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How my grandma played an important role in my life
Positive home schooling experiences
How my grandma played an important role in my life
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“Keep your sunshine on!” This is my grandmother, Kathleen Gerke’s, famous quote. This is what she wrote on every napkin in her children’s school lunches. This is a great example of how positively she lived her life through her childhood, adulthood, and elderly years. Every day of Kathleen’s childhood, she awoke to the sunshine on the farm, and started her day doing her chores. These chores consisted of feeding the pigs and chickens, gathering eggs, and milking cows. She enjoyed her chores, and loved caring for her family every day. Because she was the oldest of five siblings, she walked them to and from school. She went to church every day, becoming a very devout catholic. This was the beginning of her compassionate life. Once Kathleen graduated
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
She taught Lori-Jean respect, love, forgiveness, gentleness and compassion. Throughout the book Lori-Jean would often reflect back on something Mee-Maw had told her. Lori Jean would then use that recollection to make her choice. Lori Jean was raised by a multitude of adults. All of the adults were oppressed, underserved and lower class. Yet, some of them had a kind of pride that shined like a golden coin. It was a kind of pride that runs deeps. A pride that is not spoken of, but instead viewed on the outside. All of the adults who helped raise her dealt with a variety of social ghosts. The lower class folk were always treated like they were less than. No matter how hard they worked. Lori Jean’s family were close and helped one another as much as
Dorothea noticed that the mentally ill were placed in prisons because people didn’t know what else to do with them. Her early family life, which consisted of an abusive alcoholic dad and a mother that was not in good mental health, was very troubling and led to Dorothea’s guardianship of her brothers. Dorothea became a teacher and then centered her life on prison reform and the creation of asylums and homes for the mentally
Kathy Harrison starts her personal story happily married to her childhood sweet heart Bruce. Kathy was living a simple life in her rural Massachusetts community home as the loving mother of three smart, kind, well-adjusted boys Bruce Jr., Nathan, and Ben. With the natural transitions of family life and the changes that come with career and moving, she went back to work as a Head Start teacher. Her life up until the acceptance of that job had been sheltered an idyllic. Interacting in a world of potluck suppers, cocktail parties, and traditional families had nothing in common with the life she would choose after she became a Head Start teacher.
Lallie's childhood truly influenced her sense of happiness. "I had a wonderful childhood, she said. "I was the only child and I had complete freedom. I was able to roam the countryside of New Mexico on my horse, and I only had to come home to eat. My dad was a lumberman and worked at the sawmill. It was hard to keep a teacher in the sawmill, because they would leave half way through the year. So my mom became my teacher from grades 3 throug...
Margaret Sanger was born on September 14, 1879, in Corning, New York. She was the daughter of two Irish Catholic parents who had eleven children in total. She witnessed the struggles that having a large family brought upon all aspects of her childhood, specifically her mother’s neverending stress. Sanger later attributed her mother’s death at the ripe age of 50 from tuberculosis to the strain of having eleven children and s...
Dead at the age of thirty nine years young, Flannery O’Conner lost her fight with lupus, but had won her place as one of America’s great short story writers and essayist. Born in Savannah, Georgia, within the borders of America’s “Bible Belt”, she is raised Catholic, making O’Connor a minority in the midst of the conservative Protestant and Baptist faiths observed in the Southern United States. In the midst of losing her father at the age fifteen, followed by her diagnosis and struggle with the same physical illness that took him, as well as her strong unwavering faith in the Catholic Church are crucial components of O’Connor’s literary style which mold and guide her stories of loss, regret, and redemption. Flannery O’Connor’s writings may be difficult to comprehend at times, but the overall theme of finding grace, sometimes in the midst of violence or tragedy, can be recognized in the body of her works. O’Connor’s stories are written about family dysfunction, internal angst towards life or a loved one, and commonly take place on a farm, plantation or a family home in the American South. Her stories of ethical and moral challenge blur the boundaries between her Catholic faith and values, which also include the values of the other religious faiths surrounding her in her youth, simply writing of the pain and struggles which people from all walks of life commonly share.
Flannery O’Connor is regarded as one of the greatest supporters of Roman Catholic writings in the twentieth century. O’Connor was born in Savannah on March 25th, 1925 and her parents were very devout Catholics. She was raised to always live the Catholic lifestyle. O’Connor was educated at a local parochial school, and after moving to Milledgeville, she continued her education at Peabody Laboratory School. Devastation struck when she lost her father to Lupus Erythematosus. She was only fifteen years old, and little did she know, this disease would end up killing her several years later. After the loss of her father, O’Connor decided to go to Georgia State College for Women and take an accelerated three-year program (Gordon 1).
In the article “The Amazing Powers Of Jen Bricker” by Kristen Lewis, and the poem “Can’t” by Edgar Albert Guest, both show to us what Helen Keller is talking about in her quote “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” In the article it gives us many pieces of evidence, but the best piece in my opinion is when Jen’s family always encouraged her to put her mind to, and stick with it. “But Jen says she’s fortunate. Growing up, she felt she could do anything she put her mind to-whether it was playing on the volleyball team or stealing the ball on the basketball court. Jen’s positive outlook was instilled in her from a young age. ‘Can’t’ was never part of her vocabulary. In the bricker house, the word was simply not allowed.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
Her mother Gladys, worked very hard for her children. Gladys was from African American slaves and Cherokee Native Americans ancestors. Patricia was blessed with a brother and once he was born her mother began to budget for the future. She saved her money from her jobs as a housewife and a domestic worker, to help pay for her children’s education. To pay for Pat’s medical schooling, Gladys scrubbed floors. “Mom and dad were the fuel and engine to my empowerment, she once said.” (source 9 page 99) Her parents helped her work toward what she has achieved today. She...
Early on the reader is aware that Mary Katherine thoughts are unusual and eccentric for a girl her age. Mary Katherine was brought up as upper class in a small village, living with her family until their sudden death. With only her Uncle and
Kelley, Mary. Introduction. The Power of Her Sympathy. By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993.
Two years ago today my great grandmother passed away from old age and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Although all of my memories with her are vague, I will never forget the happiness that emanated from her when you were around her. Even in her last days, when she could barely remember her own children, you never saw her without a smile on her face. And that to me is something that I will carry with me for as long as I