"Who Do You Think You Are?" a late night history lesson

I had the choice last night to watch Zooey Deschanel on "Who Do You Think You Are?" on TLC at home, or around the block at LancasterHistory.org.

I decided to leave the house, alone. but after I got there I called home to say I'm coming back quick to get Max. It was cool in there! I felt bad, and knew Max would really like it. But when I called I heard Mimi screaming in the background for me instead. I ran home and just got the whole family and brought them with me for the 9pm showing.

I like this show a lot. It must have been so much work before filming finding celebrities with such interesting family histories...without the celebrity knowing how interesting their family background might actually be. They had to research each candidate thoroughly just to make sure they WERE interesting. they really found some wonderful stories in the process.

Zooey Deschanel had a family history in the Lancaster area.  They talked about Zooey being brought in at 7am, and how all was kept very hush hush. The historian TLC worked with from Christiana had a funny tale. He noted that he was quite leary when they first called him (after the Amish Mafia situation)...but after much convincing- meeting him at his house,  it all worked out fine in the end. As we were all waiting for the show to begin, the Amish Mafia trailer popped on the screen behind him, and the audience all had a good laugh.

 

 At the showing we sat amongst other local historians who assisted the producers. Max was so shocked when I whispered to him that someone we just saw on the screen, "was in the room right now."

 I loved that this episode taught us about the Quakers and the Abolitionists, and the role they played in helping to end slavery before the Civil War. It was absolutely amazing to hear the tale of Zooey's great great great great great (5x?) grandmother, Sarah Pownell, being a true leader in the Abolitionist movement. The personal memoir that told of her grandmother sneaking former slaves out of her house the night of the Christiana Riot was amazing. And it was declared that certainly she had done this before and she was deep deep deep into the underground railroad.

Mimi enjoyed sitting with Max on a big seat, and drinking lemonade, and sneaking in and out of the room with her Dad to check out the museum. Max learned about freeing slaves, the underground railroad, and Lancaster history...thanks to TLC in a room of local historians. After a long week, getting ready for school to start, I thought bringing them to that, was pretty cool:)