Sunday, January 31, 2016
Help Sigrid Choose!
Sigrid has a Valentine Tea in two weeks. It is a dressy affair. At her school, they have the Tea each year and the focus is manners! Sigrid has three new dresses and she wants us to help pick what she should wear. Vote for polka dots, lace, or blue. Help Siggie pick the best dress! Vote in the comments.
Sigrid shoes are black and match all three.
This dress has lace!
Laura said she had a light sweater to wear with this one. I think it is white, but am not really sure.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Almost 70
Almost 70, was not referring to Sister Fleta's age. I was talking about the temperture today, Fleta! hehe I am going to the AR Tech Women's Basketball game at 1:00. They are really playing great this year. Larry attends all their home games.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Amy--My New Patsy
When you only have one pair of shoes, think how happy you are for a new pair especially if the ones you are wearing have holes. When your closet is smashed with clothes and shoes--who really cares. Everything is relevant to where you are!
"Up and at 'em", "rise and shine", "don't be the cow's tail"! All early morning things I heard growing up. Sigrid would not even get "don't be the cow's tail".
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
January Ending
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Dancing Queen
She can dance, she can jive
Having the time of her life
Ooh my little Ingie Bean,
Sisters watch the screen
Wow, my little dancing queen
Ooh, beautiful Ingie Bean!
Thanks, Fleet, for the tip. I loaded the video from the phone. It was slow but worked. I know watching this video of my Ingrid will be exciting to you!
Going On
Erin said Sunday's sermon was about building your house upon a rock. Well, it is amazing what children hear! Clayton came home and started to build on a firm foundation! Can you see the pile of rocks he has there?
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Greta Says No Laughing
Greta is taking gymnastics this year with a new teacher. The teacher is older and has control. Greta loves her class and always shows off what she learned on the mat her Aunt Laura gave her. Here she tells her brother "No laughing" and is astonished her mother does not know what a lunge is. I enjoy seeing Greta and hearing her talk as I remember a time I could not understand much she said. I would say to Clayton "what did she say" and he would tell. Kids have a language of their own!
Beep, Beep--Jeep, Jeep
Laura went to walk and took me along. I walked two miles and this morning early I walked a mile and a half. So this is more than I have traveled in a while. With the cold weather, walking has not been enjoyable. If it finally hits 50 degrees, I am going to think "hot weather".
We went to our friend's funeral today. It was the old fashioned kind. No videos, no pictures showing on a screen. Two ministers spoke and 3 hymns were played. The hymns were not "go rest high on the mt." I like that song but it is not a hymn. For Frank, they chose What a Wonderful Savior is Jesus My Lord, Beulah Land, and Amazing Grace. I appreciated the choices and the service. Sort of like, this was Frank's life and his service does not have to be "modern".
Hope my sweet sisters are doing well today--Fleet and Helen--I love you. We are connected at the heart!
Friday, January 22, 2016
Strange Object In the Sky
Oh, that object I saw today was the SUN!!
I took these in 2004. Astrid and I took a hike when the Lake was low.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
New Rig For Rids
Deer Near Better Fear
Denver Road
Frank
Frank told me some about life in Germany. Each town had one church. If you wanted to go to church you could attend it. Just one! It was Lutheran. A few people attended church in homes. His mother did. These churches were harassed by the government there. Everything, everyone, and every event was recorded. He it was pretty easy to trace ancestry there. It was all written down in church and government records. If not destroyed by WW II, you could trace who you are just like jumping checkers or a checker board. His parents spoke German, but wanted their 3 sons to speak English. Frank knew many German words, but he thought in English he said. He learned to speak German before English, but lost the language. His home town is near the area of Hamburg. This little village once had 133 shoemakers but only one today the computer said. Frank went back there to visit the place of his birth. Frank was pure American, pure patriot! He felt no homeage to his birth country! Below is a photo of his home town today!
Below is his obituary.
Frank Albin Richter, 67, of Pottsville, died Tuesday, January 19, 2016, at St. Mary's Medical Center. He was born in Barmstedt, Germany, to Rudolf Otto and Alma Christine Errolot Richter. He was a 1966 graduate of Atkins High School and alumni of Arkansas Tech University.
He was the pastor of Gumlog Fellowship Church, retiring after 37 years. He also retired from the State of Arkansas, where he was a Probation and Parole Officer. After his retirement he served as a Hospice Chaplain. He was a member of the VFW and a decorated Vietnam Veteran. He and his wife are members of the Atkins First Baptist Church. He was a motorcycle enthusiast and was always gauging the weather by if it was a good day to ride or a great day to ride.
He was preceded in death by his parents. Survivors include his wife, Linda Kay Richter; two daughters and sons-in-laws, Petra and John Davis and Michelle and Epifanio Hernandez, all of Pottsville; two brothers and sisters-in-laws, Kurt and Kay Richter of Russellville and Rolf and Sandy Richter of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma; and three grandchildren, Kylea Davis, Trey Davis and Mariana Hernandez.
The funeral service will be at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 23, 2016, at the Shinn Chapel. Burial will be in the Atkins City Cemetery, with military honors by VFW Rogers-Rye Post #2283, and under the direction of Shinn Funeral Service of Russellville.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Little Accident?
From North Arkansas
We were lucky and the ice missed us--a little too warm at 31 degrees.
back row left to right: Bertha O., Oma Desa, Melton Powell, Gertrude Lee
front row left to right: Bee, Sarah and John Maples.
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Whine Whine
I looked in my January 2011 folder and focused on this picture! Perked me right up. Looks better today than 5 years ago.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Snow In North Arkansas
Grandma's Math Book
Grandma Powell had a copy of Ray's Higher Math. Bought for her in 1906.
I wondered about the math book and found the information interesting. Helen will say--"you have turned into Sister Patsy". Oh, well, I will take it as a compliment.
Born: Nov. 25, 1807
Ohio County West Virginia, USA
Death: Apr. 16, 1855
Cincinnati Hamilton County Ohio, USA
Mathematician, Author, Educator. Born in Ohio County, Virginia (now West Virginia), studied algebra, geometry, and surveying in West Liberty. He began teaching at common schools in 1824 until he enrolled at Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio in 1825. After graduating in 1828, he studied medicine under Dr. Joel F. Martin. In 1829, Ray moved to Cincinnati to attend the Medical College of Ohio and graduated with an M.D. in 1831. He stayed in Cincinnati and was appointed as a teacher in the Preparatory Department at Woodward High School in 1831, the same year the school was built. When Woodward was established as a college in 1836, Ray became a mathematics professor. He wrote a series of six books that were published in 1834 as "An Introduction to Ray's Eclectic Arithmetic." The series soon became the base of arithmetic and algebra textbooks for American mathematics across the nation. By 1913, the series sold an estimated 120 million copies and annual sales were reported to exceed more than 250,000. Woodward became a public high school in 1851 and Ray was appointed as the first principal. He was also the president of the Ohio State Teacher's Association and an associate editor of the "Ohio Journal of Education." He died at his residence in Cincinnati in 1855 when he was 47 years old.
Joseph Ray, The Mathematician, and The Man
By Raymond Grove Hughes
"What you are," wrote Emerson, "speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say," and there have been many persons for whom these words had a singular aptness. But Joseph Ray, the mathematician, was not one of them. His life was so modest and his attitude so retiring that to this day, three-quarters of a century after his death, there has been little or no recognition given to the man who "taught the past generation to 'figure'." His contribution to the field of learning during the heyday of the one-roomed school has spoken so loudly in the development of contemporary society that the personality behind the arithmetic has gone practically unknown.
Who was Joseph Ray? When did he live? What was he like? Where was he born? Where did he do his work? What about his family?
These are but a few of the questions that are asked about the personality behind those famous texts. But in order to understand Ray, the mathematician, one must understand Ray, the man. Then, too one must become intimate with Mose, his brother, who many contend was not only a more peculiar but a greater genius. There was, it is true, something different about the. Ray boys, something which made their neighbors hold them in distinct respect, something which causes the passing generation to speak of them in subdued voices even to this day.
Joseph Ray did for figures what McGuffey did for literature and what Harvey did for grammar. He belongs to that famous textbook dynasty which ruled supreme during the 1830's and '40's when the system of free and universal public schools began to have momentum. With the increase of schools there was a corresponding need for texts, and Ray's is the saga of the arithmetics. They were designed for true mental training, and as such, says former Governor James Cox of Ohio, "were a real challenge to the young mathematician. The test of rapidity in addition multiplication and division gave spur to the mind and were a good form of mental gymnastics."
Joseph Ray was born in Ohio County, West Virginia, on November 25, 1807, while it was still a part of the Old Dominion. His parents were English and were descendants of John Ray, the naturalist. Nineteen years before his birth his grandparents had bought the farm on Battle Run, four miles from West Liberty and two miles from the National Road. It is known as the Ray farm to this day although it has changed hands many times. The Rays were among the pioneer settlers in the Wheeling district, and naturally there was still much work to be done on the one hundred sixty acre farm while Joseph was growing up. The boy, however, was not interested in farming, but chose rather to read and 'figure'. For a few months each year he attended the district school, and early in his teens went to the academy at West Alexander, Pennsylvania, which was less than five miles from his home.
Glowing tales of the great new country across the river captured his imagination and in 1823 he set out for "Ohio the Beautiful." The first half of the nineteenth century saw the population of that State grow from 45,000 to more than a million. The population was heterogenous in every respect except its desire to make Ohio a real democracy based on the Jeffersonian idea. Cincinnati was the urban metropolis of the then middle west and it was into this teeming center that young Ray went. He had left West Virginia never to return except for occasional visits.
Amelia Barr has said that the most successful way to develop a man is to change his environment just when he is at the impressionable age. Joseph Ray's name might well lead the list. At sixteen he was teaching school in Cincinnati and planning on going to college. By denying himself everything but the bare necessities he was able to save a few dollars from his meager salary and to enroll at the newly formed Ohio University at Athens, but his money did not last and he withdrew without a degree. Once again he returned to Cincinnati and to teaching. He next quit the schoolroom for medicine. When but twenty-two he received his M.D. from Ohio Medical College. He remained in the medical profession until 1831 when he was invited to join the faculty of Woodward High School as instructor of mathematics.
This was the turning point in his life. Even as a child figures held for him a peculiar enchantment and with the passing of the years this fascination had developed into a mania. However, this was a characteristic common to the Ray family. Mose, his brother, younger by fifteen years, was, some say, an even greater mathematician.
It would be entirely out of order to write a story about Joseph Ray without mentioning Mose. This younger brother never married but chose rather to live alone on the family farm with Aunt Nancy, his old black housekeeper who never questoned his idiosyncrasies. Maybe it was because he was so much alone that he fell into the habit of talking to himself, A neighbor of his in the late seventies tells of asking him why he continually did this.
"Well, I'll just tell you," said Mose, "I like to talk to an intelligent man, and to hear an intelligent man talk."
He had what could be termed a hostility toward women, and Jeremy Terrell was fond of telling a tale that illustrates this attitude and his wit. The two of them were returning from Wheeling one night on horseback when they overtook two strange girls. Jeremy, against Mose's wish, asked them to ride. Mose, naturally, was perturbed, and when they arrived at the farm where the girls were to visit, the one who had been riding with him said, "And whom am I to thank for the ride?"
"Thank Jeremy," said Mose. "Thank Jeremy."
Mose cared nothing for position and little more for money, and although his judgment was invariably good, the pity of it is that he failed to follow it. He is reputed to have spent the major part of his time and that part of the family fortune which he did not drink up on proposed inventions which have since been patented by those who were more persistent. On the farm to this day are signs of his inventive ingenuity - a strange contrivance to draw water and devices to turn the grindstone.
Many are the stories that have come down by way of tradition telling how he would point out errors in Joseph's arithmetics. It is claimed that he said The Higher Arithmetic was all right for children but not for adults. After having gone through one of his brother's books he is said to have written him, "If I couldn't write a harder book than this I wouldn't write any."
Henry Chambers of West Alexander tells of a problem that no one in the McGraw's Run school could get, not even the teacher, Jim Slade. A delegation was sent to see Mose, for he was considered the final authority in such cases. He studied and worked for a while, then with a hearty laugh said: "Here's one that Bill (he always referred to Joe as Bill) got wrong in the making."
Finally in 1883 after having lost the family farm, he went to New Mexico in search of gold. His health and hope of bettering his finances went at the same time, and in 1890, after several years of suffering from cancer, he died. When he did not return from the West the plot by the side of his parents in the old Dement cemetery at the head of Battle Run was given to his friend and namesake, Mose Tygart.
While Mose was slowly losing his grip on himself and the family farm Joseph was building a reputation that was to cast its shadow long after he had passed on. It was his love of mathematics and the teaching profession that kept him at Woodward High School longer than any of his coadjutors. But he was more than a teacher. He lost no opportunity to administer sympathetic and sincere counsel and by showing a living interest in the students he worked his way into their hearts. Old records tell of his frequent appearance on the playground where he took an active part in the games of the day. He gloried in his contact with youth, both in and out of the schoolroom.
He was intolerant of indifference and cheating, for, as he often expressed it, his aim was first of all "to build character." The officials of the institution were not slow to recognize his ability and rapidly advanced him. In 1851 he was elected to the presidency. By his example of energy and endless industry he inspired his pupils to action, and set for them a standard which few were able to equal and none to excel.
In 1833, soon after going to Woodward, Dr. Ray married Catherine Gano Burt, a member of a prominent Cincinnati family. One son was born to the union, and his descendants are still living in and around Cincinnati.
In addition to writing his texts Dr. Ray, with his colleague, William Holmes McGuffey, organized what has since become known as the teachers' institute, advocated the grading of schools, and insisted on a state superintendent of instruction. He also wrote for the educational journals and delivered countless lectures. Charles Mathew, one of his pupils and the man who completed the book which he had started when death overtook him, said: "In every line of duty he was conspicuous for unremitting industry, and in all his relations of life, his first desire was to be of service to others."
Dr. Ray had time to spare for charitable work. He was on the Board of Directors of the Cincinnati House of Refuge, and was an elder in the Disciple Church. It was during the cholera epidemic of 1849 that he weakened his constitution by taxing it to the breaking point in his effort to aid the sick and needy. He never fully recovered and died in 1855 at the age of forty-eight. He is buried at Cincinnati.
In the newspapers and educational journals of the spring of 1855 are to be found many tributes to the life and work of Dr Ray. The following resolution was adopted by the Alumni association of the Woodward High School as a mark of attachment to Dr. Ray, the first president of the institution:
The general attitude toward arithmetic and the science of numbers changed rapidly and materially in the first half of the nineteenth century. Previous to 1800 arithmetic as such received precious little attention. Educators believed it had no cultural and little actual educational value. The truth is, that in some schools it was not even taught. The reforms of Pestalozzi pointed toward a revolution which culminated in the textbooks of Warren Colburn and Joseph Ray.
The respect for arithmetic which characterized the school systems of a generation later was due largely to the efforts of these men, and most, perhaps, to Ray. His texts led the list of best sellers until the last quarter of a century. Even now, with countless similar books on the market they are widely used. Their average yearly sale from 1903 to 1913 was 250,000. They were officially adopted by many states including Ohio, New York, and the New England states, and were used almost universally in West Virginia. As late as 1895 they were being used in practically every county of the State, and are still used in many. "I never even saw any other arithmetic until I attended a normal school in the '90's," declared D. L. Haught, dean of instruction at West Liberty Teachers' College. Of course, they have been revised many times, but always have Ray's principles been retained. More than 10,000 editions of the Practical Arithmetic have been published.
The explanation of this phenomenal popularity is obvious. Ray, to a large extent, was self educated, and in compiling his texts laid emphasis on those principles which had given him the most trouble. Earlier texts were little more than series of laws, principles, theories, and hypotheses entirely lacking in human interest. Ray's texts, on the other hand, were practical, and dealt with buying and selling such articles as sugar, tea, coffee, bacon, butter, and beer. The truth is, he revolutionized the teaching of mathematics by making it interesting. His aim, as he stated in the preface of one of his earlier books was: "to combine the clear explanatory methods of the French mathematicians with the practical exercises of the English and German, so that the pupil should acquire both a practical and theoretical knowledge of the subject."
His first book was published a little less than a hundred years ago, in 1834, just three years before McGuffey published his First Reader. It sold for six cents, and dealt in the main with mental drill. The problems required that the student think rapidly and accurately. Motivated by the success of his first volume Dr. Ray began the preparation of another book, which eventually became known as The Intellectual Arithmetic by Induction and Analysis. Revision and alterations as well as other books followed in rapid succession, until finally the series was known as Ray's Arithmetics, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. The last revision was made in 1903 when the Practical Arithmetic of 1879 was changed to Ray's Higher Arithmetic.
Many interesting discoveries may be made by looking over these old arithmetics. Fractions were "vulgar" rather than common as today, and sugar was but two cents a pound, and paving cost but fifteen cents a square yard. Every school boy had to be able to gauge the contents of a barrel of beer, and to apply the "rule of three." Some may be able to recall:
"The Rules of 'Tear and Tret'
Which made boys swear and sweat."
The two following problems are typical of the series:
If sugar worth two and a half cents a pound, be mixed in equal quantities with sugar worth four and a half cents a pound, how many pounds of the mixture will be worth $1?
A man and his wife can drink a keg of beer in twelve days; when the man is away it lasts the woman thirty days; in what time can the man drink it alone?
Some of the problems in these early texts were given in verse. Here is one that dealt with the unpoetic subject of drunkenness:
A man that was idle and minded to spend
Both money and time, went to drink with his friend -
During the next ten lines he gets quite drunk:
To cast up his reckonings, but his head being sore
He begs you to do it, and he will do so no more.
The following applies Phythagoras' theorem:
A castle wall there was whose height was found
To be one hundred feet from top to ground
Against the wall the ladder stood upright
Of the same length the castle was in height.
A waggish youngster did the ladder slide
The bottom of it ten feet from the side,
Now, I would find how far the top did fall
By pulling out the ladder from the wall.
Ray's texts were included in the Eclectic Educational series and the personality of the author was lost in the virtue of the books. School boys did not refer to Ray's arithmetics, but simply to "Ray's," as if he were an institution, which, in fact, he was.
For many years prior to 1855 Dr. Ray had been looking forward to the compilation of a text book that would embrace the whole range of mathematics. It was a stupendous job, but he had much of the material collected when his untimely death occurred.
And so it was that he studied and taught up to the very end. Few men have done as much for the cause of education, and no man has done more for mathematics. His life was a noble example, his books have proven a precious legacy, and his memory a benediction.
Cold Today
My Northern Flicker came by again and I see several Robins in the yard. I have learned a lot about birds here in my Meadow. Blue Birds are not seed eaters. They don't care about my Black Sunflower seeds. Robins don't either. Woodpeckers, Finches, Cardinals, Sparrows all love seeds. Robins will be on the ground looking for a worm. Blue Birds love the fence row where they can look out and watch for a bug. If we just look at nature and be still and quiet, we can learn a lot.
Fleta, I have read nearly all those books. I think you knew it and just brought them to rid yourself of clutter. I am thinking of sending some to Jonell, but I will keep the History of North Carolina by William Powell and of course the falling apart book was my favorite.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Put Some Light On It
My viistors today really lit up my kitchen.
Fleta drove down to get Emily's wall hanging of her High School mascot. We sure hope Em likes it. I think it turned out really great. The Green Forest Tigers won the State Championship in Basketball in 1967 and 1968, my Jr. and Sr. years in High School. Wonder if they were good this year.
Astrid is an artist is all I can say!
Laura's kitchen light was torn up. Had not worked in quite some time. Today she and Sigrid went to Lowe's and bought this one. No, she did not get her Dad to install it. She and Sig did it. I think Sigrid was what you call a supervisor. Great job, Laura. I know you did not get this hands on ability from me. So proud of all you do. So proud of who you are!
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