Comments by "christine paris" (@christineparis5607) on "The Adventures of William Hall, VC" video.

I hated history in school, because it was just some exhausted teacher droning dates in a monotone...until an incredible substitute teacher from Stanford University showed up and, because it was the 60s, she was on fire about black history. She made the entire class get up during a lecture on slave shipping and made us squeeze into the same space slaves would occupy for 20 minutes to get an idea of how cramped and terrifying it would have been. We were laughing and jostling for a few minutes and then it became really uncomfortable, then unbearable. Two guys started shoving, one girl started crying. She told us to go back to our seats, didn't say anything, just let us sit and think about it. That was a minute that changed my entire life. I could not get enough history after that, spent hours reading, looking into the past, searching out 1st person memoirs... One person who brought to life for just a moment what it meant to be a person of that color, in that time and place. I wish I knew who she was so I could tell her that she influenced me more than any other person in my life...
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@OkieSketcher1949 I grew up in California, but married a Texan and live in San Antonio now. I found out that my mom was actually a member of the Daughters of the American revolution and the confederacy, which I never heard her talk about, until she mentioned it when I made a comment about how proud Texans were of their history. I was so surprised! My husband has an ancestor that died at the Alamo (Marshall), and going there, and learning about the many different groups that settled here has made me so interested! It really personalizes the past when you find some connection to it through family. After my mom passed we found out that supposedly she was half native American, so I guess I'll do the ancestry.com thing. I'd love to find out more!
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@painmagnet1 We have a place outside of Fredricksburg, TX and a book came out about a family whose German ancestors settled there in the 1880s. Two of their young sons were taken captive by Indians and were not found again for 15 years! One of the boys sickened and died and the other one felt himself fully Indian by that time and could not adjust to returning to people he had no longer memories of or a relationship with. He was a silent and angry man on the outside of his family ever after. It was so tragic. He lived until the 30s or 40s. What fascinated me even more is that there were many children of all different ethnicities "adopted" by indian tribes, black, mexican, european, etc. They grew up and married indians, had kids and so on, and were considered completely indian by both white and the tribes. I was talking to my brother in laws mother a few weeks ago (she's about 86) and she told me how her uncles were almost captured when they ranched out there. Going out to work was always hazardous as they were away from the house on acres of rough land. Although they were always armed, it was not uncommon to be surrounded or snuck up on. In this case her uncle ran and hid in a big field of corn and they didn't find him. They left when the father saw the horses and went riding out to get his son. The founders of Fredricksburg eventually signed a treaty with some of the tribes to remain peaceful and trade with each other, and it was one of the rare instances where it honored by both sides, and the town flourished. Outside the town, though, it was kind of considered open so there were still many skirmishes and problems, mainly because the indiand did not understand the concept of "owning" land, and horse stealing was a very traditional way for young men to prove themselves and have the horses to trade for brides...
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@92bagder Wow! Fantastic! You give me hope, my schools were unbelievably bad. Back in the 60s, there were teachers that had been teaching by rote and repetition since 1870, we had some impossibly ancient coots who just hated kids by then. I remember two teachers who hit kids, they just believed in taking a yardstick or pointer to pound the knowledge in. Scary and weird...
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@eltonronjovi2238 LOVED YOUR COMMENT! Having an inspired teacher is a huge influence, someone excited by their topic and happy to share their enthusiasm always reminds me of WHY I love to read history, write and lose myself in other times, it comes to life! To be around anyone who is excited is almost rare now, most people are just so uninterested in anything at all that it's depressing sometimes. It is always a huge boost to hear great stories like your experience, thank you!
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