Knox Heritage

Earlier this week I had a community course for the JL at ETHS. This particular placement is known as "Knox Heritage." Although I hated history classes in college like Western Civ where I had to memorize a million people who were only distinguished by being the XXVII or XXVIII and so on, and even worse was the gazillion dates that went along with "Important Person XXVII" and his son "Important Person XXVIII" I actually love history and heritage. I know that European History and Western Civ is important, but what I enjoy is American History and State and Local History. When I was in fourth grade I absolutely loved WV History. In seventh I was able to take TN History and really enjoyed that. In high school I took collegiate level history courses towards my college credits. I think it's a travesty that TN history is only offered as a small segment of a larger history class one year during school. At the very least it should be a full semester high school course taken at anytime during the four years. I would so love to teach TN History.

Learning more about the Knox Heritage Placement and the ETHS was very nice. There is an exhibit that was closed off that evening that I plan on going back to see. I also want to see the exhibit I browsed through but it was rather crowded and I couldn't seem to quit chatting and meet new people. (Imagine that!) During our first JL general membership meeting we had a local woman who was pivotal in establishing the Women's Suffrage Statue on Market Square come speak about the Suffrage Movement and Tennessee's role during that. I'm sure the exhibit is phenomenal. I was quite embarrassed of how little I knew about the whole thing.

We also viewed the archives. My friend Mrs. F was in love with all of the old maps up there. They were rather neat. It's fun to see how TN has changed. I was enamored with how you can dig around and find out your heritage and ancestors. That, I think, is so neat and could be a great hobby. My friend also said her Nanny is very into heritage and genealogy and has created quite a legacy for her. She even traced ancestors back to cemeteries and bought headstones for those who didn't have them. How neat is that?

I'm quite jealous that she has all of this information. I do have quite a family tree history that was passed down to me from an Aunt, but it would be hard for me to elaborate too much on that. First of all, I couldn't find anything in TN since all of my family is in WV. However, my great grandfather was Black Irish, meaning he was the first of his family here. My Pappy (yes the one I adore so much!) is the first American born generation in my family, making me the third. That in itself rather neat.

I'd like to delve a little deeper into the information I have and see what more I'd like to find and piece together. Since J and I will begin our European vacation in Ireland maybe I could learn more about my family and visit the places they lived. I'd like to do the same for England.

So back to the JL placements, I really like this one. Since I love TN I'd love to learn more about Knox Heritage. I had originally thought that my favorite placement would be the Exploratory Gallery at KNOX since I worked there and really like that place. However, I think I could be happy with either. Especially since I know I'll be able to move on to a different one the following year.