 hours to finish.  Well, we took 3 hours and could have spent more time! We literally had to drag the kids out of there.  We definitely packed a ton into our trip, but hey, it was school!  I think we'll take tomorrow off;)

Field Trip Thursday: Museum Crawl pt. 2

  Daddy had to travel to NW Missouri again for work today, so we got to tag along - yay!  Field trip!  This is one of the reasons we considered homeschooling in the first place, being able to be together more as a family when Daddy travels alot.  So today this meant visiting more stops on the Museum Crawl in St. Joseph! 
  We started out at Missouri Western State University where they have a Walter Cronkite memorial. 

The Missouri Western mascot

  We were a little early and walked the campus while we waited for the memorial to open.  The kids smiled and greeted the college students - yes homeschoolers are so unsocialized;) 

  The kids had no idea who Walter Cronkite was prior to our visit today, and to tell you the truth without the Museum Crawl, we might never have visited the memorial, but I'm glad it was a good prompt to do so.  The Crawl has certain questions you need to fill out at each stop. Both kids set out to work trying to find the answers while I chased a rambunctious Shorty (he did not tolerate Walter very well and we spent alot of time pushing buttons and riding the elevator and climbing the stairs).  When their questions were finished you could so see the learning styles of the kids come out.  Bubby is a sponge - he wanted to read & watch everything.  Mookie was content to learn a little, but when she accomplished her goal, her interest started to wane without much as far as interactive displays.  We gave Bubby 45 minutes and then had to drag him away. 
  On to the Remington Nature Center.  The kids had been dying to see this one last time and we had to skip it.  I am so glad we were able to give it a good chunk of time today - well worth it! 

  In addition to the questions we needed to complete for the Crawl booklet, the Nature Center gave us a scavenger hunt to complete.  There were 12 miniature plastic apples hidden all over the Center for us to find.  It took us a while, but we found them (with a little help on a couple).

You can see the red apple in the rattlesnake's mouth

  The displays here were great.  They had dioramas, bees, a water cycle and the favorite - animal tracks.  The tracks would appear and disappear on the sand when the narrator talked about them.

animal tracks

Water cycle - you can see the Missouri River in the background

  One of the other favorites was the trail of St. Joesph history.  They started you out in a cave with the Native Americans and worked you through European settlement to modern day.  Lots of hands on things and videos for all kinds of learners.
  This is what I saw most of the time...

I lost track of how many times Shorty and I looped through the history trail (stopping in the saloon with the cool doors each time to get a pretend drink) and back to the animal tracks and then back to the history trail...   I am so glad the other two are independent learners because I didn't do much except keep the short one busy:) 
  We would have preferred to walk the trails outside too but we needed to meet up with Daddy.  The meeting place was actually at the town of New Market, MO which is where my gg-grandpa Oscar Mauzey was born in 1859.  The kids played at the playground while we waited for Daddy to arrive.  It was neat to look around and wonder what structures might have been there when Oscar was alive. 

Resting on account of "stage 4 hiccups" (2 hiccups every 4 seconds)

We had a pretty cheap day today, Walter's memorial was free & Remington cost us $5 for all of us.  The favorite was the Nature Center, but they enjoyed all of it.  I see another trip to St. Joe for museums in our future.  The kids are hooked!

Museum Crawl

  Field Trip Friday resumed today.  We were able to narrow our field of choices because we were going to pick up Daddy from the Kansas City Airport in the afternoon.  I found out that St. Joseph, MO had a "museum crawl" in August through mid-September so since we were looking at making a couple of trips in the near future to that part of the world we decided to join in!
  Our FTF companions Ducky and Gigi joined in the fun.  Boy am I glad that my folks are both retired and can come along!  It sure makes for twice the fun!  For the Crawl, you need complete 10 stops and answer 2 questions at each stop and you earn a small prize.  Our first choice was the Pony Express National Museum.  It was wonderful!  They gave us our Crawl booklets and a little magnifying glass.  Since we said we were homeschooling, she also told us to make sure and pick up a teacher packet at the end.  The museum starts with a 14 minute video on the Pony Express.  Shorty sat for a little of it and then waited expectantly to "go see the horses".

They weave you through the history of the Express and the trails in general.  Excellent displays with extra sensory things thrown in like lightning and heat and sounds.  Our favorite part was the well.  It was one that they had found while excavating the land prior to the museum building.  There was a display showing what artifacts they had found, but the big thing was there was a hand pump attached to the well and it worked!  The kids could pump water and look through a window in the floor to see down the well.  We had to circle back to this area a couple of times;)

the well

  As children of an archaeologist they also enjoyed the area that showed the ground beneath our feet from the excavations.  Bubby had a ball finding all the artifacts left in situ.

  The museum was just chalked full of wonderful kid interactive things.  The play area was great!  Mookie & Shorty stayed there for quite a while.

  This museum was top notch!  I would go back in a heartbeat.  It wasn't that big, but it was so interesting and well laid out!
   We took a lunch break and there are two things of note: 1) do not go to the NE side of St. Joe and expect to easily get to the NW side - not happening.  2) the Chick Fil-A there is the friendliest and most helpful fast food place I have ever been to.  Everything was answered with a "its my pleasure" and I didn't even have to carry the high chair for Shorty or get our own straws.  They waited on us hand and foot!
  Since we couldn't get to our planned stop easily (the nature center, it looks fabulous btw), we went to the NW Missouri Genealogical Society which was also on the Crawl.  Free to get in and well, we could look up family stuff while were were there too!  This was a big kid stop for sure, Bubby & Mookie worked on their research skills by looking up items for the questions in their booklet, Gigi looked up one of my scandalous ggg-grandpa George's marriages (more on him later), and Shorty looked up at Ducky and told him he wanted to go outside and they went for a walk.

  It didn't take long before Mookie (my more active learner) went and joined them, while Bubby took joy in finding more historical gems in the collections at the library.
  Pretty soon we had to take off to grab Daddy, so we climbed in the car for another new adventure - the airport!  We were able to watch the planes come and go for a while and then jumped around excitedly when Daddy walked through the gates (I won't tell you how much of a spectacle we made of ourselves;) ).  The real thrill was the luggage carousel.  I think Shorty was waiting for one of the Toy Story characters to come up the chute.

  Who knows where next week will lead us.  The kids are campaigning heavily to go back to St. Joe.  The really sweet thing was that one of the stops gave us our "prize" for completion of the Crawl a little early since we didn't know if we'd get to do them all in time.  I've been to St. Joe numerous times for family history research and loved it each time, but this time it won my heart as a tourist:) <3 br="">

A "Little" Shopping Trip

  Today we took our bi-monthly trip to Jamesport, MO for our grocery shopping at the Amish bulk foods store.  I thought I'd share a little about what we purchase for our home use.  Here is my shopping list. 

I don't get everything each time, but its great to have a master list of what we use most often.  This time I got: baking cocoa, sugar, citric acid, cumin, black pepper, cornmeal, baking powder, rice, powdered sugar, salt, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, quick oats, instant potatoes, elbow macaroni, honey, paprika, chocolate chips, mini colored chocolate drops,  chai tea (they have some wonderful mixes), salt & sea salt.  Oh and the cheese!  I can get 6-ish pounds of cheese for $3.89 to $4 per pound, so I buy a couple of logs of those.

Here's a picture of my haul minus the cheese:

All of this cost around $190.  I did buy a cookie sheet too.  They have excellent kitchen tools, so I'll pick up one every once in a while.
  When we do our trip we take my mom with us and make it into a fun field trip!  Today we went 15 minutes out of our way to do some family history research - and we even found some tidbits!  While we try to make our trip every other month its been since February since our last trip.  I was getting a little desperate...when the cheese is running out, that's our signal to go.  We ran out of cheese a week ago, my kids were going to riot soon;)