By Kathy Buie Vance. The Alderman house was just north of the Buie/Pence house, also facing Main Street. It looked like something out of “Gone With the Wind”, with its massive size and white columns. There was a beautiful winding staircase inside. Grandma's sister and brother-in-law built the house and lived there before I was... Continue Reading →
By Kathy Buie Vance. Montpelier Presbyterian Church faced Main Street and was next door to Aunt Lottie Mae's house. That's where I was christened, went to Bible School every summer, went to Sunday School and church every Sunday, and enjoyed many a potluck dinner on the grounds. When I was twelve, a handsome young minister,... Continue Reading →
By Kathy Buie Vance. When I was nine, we got our first TV. Daddy brought one home for Christmas in 1952. We were fascinated and would even watch TEST PATTERN. Everything was live so mistakes were made often. Our favorite show was “I Love Lucy” and we begged to be allowed to stay up to... Continue Reading →
By Kathy Buie Vance. Christmas was always so exciting. We would wake up to a living room of toys and stockings filled with goodies. One Christmas Eve, Ann and I decided to take turns holding the clock all night. We had been told not to go into the living room before 7am. We got impatient... Continue Reading →
Off to Woman's College of the University of North Carolina in the fall of 1961 when I was 17. I thought everybody had grown up like I had. I was laughed at because of my innocence and ignorance of worldly things. I didn't know anybody there and was assigned two roommates, Sandra and Bunny. In... Continue Reading →
My niece, Eve Vance Fleishman, inherited this necklace and pocket watch from her aunt, Celeste Buie Lewis, who inherited them from her grandmother, Lessie Covington Secrest, who inherited them from her Uncle Tom Simmons after the untimely death of his wife in 1914 while Lessie was a student at Brenau College. The original owner of... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tQTycdBvxA&feature=emb_logo PBS Newshour: “Traditionally, movies and books about Native American life have focused on tragedy and defeat. Now, a new work of history and reporting urges readers to consider a more complex culture that is not only still living, but evolving. Jeffrey Brown sits down with David Treuer, author of “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee:... Continue Reading →
The United States came into being as a result of European colonialism starting in the 15th century. School children still learn this poem: "In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He had three ships and left from Spain; He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain. He sailed by night; he sailed by... Continue Reading →
One of the founding narratives of American history is "conquering the frontier," from the courage of the European explorers "discovering" a New World to the early colonists risking their lives to tackle the wilderness and carve out productive lives. They were sent by competing world empires to establish beach-heads. Eventually, they broke away from "mother... Continue Reading →
"Dying in a Leadership Vacuum" was the title of an unprecedented editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine urging voters to reject current leaders and change "weak and ineffective government polices" or accept hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. The US death rate from Covid-19 far exceeds that of other democratic countries such as... Continue Reading →
Exploring North, Central, and South America 