Quakers

I am not so sure there are any Puritans left over today but there certainly are Quakers. I bought an 1885 house near Caesar's Creek which was built by Quakers as were many of the (old) houses in Springboro, Wanysville, Lebanon, etc.  While there, the family of the woman who had built my house befriended me and I was included in their family events for a couple of years until I moved.  The entire family was still "Friends" and so were most of their friends. I learned a lot about them...there was nothing not to like. Here are a few things of note:

In the Civil War, the Quakers did not fight but they certainly took car of all the farms where the soldiers had gone off to war and left wives, children.

The Quakers (men and women) in the late 1800's were registered to a political party, but did not vote. they were on city councils, etc and helped make policy for the regions in which they lived. They certainly were not "apolitical."  Women were encouraged to express their views publicly the same as the men. 

By 1870, Young Quaker women were abandoning "plain speech," the "Thee and Thou" we all associate with that sect. They were abandoning the plain Quaker dress as well.

Quaker girls were allowed to date outside of their Friend circle and did not necessarily have to have permission on whom to marry. 

Each Quaker believed he or she had a single high calling...preaching, ministery, caring for the sick, etc. and pursued perfection in that calling. there was also a strive for perfection in everything they did.

More than other cultures of the time, Quaker women shared a large amount of equality with their husbands.

Enough!! have a great weekend!  Julie

Sad note about what the explorers brought with them:

One thing which really stuck with me when reading about the earlier explorer/writers is that we see in Harriot a description about how the settlers from Europe infected the Native Americans with diseases not indigenous to this country at the time.  The diseases are not described (like pox, sores, coughing, etc) but on p 41 about halfway down, there is this telling of how the explorers would go to a village and sickness would arrive, but the "whites" would not get it (they obviously were carriers). And then evidence that the diseases spread from village to village...and the natives assumed that they were doing something wrong since the whites did not get the diseases and they did.  Even the whites thought this was strange.
This must have happened with European expansionism all over the world. Pretty sad!

Continuation of Blog # 1 Lit 211/Fall 2011

The Native American story I referred to on my last blog (how the Big Dipper was formed) can be found in the book we are reading now...author N. Scott Momaday, pg 2706. 2nd paragraph from the top.

Today in class Dr. Cassel told us to look at "MAP" on Angel to make sure we have a workable plan for transitioning to semesters or graduation.

If you are attending SCC to transfer to a four-year, look up "transfer.org." You can get a real good idea about which SCC classes transfer to another college. Some of them do not transfer at all...some give one quarter of credit for two quarters of work at SCC, and some only require two quarters when you assume they require three in a sequence, like American History 101,102,103..

I recently went to an advisor at OSU to see what would work out for me...he used transfer.org. for the evaluation. So it must be pretty reliable!

LIT 211 FALL 2011 Blog #1

There are two things here...one, I hope you all will look up local artist Sarah Luttrell on Facebook and open and "like"her art...she is UD Grad with a degree in English...she is an extraordinary writer but she is a knockout artist as well!  You may enjoy her offbeat stuff...she now has works displayed at various venues and coffee shops around town, and in the mayor's office (Dayton). She is versatile in all art media, it appears.

So I have a deep interest in these Native American readings.  My daughter is a second-year teacher at a native village/school in Newtok, Alaska.  The people there subsist on fishing and their language is Yupik.  In her district are about 15 villages of natives, all different tribes.

The children speak Yupik in Kg, 1st and second grades, then they go to second grade again and are immersed only in English until 12th grade. These kids use the Russian alphabet at home and speak Yupik at home, so there are difficulties for them in school.  They are very close to their native culture and have tribal music, dances, ceremonies, etc which vary from tribe to tribe.

In Lit 213 we read a story of how the Big Dipper was formed...a story about a boy who turned into a huge bear, leapt for the sky and his 7 sisters followed...they became stars which formed the pattern we know as the Big Dipper. Now, this folk tale was thousands of miles from Alaska, but the Alaska State Flag is the Big Dipper made of yellow stars on a blue field.  How did the story get to Alaska????? Or did it begin in Alaska and migrate southward with the migrant tribes, and end up in the mainland?  It is a fact that the people we call Eskimos or Inuits came across the former land bridge (Beringea) (Bering Straits) from Russia and settled in Alaska, Canada, and the Northwest areas we know as Washington, Oregon, etc.

I have noticed that other folk tales from widely different areas seem to have been spread all over and each tribe claims to "own" them. I find this stuff interesting...how cultures end up with similarities sometimes.

Anyway...back to the readings!  Julie