Spring Speaking Schedule for Dave, Kate, and Jim

[L Verge]

Reading Dave's schedule of events made me realize how fast time flies -- and how age does us in. From 1976 to about 2005, that is how my schedule and that of Joan Chaconas's used to look as we galloped all over the region "spreading our knowledge" on the Lincoln assassination as well as the history of the region, D.C., and even Victorian antiques. I've given up counting how many times we escorted the Booth Escape Route Tours with James O. Hall, Mike Kauffman, Bob Allen, or John Howard at the microphone, but it is well over 300. I gave up when the knees could not longer climb the bus stairs. Joan still does about one a year (at age 85 - and she'll kill me for saying so).

On Friday, April 8, I will be using a wheelchair lift to get on the bus for the Surratt conference tour into Southern Maryland. That's my hometown area, and I hope to lend a personal touch to some of the tour as I commandeer the microphone once again. Joan and Bob Allen will be taking the Sunday tour into parts of Central Maryland that were affected by the approaches to Gettysburg. She and I have put together a unique booklet/brochure entitled Down The Backroads of Civil War Maryland to accompany the narration.

I'm posting this to encourage others of us out there to do everything they can to pass their knowledge on to others, and especially to the younger generation, before we all get too old. I'm 72, and I tell people that, as long as I have my brain and my mouth, I'll continue to be a history teacher (and sometimes an irritant). Roger and HerbS are two good examples of former teachers continuing to spread knowledge, and I'm sure that there are more of you out there. Mike Kauffman started on the lecture circuit when he was about 20. He is now in his 50s and still going. Don't just leave it to the young to do all the talking.

I'm delighted to see that Dave and Kate are developing a school program on our subject. We need to reach our children at an early age in order for them to learn and appreciate their heritage throughout their lives. However, we also need to reach out to mature audiences because I have found from working at Surratt House that many people do not become interested in their own history and that of the U.S.A. until well into adulthood.

On March 19, two of my staff from Surratt House will be spending four hours at a county library participating in a Passport to History program for children and adults. The event was packed last year, and a great turnout is expected again. My ladies will then hustle back to the museum to work the special talk on the life of Julia Wilbur, a young lady from New York who was sent by the Rochester Anti-Slavery Society to Alexandria, Virginia, and D.C. to assist with the rush of contraband and newly freed slaves to the nation's capital. Teaching is a lifetime profession, and you don't have to have a degree to be good at it.