On 4/10/2019 10:09 PM,
itsjoan...@webtv.net wrote:
> On Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 5:43:24 PM UTC-5, jmcquown wrote:
>>
>> Joan, did you watch the episode of 'Mrs. Wilson' on Sunday night? I
>> did. I found it entertaining. Apparently still much mystery around the
>> man, although all his children did finally have a reunion.
>>
> I recorded it on the dvr and watched it yesterday. Evidently IRL she didn't
> know about Dorothy or the last wife, Elizabeth. It was interesting to see
> all the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren at the end.
>>
It was very interesting! What a strange family history.
>> I love PBS. :) I watched a Masterpiece episode of 'Jamestown', I think
>> it was on Monday night after 'Antiques Roadshow'. It's still early in
>> the 2nd season and this is considered historical fiction. Still, very
>> interesting and entertaining!
>>
> I haven't watched that series. But the new "Call the Midwife" series is on
> again.
>>
I can't seem to get into that series.
>> Last night I watched an actual documentary on PBS. 'Reconstruction:
>> America After the Civil War', a special produced by and hosted by Dr.
>> Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (historian). Fascinating! I knew a little bit
>> about the era just after the [American] Civil War but not a heck of a lot.
>>
> I saw just a few minutes and evidently something else caught my attention.
>>
>> Did I mention I love PBS? :)
>>
> I love it when they're not doing their 30 day fund raising torment every 90
> days.
>>
That's a drag, for sure. I have four different PBS channels, two out of
Georgia and two out of South Carolina. Sometimes they run the same
shows concurrently but not always. They don't all do the fundraiser
thing at the same time. SCETV "Create" airs a lot of cooking shows.
Cooks Country, America's Test Kitchen. Lately they've been running old
black & white Julia Child episodes.
>> Here's a fun thing. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. visited Beaufort while
>> making this documentary. Doing research about a black man named Robert
>> Smalls. (I know about him.) I was flipping through some channels last
>> week and ran across 'The Beaufort County Channel". I've seen it before,
>> of course. It's where they televise boring city council meetings. In
>> this case, though, it gave me pause because I immediately recognized Dr.
>> Gates. He was sitting with a group of students on a stage, explaining
>> about Reconstruction and the part the city of Beaufort and freed slaves
>> in particular played in the history. He invited them to ask questions
>> and they did. How cool! I like the fact that he actually travelled
>> down here (rather than just send a film crew and resort to public
>> records). And that took he the time to sit down with kids from area
>> schools.
>>
>> Jill
>>
> Interesting! I haven't thought about it for a-g-e-s but they used to televise
> the Tuesday night council meetings on the local PBS station. I don't have
> a clue when they stopped doing this.
>
Maybe they cut it out of the budget because no one was watching? It's
usually pretty dull stuff on that channel. LOL
I enjoyed seeing Dr. Gates talking to the middle school and high
schoolers) about Beaufort history.
He talked about Robert Smalls. Won't mean much to you. He was a slave,
born in a small cabin behind a mansion on Prince Street in downtown
Beaufort. In the second year of the Civil War, he commandeered a
Confederate cotton steamer owned by his "master" and for whom he'd
sailed for years. Apparently the crew was off getting drunk or
something. He took it out to sea, then made his way to Charleston. He
had a group of slaves including women and children with him. He took
the ship into Charleston harbor with a white flag of surrender and
turned it over to the Union Navy.
Six years after the war ended, he'd gone from being a slave to being
elected first to the SC legislature and was eventually elected to the US
Senate. And he wound up buying the mansion he was born behind! It's
still known as the Robert Smalls House:
https://discoversouthcarolina.com/products/3544
In the 'Reconstruction' documentary, Dr. Gates sat down with one of
Robert Smalls' descendents on the front porch of the mansion to talk
about the family history and the impact he had.
I find all of this fascinating. The history of this area dates back
much further than the Civil War. The American Revolution touched these
shores. There's a grave of an unknown "Loyalist" (British) soldier in a
church graveyard downtown. Well before that, the area including the
"sea islands" were alternately claimed by the Spanish, the British,
skirmishes back and forth. Well before any of that there were native
American peoples building, farming, hunting, fishing... living. :)
I find it very interesting to live in an area so steeped in history.
Sorry, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent.
Jill