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Who Is This Family?! (The ones who "invented" homeschooling)


VeganCupcake

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Years ago a large family of bluegrass musicians visited my childhood church (in Georgia so maybe they were touring the Southeast, or possibly the whole country?) They arrived on their own bus, and I believe they were going on a tour of churches maybe? They gave a speech/presentation about how they were some of the very first modern homeschoolers and claimed that they paved the way for everyone else. I believe the dad said he was arrested once for refusing to send his kids to school. He told a random story about how the police came to his house and he went to make a phone call and the police thought he was hiding from them bc his phone was around a wall or something (just throwing out all the details I can think of).  They might possibly be from another country? I don't even know. I believe the dad had white hair. They all played instruments like banjos and fiddles. 

At first I thought it was possibly the Bontragers but their dad looks much younger than the dad of this family, and idk if the Bontragers ever did tours like that. Can anyone help me solve this mystery? Lol. Are there any other "famous" fundie family musicians? 

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6 minutes ago, ladyamylynn said:

The Wissmanns?

It may have been them. I guess my question is pretty vague, there seem to be quite a few musical mega families, lol! Whoever they were, my church treated them like big heros and celebrities smh. Just crazy. 

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I would be curious to know. My family home schooled starting in 1983 and we were absolutely not the only ones in our church to do so. The Wissmann's oldest is 35 I think, so the earliest they could have started home school would have been around 87. It seems like a weird claim to make.

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1 hour ago, ladyamylynn said:

It seems like a weird claim to make.

It seems like a strategy to retcon something that has a history in other groups with different goals and values. 

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I looked up a homeschooling family I remembered from the 80s in my state, but they apparently started homeschooling in 1984 and made the news when they were arrested in 1985, so too late for influencing @ladyamylynn's family in 1983. So, I'm no help. :whistle:

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I remember reading a memoir type book, as a kid, that was written in the 60s about a family that basically un/homeschooled their kids, probably in the 1940s. It kind of reminded me of Art Robinson ' s approach (read lots of books, don't bother dad.) I have no idea what it was called, our copy was used and it was a cheap Whitman type binding. Anyway, the point is, there have been lots of  types of homeschoolers for decades and decades before the whole religious right thing took off. Presumably these singers were the first homeschoolers of the correct religious view, like so many others. :special-snowflake2:

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We were in the Kansas City area. My parents had friends who were into Gothard early on but I'm not sure of the timeline. My dad always marched to the beat of his own drum. We switched churches a lot between Pentecostalism and other things.

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There is the Pents, they have a book called Ten P's in a Pod. I can't remember when they are from. 

Edit to fix the title and add that I think they must have been traveling around in the 60s. There is a fb page the same as the book. I couldn't link it, sorry. It looks like the younger generations are still carrying the home schooling torch.

Editing again to say the description of the book on Amazon actually calls then the "first modern homeschooling family" https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Pod-Arnold-Pent-III/dp/1934554898#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1486540500576

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The Maxwells began homeschooling at about that time. But Stevie doesn't have white hair and I don't think he was ever arrested- he would've mentioned it if he had been.

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47 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

The Maxwells began homeschooling at about that time. But Stevie doesn't have white hair and I don't think he was ever arrested- he would've mentioned it if he had been.

It may possibly have been them. They were all wearing blue jean jumpers which the Maxwells wear a lot. Possibly the arrest story was being relayed about someone else? I asked my mom and can't recall the answer. Which is funny because she was absolutely star struck and in AWE of this family's "wonderful example" LOL. 

3 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

I looked up a homeschooling family I remembered from the 80s in my state, but they apparently started homeschooling in 1984 and made the news when they were arrested in 1985, so too late for influencing @ladyamylynn's family in 1983. So, I'm no help. :whistle:

Do you remember their names? The traveling singers I'm recalling couldn't have started before the 80s if they still had some  children in the late 90s. To clear up confusion, they were claiming to have "invented" the evangelical religious style of homeschooling, not the entire phenomenon. 

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4 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

It may possibly have been them. They were all wearing blue jean jumpers which the Maxwells wear a lot. Possibly the arrest story was being relayed about someone else? I asked my mom and can't recall the answer. Which is funny because she was absolutely star struck and in AWE of this family's "wonderful example" LOL. 

The Maxwells didn't play bluegrass music. When did you see the family? 

The Boyers also frequently claim to be the trailblazers for home schooling. The have 14 or 15 children. They did speaking engagements, but I don't remember if they played music. They might have been arrested, I know they were forced by the court to put their kids in school. So they made it look like the mother was working for the church school and she taught them at the school. http://characterconcepts.com/store/cms.php?id_cms=4&ps_full_site=1

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13 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

Do you remember their names?

I looked it up, and it was actually 3 related families by the name of Shippy. I read up a bit and they don't seem very likely. I discovered that they were/are probably members of Followers of Christ. In my experience, Followers of Christ don't speak publicly about their beliefs or proselytize. (The fact that they were members of that cult either was never in the mainstream media or I just forgot it.)

After the adults were let out of jail, the families moved to a remote area of a different school district (that school district was happy to let them homeschool so they didn't have to provide buses for the kids) and faded out of the public eye. They made a splash here, but nowhere else, as far as I can tell. 

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11 hours ago, Anonymousguest said:

The Maxwells didn't play bluegrass music. When did you see the family? 

 

Sadly, they actually do. Turn your speakers way, waaayyy down. 

 

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Weren't Adam and Eve the first homeschoolers? Or were they unschoolers and therefore don't count?

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On 09/02/2017 at 11:03 AM, Black Aliss said:

Weren't Adam and Eve the first homeschoolers? Or were they unschoolers and therefore don't count?

They were the first at parenting too, and had no parenting books and manuals or other families or doctors to advise them.

Wow, no wonder Cain turned out badly :P

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48 minutes ago, CyborgKin said:

They were the first at parenting too, and had no parenting books and manuals or other families or doctors to advise them.

Wow, no wonder Cain turned out badly

He would've been fine had Eve blanket trained him. 

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On Tuesday, February 07, 2017 at 11:34 PM, Anonymousguest said:

There is the Pents, they have a book called Ten P's in a Pod. I can't remember when they are from. 

Edit to fix the title and add that I think they must have been traveling around in the 60s. There is a fb page the same as the book. I couldn't link it, sorry. It looks like the younger generations are still carrying the home schooling torch.

Editing again to say the description of the book on Amazon actually calls then the "first modern homeschooling family" https://www.amazon.com/Ten-Pod-Arnold-Pent-III/dp/1934554898#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1486540500576

I remember seeing that book in catalogs, but that wasn't it. Ours was a hard back, probably published in the 60s, although I probably read it in 1990 ,and I don't remember seeing the Pents' book before the early 2000s. 

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On 2/8/2017 at 3:08 PM, ladyamylynn said:

Sadly, they actually do. Turn your speakers way, waaayyy down. 

 

My parakeets usually chirp and chortle along to any music we play, but this "performance" produced some rather frantic squawking.  Poor budgies!  I now must console them with some millet.

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On 2/7/2017 at 8:44 PM, ladyamylynn said:

I would be curious to know. My family home schooled starting in 1983 and we were absolutely not the only ones in our church to do so. The Wissmann's oldest is 35 I think, so the earliest they could have started home school would have been around 87. It seems like a weird claim to make.

 

Yeah, I remember a big to-do in Nebraska around 1983-84 where some people in our church ended up being arrested during a homeschooling protest (but I think there was also something about private Christian schools, too). It's been a long, long time, though, so my memory's pretty fuzzy. Whoever this was, it's highly unlikely that they were the "first" modern fundy homeschooling family. 

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Oh, you warned me but I listened anyway! Off to find Mother Maybelle and the Carters to do it the right way.

 

ETA: Couldn't find the Carters, but found Hank. You'll notice that there is not nearly the musical underpinning by a woomin in the Maxwell version as in this one.. as in every other version of this I've ever heard...

 

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Haven't read the whole topic, but as I may be interrupted at any time, I wanted to add my guess: The Bullas?

I remember Luke and Jenny Anne Bulla were national youth fiddle champions. I remember seeing a lot of kids up on stage, and at one point they had the little littles with those miniature violins playing along. I think I remember seeing them one year when the mom was pregnant, standing there picking a giant bass (you know, the orchestral kind that looks like an overgrown cello), and I thought how miserable I'd be to do that while pregnant.

It has been a long time, but I think I remember the mom ran off, the act broke up, one of the brothers died tragically in a car accident, and I haven't heard them mentioned in years, except once in awhile by one of the older kids, when something reminds us of one of their songs. They really had a pleasant sound.

One of the songs they sang still haunts my memory.

Grandpa...
Tell me 'bout the good ol' days...

Were promises all something that people kept,
Not just something they'd just say (and then forget)?

...did families really bow their heads to pray?
Did daddies really never go away?
Oh, Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good old days


Found a recording of "Grandpa" by the Judds. In my memory, the Bullas actually sounded better. They really were talented and skilled at musical arrangement and performance, unlike some of the wanna be homeschool families. I think (if I'm remembering right) the father boasted about having taught his children to play all the instruments--guitar, fiddle, mandolin, I don't remember what-all.

ETA: It looks as if Luke is still in the music business, anyhow.

 

 

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