As one of your hosts on this blog, I’d like to introduce myself. I am a mother of six — home schooled for 19 years. We started in 1981, when I knew only two other families were home-schooling — one in Franklin County and one in Roanoke. I’m sure there were more here, but it was not a popular option for schooling, if you catch my drift.
In 1985 I began writing a letter — published around six times a year — to all the actively home educating families that we knew. There were about 40 of them at that time.
Then two or three years later, a board was chosen, and the Greater Roanoke Home Educators was officially born. On the board were the Dan Woods from Ferrum, the Ron Shifletts from Bedford, the Larry Fenzels from Roanoke, and the Tom Trices from Rocky Mount.
A lot could be said about those early times, but this is a blog, not a history book! However, those lonely, early days impelled me to cling close to the Lord, AND to become far more creative than I had ever been before. Not only was I teaching them, but I was nurturing them in every other way. Back then, the social issues were more real than they are today, and we worked hard at finding outlets for them that were encouraging ones. This need to be creative has been a tradition with GRHE, too. I hope this blog will continue in that tradition.
Today, all six of our children are happily married, and my “claim to fame” is that I now have 23 grandchildren — 24 in December! PTL! I’m still involved in home schooling, but now it is with the oldest of these precious grandkids. I look forward to telling you more about them, and hopefully learn how to publish a few pictures!!