A Grandmother Tea Party

Joan Elder was gracious enough to send me a wonderful idea recently that I'm so excited to share with you.  She had a Tea Party with her granddaughters and taught them about her grandmother.  You can tell she is a great storyteller and when you add food, you can tell she had a winning combination.  

Here is what she wrote:

This is the idea I was telling you about. It was so fun!!!  This sit down type activity works better for me than trying to do some physical activity where I am trying to keep up with my active grandchildren. I am going to adapt it to different ancestors. It could be a picnic lunch, or a day of fishing, or...but pulling out the items that go with the person works well...especially when some of them are treats! I did the tea party with my 9, 7, 5, and 2 year old grandchildren all together. I was able to captivate their attention for over an hour. Food will do it. (and pictures and stories). I sent one of them home with a picture of them, myself, and the ancestor in wallet sized photos in a $.99 double frame from WalMart. Going to make scrapbook pages of it as well (hopefully), and continue doing it for the rest of my 22 grandchildren.

[She wrote out a whole lesson plan for it.  (I especially love the pink foam roller story.  What grandchild wouldn't?)]

Bertha Marie Tea Party

(a tradition that began March 4, 2013)

Set out mom’s china

A picture of Bertha Marie

Pretty Bowl with cards in them

Introduction:

Pointing to Bertha Marie’s picture in the center of the table, talk about how we wouldn’t all be here if it wasn’t for her. This is my ___. Because she had Joan, who had ___, who had you. She is how we all got here. We owe her a lot just for that. Do you know her name? Do you know who she is to you? (g grandmother).

   These dishes you are eating off of are hers. She liked nice things. Let me tell you a story about them.

Magic China – show picture of the upside down car at Joan Marie’s wedding. Tell story how the china was in the trunk of the car, and not one piece of china was broken when the car was rolled. Joan Marie’s brother Ken was the boy driving the car on Joan’s and Russell’s wedding day. The crash happened after the wedding. Fortunately, Uncle Ken was not hurt either.

Have the following items ready, but unseen. These will be brought out as the coordinating card is drawn; Pictures, Chocolate Éclair, Butterfinger bars (one for each child is more impressive), donut for each child, the fixings for chocolate malt (vanilla ice cream, milk, chocolate syrup, powdered malt), Reinking book, (Schafer book if you have it of mom and her 4 Schafer kids).

Cards with these words on in (put them in a pretty bowl for children to draw out. I choose one that is her favorite color, then ask the kids if they know why I chose this light aqua color) –

Thrifty $$$, Hard Working, Beautiful, Kind, Fair & Honest, Funny, Talented

 ‘Beautiful’ Card

Bertha Marie’s high school picture – show other pictures of Bertha; her other high school pictures, she and her mom together, and other girls in our family; Joan Marie’s senior picture, Katie’s, Rainy’s, Krystal’s, Melinda’s and Krystal’s 4 month old baby picture. Tell how Sierra and Krystal looked exactly the same when they were 4 months old. That’s because we are all related!

   Bertha Marie was very beautiful, and us girls get some of our beauty from Bertha Marie. But she was not just pretty on the outside. Let’s find out how she was beautiful on the inside.

‘Fair & Honest’ Card

Butterfinger Candy Bars – Mom didn’t want us to eat sugar. She didn’t like it giving us cavities. We didn’t have it around the house much, only on special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes I would find a candy bar wrapper under mom’s seat in the car. She would feel embarrassed, because she was breaking one of her own rules. Her face would turn bright red. She didn’t like it that she had been not fair, so she would buy one for us. Do you know what kind of candy bar was her favorite?  Butterfinger. (Take out the Butterfingers) And she would give one to each of us! (And pass them out to each kid).

True and faithful to her husband   

‘Kind’ Card

Donuts – have Reinking book ready – show picture of donuts in Fritz’s kitchen. Tell how mom used to come in with her buddies when she was like 5, reach up above her head, and pull them off the table one by one, and pass them out to her friends.

   Story about her taking the Switzer kids in

   Story about her sending money to cousins after WWII in worn torn Germany.

   Story about her sending money to her nephew that was going to college to help      with tuition costs. She did these things quietly, without bragging or fanfare. I never knew till only recently.

Chocolate Malt Fixings – Tradition of going to Lawton Pharmacy where they had ‘fountain drinks,’ and made Chocolate malts from scratch. We all loved these as much as we did eclairs! Mom would always ask for ‘double chocolate’ and ‘double malt.’ That means she had them put extra in of the things that made it taste so good. Well, sorry to say, but us kids were so greedy when we had a chocolate malt in front of us.

‘Talents’ Card (pie, oatmeal cookies, sewing)

Reinking Book- Show picture of Singer Sewing Machine. Tell how her mother Ruby taught her how to sew. And that she sewed all of her clothes (show picture of Bertha Marie in the suit she sewed. See the page labeled ‘After the War.’

   Could tell how she made the best pies with perfectly fluted edges. And the best oatmeal cookies. I (Joan) remember hiding under the table once, and sneaking one off to eat while mom was still baking more. Bran Muffins for breakfast.

‘Funny’ Card

Funny Story – mom used to wear foam rollers (explain. They were often pink). One time, we were sleeping in a cabin on a little island in Washington, called Lopez Island. It was a cool vacation for us, because it was nearly on the beach, and we got to go play at the beach during the day. We could tell the cabin was full of mice, because when we laid down and turned the lights out to go to sleep, we could hear the mice scratching and knawing in the drawers and cupboards. Well in the middle of the night, we all woke up scared when we heard mom screaming!!! When we turned the lights on, we found her squeezing one of her pink foam rollers! Apparently, she thought there was a mouse in her hair…and SHE SQUEEZED HIM TO DEATH! But, it was just her pink roller.

‘Hard Working’ Card

Bought houses and apartment buildings, and fixed them up. When someone would move out, she would clean up all their trash and mess, and paint all their walls perfectly, and make the whole apartment like new again. She would repair fences. She worked hard.

‘Thrifty $$$’ card

Tell the meaning of thrifty. Ask how much they can buy at the dollar store. Can they buy pants? Or a coat? Or a dress? Well Bertha Marie always shopped for bargains. One time she bought a nice dress for $1! She was a real shopper.

She would always save her money first before buying something. She loved antiques. They were expensive. She would save up, then buy the piece of furniture. (Show picture of brass clock, Roberta’s grandfather clock, lamp, bedroom set?) Don’t have pictures of these items yet.

   Because she worked hard, saved her money, and was thrifty, she became rich.

‘Fun’ Card

    When Bertha Marie was about 5 or 7, she won a scooter for free! You had to collect labels on cans. Her dad was a cook, so he saved all of his. Neighbors saved theirs. It was at a time when everyone was poor because of the depression. She was so excited when she won the prize. That would be like winning a motorcycle today. (show picture of she and scooter in the Reinking book. Point out her mom and dad on the front. Talk about how they saved their money. Show family car and house in Seattle. Show the Hooverville houses that some people had to live in.)

   Chocolate Éclair – this was Bertha Marie’s favorite treat. One time she told us kids that she had found the best eclaris! When we asked her where, she said they were on the other side of town (20 minutes away). Ask the children, “What would you do?” Pause. Well we asked her if we could go right now and go try them.  “What do you think she said?” Pause, “You’re right! She said yes, and so we all piled into the car lickity split, and got to that special bakery on the other side of town. “Do you think they were the best?” Yep! Well, maybe you had better try these and see what you think. (Pull out eclairs)

Thanks so much for the inspiration Joan.  I can't wait to try this.  

Santa Claus as an ally

I received a wonderful idea from Nancy Roach that might work for your family and I'm so glad she agreed to let me share it with you here.  She is friends with Patricia Burrow and had a twist on Patricia's idea about getting children to write their own stories.  I thought this one was particularly useful since it involves Santa.  Anything with Santa will be attractive and get their attention don't you think?  Thanks Nancy for this great idea!  I'm going to see if it will work on my kids this year too. 

Patricia says, "When my children were growing up, they would write letters to Santa every year. As they got older they would include in those letters to Santa what had gone on in their lives "since you were here last year." Those letters are a wonderful way of remembering what the child considered important enough to share with Santa. Even in college I told the kids to write their letter to Santa or there might not be any presents. They would good-naturedly reply to keep Mom happy so I have those college memories of what happened during the year too. My daughters are keeping the tradition alive with my grandchildren."
Nancy Roach
Scottsdale, AZ

Mother's Day Sale. Our lowest prices ever on the Zap The Grandma Gap Books so you can pamper your mom.

We sent out an email today about the Mother's Day sales we have going.  I'll post them here too so that everyone gets to hear about it.  If you didn't get the newsletter, you can sign up here.

Two Mother's Day Specials That Will Strengthen Your Family Relationships And Help You Honor Your Heritage.

Mother's day is a great time to celebrate the heritage you've been given and we want to help you honor and give back to the mothers and grandmothers in your life.  We've paired up offers from FamilyChartMasters.com and ZapTheGrandmaGap.com for some great ideas to show your love to the mothers and grandmothers in your life.

Our Deepest Discount Ever On Canvas Custom Charts 2 Days Only

If you've been waiting to create one of our beautiful canvas giclee masterpieces, now is the time.  Honor your Mom and teach your family about their heritage with a beautiful expression of your family.  Submit your files by midnight Thursday and get 1/2 off any custom canvas giclee genealogy chart. 
Sale Price: $54.95 - $142.45 Regular Price: $109.95-$285.95 S & H: $11.95Send us your files now.  We'll work back and forth with you until it is just what you are looking for, and have it shipped in time for Mother's Day.  Sale ends midnight May 2nd

Zap The Grandma Gap Books New Lower Pricing and Mother's Day Special

Because of the amazing reception we've already had for our new books, we have a new distributor who has allowed us to be able to dramatically drop the prices.   And we've dropped them even further for the Mothers and Grandmothers in your life.  Check out the excerpts and the great reviews.  A quick and easy present to strengthen your family and honor your heritage.
Our Price: $30.00 S & H: $5.00Order now, sale ends May 7th
When you honor the mothers in your life you strengthen those family relationships and create a culture of respect and gratitude in your own life and in the next generations of your family. Let us know what we can do to help you in that endeavor.  We send you our best wishes for a healing, inspirational, wonderful and blessed Mother's day.

(And don't fret if  you want to take advantage of this opportunity to treat yourself to a chart or the books you've been wanting for yourself.  Your Mom would be proud of you for sharing your family's heritage and for taking good care of yourself too.  :))

A great new magazine review from Family-Tree.co.uk

I'm so excited to show you the first published magazine review we have for the book, and the first international review.  I have had such a wonderful time talking with editor Helen Tovey about the principles in Zap The Grandma Gap.  She has been so excited about it and even has been trying some of the ideas out on her own children.  Here's what she wrote me in an email last month: 

Lastly – about your wonderful tips that I’ve tried and which have worked. Here are some examples…

I’ve dug out my Reader’s Digest Cookery Year from the 1970s and baked the jumbles with one daughter (my mum always used to bake these for us when we were kids) and in reminiscing about this it led on to all sorts of other family stories – as happens!

I ‘walked the walk’ when they were around (usually I do my fh when they’re out at hockey etc) and the same daughter joined in (she offered!) with helping scanning.

I sang (very badly!) ‘Over the sea to sky’ to the other daughter – as my mum’s mum used to sing it to her when she was little.

More than anything you changed my attitude, really encouraging me, so that I’ve been just dropping bits of fh into casual random conversations much more than I would usually – and they’ve liked chatting about it, reflecting on it and joining in.

Our family is a very complicated one, and I found your realistic attitude very heartening too – ie that you need to share and learn from the good and the bad parts of the past.
I'm so glad she found the book encouraging.  That is what I was trying to do--express the idea that no matter what your family background is like, you will grow and become stronger by knowing more about it.

So then, I received this in the mail..  :)

Here's what was inside:

 Thanks so much to Helen Tovey and her team at Family Tree Magazine UK.  You absolutely have made it all worthwhile. 

Stories

Patricia Burrow sent me this great email today.  I couldn't wait to tell you about her idea.  We've already scheduled a time to do this with my family this summer.  We're going to do it at our traditional summer get together.  But we may have to do it at other holidays too.  Thanks for the great idea Patricia! 

Hello Janet,

Love the Zap books.

I wanted to tell you about a success we have had in our home. Several years ago someone told about how they had everyone write a "story" to be read at Christmas dinner. What a great idea!! My husband and I sent out letters to all of the children before Christmas to say that all we wanted for Christmas was a story.  Two paragraphs to two pages, photo illustrations optional. And, the new rule is, no dessert until you read a story that you have written. The first year, only my husband and I read our stories (they got dessert anyway with a promise to do better the next year). The second year, half did the story and a few thought that they could get away with TELLING a story (nope! it has to be written). Third year EVERYONE had a story, most with photo illustrations. All were wonderful and everyone enjoyed it very much. Loads of laughs. Now, they all look forward to this "tradition". We learn more and more about our daughter-in-law and new son-in-law and they learn about us. The grandkids are hearing family history and our kids are hearing stories about their parents that they never knew or experienced in a younger time. After last week's Easter dinner our seven year old grandson said that he already had his story done for next year. I think he thought that we were doing stories for every holiday. He was a bit disappointed but knows he will be ready for December. I think we have him hooked. We have allowed the kids to make up stories until they are 12 years old at which time they have to write real stories.

Stories could be about anything, about firsts (school day, riding a bike, tasting oysters, going to Disneyland, etc) or events (meeting your father, becoming a mother, graduation, coming home, etc.) or people (I remember grandpa, or my 3rd grade teacher, etc.). A friend tried this at their home and they loved it. Dad told a story about an activity he did with his son. His son disputed that story and told his own story the next year. It is now a family fun time to hear several sides to one story.

I collect all of these stories and include them with the year's Christmas photos and Christmas cards in a scrapbook. I put five years worth of pics and stories into one scrapbook and put it out on the coffee table during the holidays. The book is seldom closed while there is family in the house. We are on our second scrapbook and the stories are read and reread every year.

I hope that you get wide distribution of your books and that more families will bring the grandchildren into their stories. Thanks for you good work.  - pb

My final take away from the youth activities at RootsTech

So as I've been putting these last blog posts together and talking to my kids about what they thought about the youth classes at RootsTech I've learned two things. 

1. One and possibly two of my teenagers have been to enough presentations about how great family history is for youth and how they should get involved.  They are actually curious and looking for more instruction about how to do research. They've googled and such but I'm hearing a little more curiosity about where the good resources are. 

and
2.  My teenagers don't want to listen to adults teach them about how to do research.  There is some kind of disconnect there.  My kids go to lots of genealogy conferences, but I don't think they're all that excited about going to classes.  I'm going to try again at the upcoming UGA South Davis Family History Fair in a couple of weeks but in general I don't think they want to listen to the adults. 

So.  I just proposed to my son that if he would sit down with me one on one and learn a little more, maybe he should develop some courses that he could submit to conferences for teaching youth.  I think if he would rather go to a class taught by a teenager, maybe he could be talked into teaching other teenagers. 

Hmmmm.  I'll let you know how it goes. 

Elaine Dalton's Devotional at RootsTech

So the whole family got to go see Elaine Dalton's devotional at RootsTech last weekend.  It was great for us that the exhibitor's hall closed so early in the afternoon.  We were able to get everything packed up, go have a nice dinner together and listen to my teenagers talk about the sessions they went to in the afternoon, and then all go together to listen to the devotional.  It was some great family time together--a sweet benefit to doing family history together.  As always, Family History strengthens those bonds between family members. 

I knew we were in for a treat.  Elaine Dalton is a wonderful, genuine, beautiful lady.  She holds the calling in the LDS church of the general leader over all LDS Young Women ages 12-18.  She is called the Young Women's General President.  As such, she travels all over the world speaking to youth groups.  I was very honored a couple of weeks ago when she sent me a personal letter saying that she loved my Zap The Grandma Gap books and that she would be using them with her grandchildren.  I know she is busy, but I know family history and her own family are very important to her.

She compared the almost two thousand youth in attendance to the 2,000 Stripling Warriors.  In the Book of Mormon (considered as scripture to the LDS church) there is a story about 2,000 young men who fought to save their families.  In the story, the families of the young men had lived for generations at war with the people of God.  When their parents were converted to the truth, they made an oath to never take up weapons again in pennance for their past wrongs.  Many of the fathers of these 2,000 young men were killed by their enemies because they were true to their oath and wouldn't go back to fighting.  What was left of their community--mostly the young children and their mothers--went to live with other people who shared their same faith in God.  Their new neighbors knew of the oath and wanted to support their commitment to God.  The new neighbors promised to protect them in the continual wars that were going on.  But as the years went on, the wars were increasingly severe and it took a great toll on the people.  When their survival was at stake, 2,000 of their young men--young enough that they had not taken the oath that their parents had taken--offered to go to war to protect their families.  They chose a prophet to be their leader and they went out to fight.  The book says "they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them."  These 2,000 young men were then protected and not one of them lost their lives in the fighting.  They proved crucial to winning the war.

I thought this was a brilliant analogy and I was so moved sitting in the middle of all these teenagers listening to her talk.  Like I write in the books, I honestly believe family history could save the world from so many of the social ills that we see today.  I believe it helps young people have the scaffolding to grow up to be strong, purposeful adults with a healthy sense of self.  I believe it saves families.  And as young people today get involved in family history it does save their families.  As the New York Times, the Huffington Post and etc have been talking about as of late--family history--having that family narrative is a strong team building exercise that is the strongest thing you can use to create good relationships in your family.

Sister Dalton was very forthright in her religious convictions about the importance of family history for youth.  She said "When the Lord has something important to do He often asks the youth to do it."  She cited the examples of Mormon, another Book of Mormon figure who was called to the ministry at only 15.  And she talked of Joseph Smith, the modern day prophet who started the LDS church and was called of God at the age of 14.  She said that she believed that mobile devices had been developed so that this generation would be able to do family history.  And I really appreciated her leadership in saying, "I will never ask you to start doing what I'm not doing."  She told them that you can't be a leader unless you are out in front doing it.  So she promised them that she would be on the computer doing it too--and she told them she might be calling them for some help.  :)

She talked about an initiative in one area of the church (I'm sorry I missed the location) where a few youth were taught about how to research their family history and then each of them went and taught another young person how to do it.  Each of them in turn went and taught another person.  She joked that it works best when the girls were inviting boys.  "Talk about binding hearts together."  :)  She asked each of the youth in attendance to go out and teach another young person about family history. As you can see by my other posts about what what my kids thought about RootsTech, that would definitely help with my own family.  There is some sort of disconnect when adults are talking about it.  My teenagers resonate best with other teenagers teaching how to do it.

It was a great presentation.  I left all inspired and I think the kids caught a bit of inspiration too.  You can read more of Sister Dalton's instructions to LDS youth about family history here.