WQ - Appreciating Our Heritage

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It's Tuesday (late on Tuesday!), and in my blog world that means it's time for the Wednesday Quotes link-up hosted by Marsha at Always Write.

Our prompts this week are Heritage and International Museum Day. I've spent a bit of time hunting up quotes about heritage and thinking about how I could tie up some kind of a neat package around the prompt and the quotes. Hmm. What is heritage anyway? It can be property that's passed down to an heir, such as a house or piece of land. It can also be an intangible thing passed down, like a legacy or tradition. That's something museums help us do, yes? Learn about heritage―ours and our neighbors'―and how it has shaped people and communities and history.

I really enjoy learning about history and during my years as a homeschooler, I felt that one of the best ways to learn about it was to find ways to experience a little taste of it. So I genuinely appreciated living history museums. Whether my kids did or not―well, I think the jury may still be out on that! I know they had fun on many of these field trips, but I certainly endured complaints about me making things "educational all the time". Well, would you rather sit at a desk and read a textbook about it? Probably not. I cherish the secret hope that someday they will be appreciate some of the experiences they had!

One's heritage and roots is something to be proud of and cherished. ~Sonja Morgan

People tend to believe that to be modern you have to disengage from your heritage, but it's not true. ~Moza bint Nasser

One living history museum we visited a few times was Historic St. Mary's City in Maryland. The site features reconstructed buildings, a working colonial farm, a Woodland Indian Hamlet, and a replica square-rigged ship. It was interesting to learn about the heritage of our state and what those colonists valued and how they lived, and helped us appreciate our modern conveniences and the religious freedoms we have.

This replica ship is the Maryland Dove, where we learned about how to use pulleys to manage cargo and how sextants and compasses were used to navigate.

The kids even got to sit in the stocks and the pillory for a few minutes! I seem to remember that they agreed that being sent to their room or losing TV privileges was a mild punishment in comparison!

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One year we spent a weekend at Camp Flintlock, an historic encampment experience near St. Mary's City. We had a little taste of what life was like for colonists. After a weekend of gathering and chopping firewood, cooking over an open fire, eating meals using only a few tin utensils, wearing period clothing, and sleeping on straw ticks in tents . . . we appreciated the hard work and commitment of colonists to build a prosperous life in a new land. And again, gained a new appreciation for modern comforts and conveniences.

Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired. ~Robert Kennedy

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Another part of our Maryland heritage is the National Monument park at Fort McHenry, where attorney Francis Scott Key wrote his poem The Star-Spangled Banner during the War of 1812. This site and the many historic battlegrounds of the War Between the States that are in and around Maryland helped us learn to appreciate patriotism and loyalty.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. ~Abraham Lincoln

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One year while vacationing near Niagara Falls, we took a day to visit the Genesee Country Village and Museum near Rochester, NY. There's an entire working village there, most dating to the early 1800's, with a schoolhouse, a tinsmith, a blacksmith, farms, churches, and more. What heritage did the people that once lived and worked in these buildings leave? Clearly they valued hard work, community, and education.

schoolhouse, c. 1822

lesson plan from the 1800s

I like to think my kids appreciated their own education as they compared their homeschool experience to this historic schoolroom!

I know I appreciate my modern kitchen much more after seeing what housewives of this time period had to work with!

kitchen area of an 1809 farmhouse

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We weren't able to visit Manitoba more than a couple times with the kids, but that is part of our heritage too. That's where my parents grew up and I have extended family there. It's where I spent a lot of my vacations as a kid, visiting my grandparents and aunts. On one visit many years ago, we spent a day at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach. My grandparents and other relatives volunteered at that museum and I used to love going there when I was young. 

The world is getting more connected through technology and travel. Cuisines are evolving. Some people are scared of globalization, but I think people will always take pride in cultural heritage. ~John Mackey

Another chance to appreciate homeschooling! Don't they
look thrilled?

Riding in a horse drawn wagon with Papa

We need to have a unified understanding of our national heritage without losing our personal distinctives. The closer that national heritage is to the rule of God, the more ordered our relationship will become in society. ~Tony Evans

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It's wonderful to think of the rich heritage I've inherited from my family and ancestors, and from all those people that aren't related to me but left a legacy that I can share in. All the people that lived and worked, explored, adventured, traveled, settled, built, invented, defended, taught . . . and passed that heritage to us today. A respect and appreciation for it is something I want to share with my children and grandchildren, and hopefully be able to add something positive to the heritage that I pass on to them.

Children are a heritage from the LORD,

offspring a reward from him.

~Psalm 127:3~

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;

Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.

~Psalm 16:6~

Wednesday Quotes is hosted by Marsha at Always Write. This post will be linked at #WQ #20: Heritage/International Museum Day

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