Hello, dear friends! As we finish up our Travels Out West series, I thought we’d begin the transition back to post at home with this tribute to Juneteenth and Flag Day, which was just yesterday… And a few thoughts…
A little history lesson
As we celebrate our nation’s 250 birthday, as I was setting up this mantel I thought about how having a lantern up here is a nod to: “One if by land, two if by sea.” We all know Paul Revere’s ride through Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, helped get the word to farmers and Patriots that British regulars were on the march and coming to destroy Massachusetts’ munitions storage at Concord.
The pewter creamer and two pewter candlesticks my mother gave us as wedding presents are part of a set from Woodbury Pewter in Woodbury, Connecticut.
It is also a nod to Paul Revere’s Silver Shop, which he inherited from his father, and where he worked as a silver, gold and pewter-smith, crafting everyday items for all customers as well as specialty items for the wealthy.
For Flag Day and Juneteenth, even though this mantel doesn’t have any flags on it, the RW&B sentiment is there. This book by Peter V. Sellers about the International Order of Odd Fellows members participating in the Civil War is a nod to Juneteenth (June 19th, 1865) and the emancipation of slaves here in Texas with a reading of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The 13th Amendment
Celebrating Juneteenth
Juneteenth is HUGE here in Texas, and rightly so! Crazy to think that slavery was still going on here in Texas more than two years after President Lincoln had freed our nation’s slaves…
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of slavery. Though President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, the news did not reach enslaved Texans until two and a half years later, making this the symbolic end of chattel slavery in America
I personally feel that political and social change to make life better for all Americans is the warp and weft of American life. It is definitely part of our culture. And the cool thing is, history never stops being created! We are making it right now, in whatever manner it will show up in future textbooks and learning for future generations. 🙂
Speaking of history…
My mother sent a stern letter to the publishing house of my junior high history textbook letting them know that the Battle of Bunker Hill was not fought on Bunker Hill but on Breed’s Hill (the two hills sit side-by-side there in Massachusetts)! She grew up right near there and knew this as fact. The publisher wrote back saying that they thought they were correct, and she wrote a second time correcting their information with information gathered by her sisters, cousins and probably her mother, since Grammy Helen was still alive then. I believe the publisher did write back and say they would correct the next edition of that textbook. Mom had plead her case! 🙂
Perhaps Bunker Hill just sounded better to historians and that’s how the battle got its name?? It does roll off the tongue well. ;)’
Patriotism & honor
Getting back to our patriotic holiday mantel, on the left side, I set up a plate-stack with the autumn harvest farm-scene, pinkish-red transferware dinner plate ~ The Constable by J. Broadhurst Company ~ at the back. with this French flow-blue transferware soup bowl in front. More French influence is introduced with the table candelabra, on the far left, and the French-style mantel clock in the middle.
I keep alluding to different points in America’s history, but the French really did save our bacon in the Revolutionary War. It is a shame, to me, that we did NOT return the favor when they had their own French Revolution just a few short years later… Our help was asked for, from both the Revolutionaries and by the Counter-Revolutonaries which included the monarchy and nobility, but our newly-formed government didn’t want to take sides.
And, I understand our United States government was still in its infancy, and was a fragile government, at best… You see some of this back-and-forth discussion regarding France’s Revolution in the made-for-television movie series ~ John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney as Adams’ wife.
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In my political science class in college, I really identified with Thomas Jefferson’s idea of an agrarian society and its ideal of localized government ~ as opposed to a centralized government deciding what is right for the American people.
More pewter and a couple of sweet roosters pay homage to our agricultural heritage, too. I would love to have a small farm with a few acres of land even as we head into our later years. I raised goats in high school and would love to have a few goats again. They are quite friendly!
And that is my patriotic mantel to celebrate our June American holidays! Just a little history and red, white & blue as we commemorate our 250th year as a country. How about you? What are you doing to celebrate this historic year?
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Let freedom ring, friends,
