Webster’s Dictionary says the definition of genealogy is a record of ancestral descent; family tree. The study of ancestry.One Springville High School social science teacher challenged her students to learn more about genealogy through a field trip at several historic sites in Springville.
Rachel Summy took about 60 students on a field trip last week and the first place they stopped was the Springville Cemetery, not far from First Baptist Church Springville.
When asked why she coordinated the field trip, Summy said although a lot of the students live in Springville, many do not know what they have as far as the history, old buildings, etc.
“I wanted to bring them here to the cemetery because we have been studying cemetery records,” Summy said. “They can get a lot of information off the tombstones.”
Summy said students also had cameras to take pictures of their day out of the ordinary classroom setting.
“Some of these old tombstones have a lot of character to them and they make excellent pictures,” Summy said.
Once the group left the cemetery, they met with a couple of members of the Springville Preservation Society in the downtown area. They took the students on a tour of the historic district of the town and saw several of the old Victorian homes.
From there, it was on to Laster Sundries, an old soda fountain shop where students enjoyed ice cream and fresh lemonade.
“Many of the students do not realize we have these things in town,” Summy said. “This gives them the chance to tour it and see it for themselves. The main thing I was to see is that these students appreciate where they live.”
Summy said it never fails every year that one or two students in her genealogy class get very excited about this particular class and it’s because up to this point, they had not appreciated where they had come from.
“I always encourage students to interview their families, call people they’ve never met before and find out information concerning their family,” she said.
This year, Summy had a student (Melissa Terry) who went to a great aunt (Martha Roberts), interviewed the aunt and realized her aunt had never been married and had no children.
“Ms. Roberts told Terry she had a gold pocket watch that was 150 years old and she wanted her to have it since she did not have any children of her own,” Summy said. “Another student walked into class one day with a box full of documents. As we were going through the box, there was a letter inside the box from Lawrence Welk. This students’ great grandmother was a fan of his show and had written a letter to Welk and he had responded back to her. Another student brought a copy of a deed from King George III. Her family was granted land in South Carolina after the American Revolution by King George III. As a history teacher, that just gives me chill bumps. It makes me happy to see these students at work and get excited. For a lot of them, if they were not required to do this, they would have never known some of the things they found out.”
