Oh great Gertie and her mule!!! Bess the Landlords Daughter!! We had Childcraft. Those red books were my world until I got my library card at 5 years of age. Daddy would read things from it to me while he rocked me on the porch in the evening. The Highwayman was a favorite but I didn’t quite get why Bess had to take that way out until I was older. I still remember my favorite poem, it was “If”. If all the trees were bread and cheese, and all the seas were ink-------
Daddy believed in the classics and he also believed by reading to me from infancy, it would take hold and become second nature. It worked with me, that’s a fact.
I never believed Slavery was right. I never ever considered it humane in any way. It was only after I began to try to understand my own ancestors role in the war that I saw there was another point of view at that time. Having also discovered the history of Greece, Rome, Spain and other places and their use of slaves caused me to be more confused. The capture and enslaving people from other tribes in the Native American culture also added to the confusion.

To this day, I have not seen one written work that condemned those practices as much as I have on Southern people. That is where many from Southern roots have a problem. They feel there is a Scarlet Letter on them but not others who were just as or more guilty.
My Grandmother still had some family in Germany during the World Wars. She really didn’t know them, just of them. As her Brothers, Husband, Sons and a Daughter joined branches of the United States military, she truly was uncertain if they may come fact to face with a cousin. Every country has their ‘own’ version of events. It’s human nature to want to at least say something good even if there was something going on that was so horrible it’s still mind boggling to anyone today.

Pam