Article submitted by the Gibson County Green Thumb Club. Photos: Jodi Meyer
News from Lyles Station, Indiana Can you hear that vintage school bell ringing? If you have heard it once, you never forget that sound or tone. August is back-to-school month in southwest Indiana. Lyle Station Historic School and Museum is very excited about a new reference workbook available to all school children this school year. In cooperation with the National Parks Service, The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom and Lyles Station Historic School and Museum, the workbook gives each child and adult the history of the Underground Railroad. The history of the people involved such as Freedom Seekers, and Conductors is included. It will be available starting the school season 2023-2024. Each child receiving the book can also be a part of the Junior Ranger program, available in all the National Park Service locations. The Junior Ranger program began in 1930 at the Yosemite National Park. So, your child will have the opportunity to also be a part of another historic program. The activity book contains historical facts, brain teasers, drawings, puzzle mazes, maps and crossword puzzles. Teachers can also benefit from the “Underground Railroad Traveling Trunks” which is available upon request for their classrooms. The contents include, but are not limited to the following: Historic recipe for spoon bread, sheet music for spiritual song, pictures of store fronts of auction houses of slaves, wanted posters 1884, pictures of workers in the cotton fields, maps of free states and slave states, slave trade maps and timeline 1650-1860 and a presidential picture of Abraham Lincoln. There are 39 novels available with topics of slave life, freedom, life during the civil war, and about famous persons during those times. A music CD with spiritual songs, a set of Iron Shackles, and dried cotton plant. Also available is examples of confederate money to see and hold. Two different sacks, one is a burlap feed sack, and one is muslin type sack, both would have been used to gather
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your belongings before someone would leave their location to join the underground railroad. School is not only about the historic “Readin, Writin, and Arithmetic” there is history too. The Freedom Seekers include Bridget “Biddy” Mason, a slave who walked more than 2,000 miles with her Mormon slave owner to the west. She was freed in Los Angeles, California, by a judge. She helped many people in her life, worked as a midwife, with knowledge of medicine, childcare, and livestock care. She was known as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and for founding the first AME Church in Los Angeles. Biddy was the first African American woman to own land in Los Angles. Her homestead today would be in the center of Los Angles, and her worth today would be over seven million dollars. Freedom Seekers were men and woman determined to be free from slavery owners and make a better life for themselves, their families, and for others. Conductors of the Underground Railroad helped lead others to freedom, to the free States or to Canada. There were many famous conductors such as Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Knowledge is so important, education gains knowledge and interest of history. Studying history helps us understand how events in the past made things the way they are today. Above top: the front cover of the underground workbook and a certificate of program completion
August 2023
Small Town Living