For months now, my husband and I have been discussing ways to get the little ones into Family History. He loves spending Sundays researching, indexing and learning more about our family heritage and we both felt it was important to get them an early start as well.
I thought for a long time about ways to get them interested and then it hit me- I'll teach it as part of our curriculum! See, that's one of the greatest things about homeschooling, I can add in gospel topics throughout the year and reinforce them everyday! I hope that they see that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just something we focus on once a week; rather it's the reason we are who we are. It's why we do what we do (like schooling at home!)
This weekend was Chase's cousin's wedding in Arizona (we love you Lex!) and one of the main reasons I wanted to go was to get to go to the graveyard where many of the Vance, Shillig and Rodney families are buried. PLUS (and this is a big bonus) Aunt Stacey would be there and she is the QUEEN of family history. She has a wealth of information and any time we have the chance to learn a bit from her, we need to take it!
So after the wedding festivities, and before church that day, some of us made the jaunt out to the cemetery to see where this family began. Vance was more excited about this day than any other- we have told him many stories about "The Cowboy" Ted Rodney and his wife Irma Vance and where his name comes from. As we drove up to the graves the first thing he said was, "Mom...is this where The Cowboy is buried?!"
After a wonderful lesson from Aunt Stacey, we took some paper and crayons out so the kids could do some crayon rubbings on the graves. We had lots of people to help so the kids got to make quite a few to take home.
On our drive home from Arizona, I called my mom and sister and wanted to see if they would meet us at the graveyard in Littlefiled, so I could show Ava where Grandma Dessie's buried. She has heard all of my many stories of my Grandma Dess and though she knows that's where she gets her name from (Ava Dessie), it's always nice to solidify it in her mind.
She was excited that Grandma Dess' grave also had a temple on it so she did two
crayon rubbings from her and Grandpa's headstones.
We even saw uncle Dan and cousin Taggert and he wanted to do one too!
I showed the kids my Dad's headstone and Kurt did the crayon rubbing for me. I can't believe it's been 15 years since he died! It seems like just yesterday- yet a lifetime away!
I was glad to have Grandma and Aunt Jenn there, and the kids were just excited to get out of the car after an 8 hour drive!
This is definitely something we will need to make a tradition. I loved telling the kids all about their ancestors- living and gone. Someday when we head to Idaho we'll stop at my Grandpa and Grandma Cox's graves and Cash can see where his middle name (Hampton) comes from.
And we are still counting the days until we get to see Chase's grandparents, Grant and Myrna Pitcher and for baby Grant to meet his namesake.
As we got back home, Kurt said, "Mom, I was kind of sad I didn't have a grave with my name on it". As we talked about it and he realized that meant that his Grandpa Kurt was alive and well, he smiled and said, "Ok. I'm not that sad anymore!"
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