Hello!  Welcome to my blog!  I’m the history nut behind LetsPlayHistory.org (LPH), 3SunThanksgiving.com, and a number of other satellite websites related to history as a hobby.  You’ll hear and see me called Lady Carrie (my Victorian persona), Addilay (my 1621 Thanksgiving persona), and HistoryForFun on Twitter and other places on the net.  My real name is Carrie Franzwa – though that doesn’t stop me from answering to plain old “Hey You!”  You can learn more about me and my LPH mission on this blog’s About page.

This blog is where I journal my ongoing interests, research and discoveries in history.  You can isolate topics by clicking on the desired category at right.

Specifically interested in the 3 Sun Thanksgiving project?  Just click on  “1621 Thanksgiving” for news and happenings.  Need a nutshell explanation?  Here’s a great little audio overview:

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THANKSGIVING  AUDIO  OVERVIEW – 10-MINS

Thanks for dropping in!

Here’s to History as Pastime Fun

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After the discouragements of 2011, I am very relieved and happy to announce that I am busy putting together the country’s first dessert recipe collection having both historical and modern relevance to the Thanksgiving holiday.  It’s going to be wonderful!

As of today I am just shy of half way through the recipe testing.  I anticipate I will have the book available through Amazon by April or May, and can then begin promoting it as a fundraiser for 3 Sun and the first Grameen America office in the Dakotas.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the desserts that will be included:

What a beautiful and perfect idea for Native communities up in the Dakotas!  They apparently have begun to build natural cob houses partially or fully under ground.  The expense is mostly labor, plus the “earth” idea of it all is so suitable to the Native hope of restoring their culture.   How exciting!

The following link/YouTube video was uploaded in 2007, and it documents a Lakota community coming together to lay a foundation for their first cob house.  I wonder how far this vision has progressed?  Sadly, the web address shown at the end of the video is not longer active.

Difficult news:  In April of this year my dear mother took very ill again.  As I am the only family in Oregon, her care fell completely to me.  The situation has been very detrimental to 3SunThanksgiving goals and agenda for 2011, and I have made no progress at all for this season.  2012 is possibly looking better since I was able to move Mom into assisted care, but alas, that doesn’t relieve me of all care duties.  I still must handle two households from now on, and I am still responsible to get Mom to all her many doctor appointments.

I figure the Great Spirit has a plan in all of this.  I do know that 3SunThanksgiving is my heart’s calling, and I will never give up;  it just may take me longer to reach the goal than I had hoped.   I am calling in help and inspiration for 2012 – I will need it.

Peace to you this holiday season, and peace and favor to America’s Native sons and daughters.

My early New England groundnut plants are happy and thriving this spring.  One of the plastic pots split open at the side over the winter, however, and I needed to find new pots…

Oh, but big pots are expensive!

I found these big, beautiful terra cotta pots for $24 each at my local Winco.  They are extra roomy so my groundnut tubers can multiply

Due to disturbing the plants above, I don’t want to repot until they are dormant.  So, not until harvest time this Thanksgiving.

I few days ago I decided to give one of the online genealogy services a try, and chose a membership with OneGreatFamily.com.  The first day was long and fairly fruitless, and I almost gave up.  In fact, today I actually went back in just so I could cancel my membership!

But, oh, am I glad I didn’t!

After speaking with customer service by phone, I gave it another go, and low and behold their system “merged” one of my great-great grandparents with a line in the OneGreatFamily database.  It was freakin’ amazing.  All of  a sudden I had this huge family line dating back to the latter 1100’s!

Yep.  Turns out this line was good ol English stock.  There was even a confirmed knight, and one “Sir” somethin-or-other.  They didn’t live to old ages   We are talking the late 1200’s / early 1300’s, which is still the era of the Crusades (petering out by then).

Wow.  The real reason I was hunting for that great-great grandparent’s parents was because of a middle name of “Powhattan.”  As it is my Native American friends who are encouraging me to do my genealogy work, I thought a middle name of “Powhattan” might turn up a Native-to-white marriage.  Alas, not so far as I can tell.

Still, what an amazing genealogy discovery!

We have completed turning 3SunThanksgiving.com into a membership site.

With this done I am ready to start recruiting here in Oregon for a local 3 Sun chapter.  Oregonians were the first in the nation to recognize tribal sovereignty in our state by flying tribal flags along side the state flag at our state capital (2009).  I am optimistic that Oregonians also have the heart needed to lead the nation in this better, more honest and culturally uplifting form of Thanksgiving remembrance.

Time.com is reporting today that the highly guarded 1887 secret recipe for Coca-Cola may have accidentally been released to the public eye in 1979, but went unrecognized until very recently.

It turns out that a 1979 Atlanta newspaper unwittingly published a photo of the original hand-written recipe, not knowing that it was hidden among the list of medicinal ointments and recipes.

Could this be the real thing?

The recipe:

Fluid extract of Coca: 3 drams USP
Citric acid: 3 oz
Caffeine: 1 oz
Sugar: 30 (unclear quantity)
Water: 2.5 gal
Lime juice: 2 pints, 1 quart
Vanilla: 1 oz
Caramel: 1.5 oz or more for color

The secret 7X flavor (use 2 oz of flavor to 5 gals syrup):
Alcohol:  8 oz
Orange oil: 20 drops
Lemon oil: 30 drops
Nutmeg oil: 10 drops
Coriander: 5 drops
Neroli: 10 drops
Cinnamon: 10 drops

Back in December I put in a “wish” in at my local library for We Shall Remain, a video series by PBS and The American Experience.   It came (hurray!), and I’ve had the pleasure of watching it carefully over the last week.

The series includes five eposides on three discs.   Three of the episodes were excellent, must-see’s (Geronimo, A.I.M.’s 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee, and the Cherokee Trail of Tears).  One episode was rather boring, and a bit too generalized (Tacumseh).  And finally, the last episode, After the Mayflower, I found a historical disappointment.   In my opinion it continues to perpetuate some stereotypes and misnomers about that part of our history, including but not limited to attire stereotypes (English), and the cause of the Great Plague (it hit the entire population all at once and never spread inland, which does NOT sound like a contagious disease).  I also wish it had gone into more thorough detail about the causes of King Phillip’s War.

Overall I appreciate and applaud the series.   As one who missed the whole 1973 A.I.M standoff at Wounded Knee, I was riveted to now gain an understanding.  The Cherokee Trail of Tears segment was also riveting, giving you play by play politics as to what the heck happened.  Very well done!

I was nine years old when Secretariat ran for the triple crown in 1973.  I remember the great distance between winner and second place.  It turns out that Sham, the contender, was a champion quality horse who was just unlucky at timing in having to run that year against a biological freak of nature.

I watched the new Disney release last week, and loved it, of course.  The movie doesn’t, however, explain Secretariat’s physical advantage since at the time of his running no one was aware of it.  But as the announcer historically said during the Belmont race, Secretariat was indeed an “amazing machine.”

Whoever contributed to the Wikipedia content on Secretariat did a great job, using primary sources to substantiate the claim that upon death they discovered Secretariat’s heart was three times the size of a normal horse.  A 7 pound heart is average.  Sham’s heart weighed in at 18 lbs.  in 1993, his being quite a freak in its own right.  But Secretariat’s?  It was estimated by veterinarian, Dr. Thomas Swerczek, to be an unfathomable 22 lbs.. (This same vet performed a necropsy on each of the horses, with Secretariat passing away first in 1989.)

No wonder Secretariat was able to do what he did that day.  He was a running on an extraordinarily giant engine.

Even more interesting is that they can trace the giant-heart genetics back to a horse named Eclipse, a thoroughbred race horse from Britain who lived between 1764 and 1789.  His heart was presumably the first to be found giant-sized at 14 lbs..

So, while the movie doesn’t tell us all this, it was still a very true-to-life telling of this famous equine’s career.  The first half of the movie is rather slow, but just having “front row seats” to the races during the last half of the movie made the early sluggishness forgivable.

It never caught my notice, but apparently pirates wearing eye patches are an over-played stereotype.  It turns out the pirates did use eye patches, but not nearly as often as portrayed, and there are no known primary source documents that tell us why they were used at all.  This has left many a historian theorizing.

One very plausible theory is that the patch kept one eye adjusted to the dark so that during battle or an emergency the wearer could go below deck, flip his patch, and be able to immediately see out of that eye.

Image available through Clipartof.com

“Testing the waters” as I develop my outreach strategy.  I Did my first full-blown presentation as 3 Sun Thanksgiving this last Sunday. It went well, but I learned a one-hour slot is insufficient to convey the who, what, where, when, why, and HOW of it all.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but in October I realized that 3 Sun Thanksgiving is well suited as a year-round hobby, and so I have begun presenting it as such.  This opens wonderful possibilities, and takes the stress off normally having only two weeks out of the year to speak.

In consulting with my own pastor – a man who has a heart for helping other ministries get off the ground – I was told not to expect Sunday invitations, as the pulpit is coveted.  This got me thinking about doing non-Sunday, city-wide Unity Summits across the country, starting here in my own back yard.  If I can rally the northwest over the coming year, I would consider that a wonderful start!

This was a SWEET find!  I purchased a beat up copy of an old 1917 The Women’s Magazine, at an antique store for $2.  I figured for $2 bucks it would be fun to rummage through…

Sure enough, there was this adorable – and very positive – article on women drivers.   I hope I’ve managed to get the print large enough for you to read!

Keep in mind this article was published about three years before women had the right to vote, and close to the time of the great march on Washington where police were allowed to openly beat the women who participated.

Very fun read!

Spent my day off yesterday watching the 12-hour, 2005 mini series, Into the West.  What an awesome Steven Spielberg production!  I was absolutely captivated by the historical accuracy and depiction of the 19th century American west.  Even though the characters were fictional, it was wonderfully apparent that Speilberg and crew all did some serious homework.

Do you know how rare it is to have historical events portrayed accurately in the movies?!!  I have often wondered why producers think they can make the stories any better by re-writing them.  Historical events prove plenty fascinating when retold just the way they actually happened!

Here, Spieldberg proves it to a admirable extent.

Anyway, I have never been one for westerns, nor one to cry at movies, but this series won me in both ways.  Because it was a true depiction, I was willing to freely feel the human story, and let my tears flow.  I was especially touched by the depiction of the Sand Creek Massacre.  (I have a particular love for Black Kettle, a great peace man who died unwavering in his high expectation of the good in his enemy.)  The depiction of Wounded Knee was also very heart-rending.

The series aired some five years ago, but since our household has never had good TV reception (no cable), I never even knew it existed.  I just happened upon the DVD’s when I recently visited my local library.  What a find!

And what a national treasure.  If you’ve never seen it, you owe it to yourself to make time.  It is available through Amazon:  Steven Speilberg’s “Into The West”

I recently had my Native American friends over for dinner, and they are encouraging me to look for any Native persons in my family tree.  Among other hints and recommendations they said to watch for single names with no surnames.  These entries are often not a mistake, but rather indicative of the way Native persons were given “Christian” (European) names during the 1800’s, if not earlier.

I was recently reading from a book titled Pioneer Women: Voices From the Kansas Frontier, by Joanna L. Stratton, and was surprised and curious to find my first name, Carrie, among the names of the pioneer women of Kansas.  As it is a fairly uncommon name today, I wondered about its origins.

Growing up I was just told that I was named after a famous movie star (I don’t recall who – I was born in 1964 – any ideas?)

Upon doing a little research I discovered that the name Carrie was extremely popular in America during the Victorian era, and was so widely used by 1880 that it was numbered among the top 20 most popular names. (This according to a couple of name-history websites.)

A funny little coincidence came from my research as well:  Carrie is a derivative of Caroline, which is a female derivative of Charles.   …And my maiden name?

Charley!

I’m sure my parents didn’t do that one on purpose

Last weekend I had the great pleasure of attending the Pioneer Picnic Parade in Brownsville, Oregon, which is the longest continually running annual event in the state. The parade is all about things “old,” so it is naturally one of my favorite events. This year I was particularly enchanted by this 1909 “Auto-buggy.” It smoked a little, and sputtered along, but it was sure sweet to see on the go!

Seeing this old car reminded me that a few months back I had seen film footage of the San Francisco area from about the same time period (1905-ish). I went back to see if I could find any “Auto-buggies” in the footage, but didn’t see any. Here’s the video:

Moving picture technology was brand new in 1905/6. This footage is believed to have been taken on an early Sears Robuck movie camera. Gas powered cars were still a novelty (Ford didn’t open until 1908, and didn’t begin mass production until 1913). Big cities had cars, but this film may have been staged to look like there were more cars than was actually the case. Also, you get a glimpse of a great rarity for this time period… a WHITE car is seen in the opening footage (on the left). You’ll also notice the electric street cars – electricity was only available to roughly 10% of American homes by this time, and only to those living in big cities (the electric vacuum cleaner was introduced somewhere around 1908, and the electric refrigerator in about 1913).

This movie footage is believed to have been prior to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which our Grandfather Ben Franzwa survived. Here are a couple of links to film and stills documenting the devestation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake:

After the 1906 San Francisco quake (film):
youtube.com/watch?v=lH4F91oARtE
Slide show after the quake (stills):
youtube.com/watch?v=5a7OizEdAik

After months of planning, research, photo production and re-production, I finally managed to pull together this beautiful old-fashioned-looking gallery of my husband’s side of the family.  Don’t they look fantastic?

I got the Victorian print craft wrapping paper at my local Dollar Tree.  Outside of not being acid-free, it’s perfect!  (I just put acid-free liners between the pictures and the paper).

Sadly, I had no sooner hung the finished work of art in our “Rogues Gallery” upstairs, when I heard a crash from downstairs here at the computer.  I wondered what the heck the cats had gotten into this time…  I went upstairs, but saw nothing out of order.

Oh, well.  I’d find it sooner or later…

Well, later came that evening when I walked into our master bedroom.  There on the floor was the frame smashed open.  No broken glass, and no damaged photos, but leave it to the “high quality” pressboard frames of today!  It apparently couldn’t hold its own weight

For now it is sitting on the floor until I can repair or replace the frame.  Argh!  I only thought I had knocked one more off the to-do list!

Still, it was a very nice try if I do say so myself.

Here are the first and second logo designs for 3 Sun Thanksgiving

Just what does the 3 Sun logo symbolize?  Fundamentally it reminds us that the 1621 event was a three day outdoor picnic, and not the traditional sit down formal dinner we celebrate today.

According to period source document Of Plimoth Plantation, the English actually intended a single day of thanks-giving “after a special manner.”  They were accustomed to one-day harvest home celebrations, but because of the young relationship they had with their neighboring Wampanoag allies, the Native guests were able to coax the English into two more days of feasting and celebration.  Several days of celebration was the norm for Wampanoag peoples, and this was their usual season of thanks-giving for the harvest of maize.

Today we have a similar request being made by our Native Peoples, in that we have the new Native American Heritage Day act which was passed in June of 2009.  It calls for “another” day of celebration on the day after Thanksgiving annually in honor of Native contributions to our society.

Just as in 1621, the opportunity is again to spend time getting to know both cultural heritages,  and to form greater bonds across ethnic lines.

In truth, the English and Native Peoples of 1621 Plimoth were not yet “good friends,” but both parties were willing to show themselves friendly and develop a sense of brotherhood.

Our relationship with Native Peoples has not come along as far as we had hoped by this time in our American history, but it’s never too late to show ourselves friendly toward one another.  That is the heart and spirit behind the 3 Sun Thanksgiving movement.

I decided to cut an old-fashioned 1930’s-style wooden jigsaw puzzle for my oldest daughter’s birthday this year, and even took it a step further by creating my first two-sided puzzle.  It definitely required MUCH greater patience during cutting!

I was inspired to do a two-sided puzzle when I found this pair of absolutely adorable 1920’s postcards at auction on eBay… I rarely bid on items from overseas, but these were so cute I had to take the chance!  (They came from the UK.)  They blew up nicely to make a an approximate 11×7-in puzzle.

The little figural pieces I worked into the cut included a bow, a dog, a dog bone, a heart, flowers, and face cut-outs, among others. Very charming!

Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that hard to assemble the puzzle.  At approximately 65 pieces it took her and I about 50 minutes to put it together.

Perfect for an afternoon break!

The 3 Sun Thanksgiving project mission is to create a new movement among Americans that capitalizes on the latent cultural value of the Thanksgiving holiday, and that compliments and honors the new Native American Heritage Day.   Our highest aim is to foster better understanding about our history and relationship with Native Peoples, and to build bridges of respect and unity.  We look to achieve this mission by, a) introducing living history as a holiday hobby alternative for families and communities, by b) making it easy to understand American Indian history and resulting modern issues, and by, c) inviting mainstream Americans to join together in a compassionate alliance to support Native culture preservation, and simultaneously create real economic opportunity for on-reservation Native groups facing overwhelming poverty and suicide rates.