In this episode , we look into the life of Emma aka Grandma Gatewood.  Born in rural Ohio at the tail end of the 19th Century, she was the 7th of 15 children raised in a one room cabin, sleeping four to a bed, her only moments of peace were walks from her family home.  At 19, she met PC 
Gatewood, an Elementary school teacher who also treated her with unkindness and violence.  Her only escape was to get away, talking walks to escape the violence.  She had 11 children with Gatewood until she was divorced from him.    Then she raised them as best she could working any job she could get to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.  By the time she was in her sixties, she had a goal...to walk the length of the Appalachian Trail.  She did so and so much more in this it's never too late keep going episode of the Family P;ot Podcast!!

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In this episode, we set the Elevator of History to the Kentucky portion of the Appalachians where we check out the Packhorse Librarians.  Women, funded by the WPA, who brought books into the hoots and hollers of Kentucky, providing reading and kinship in rural communities who otherwise would have no access to books.  They traveled on mules and horses carrying books in saddlebags and pillowcases to needy communities and while they only lasted a short time, they helped change rural Kentucky and make it part of the modern world and helped raise the rate of illiteracy from 31 percent to just 5 percent in the 1940s.  We cover the history, notable packhorse librarians and do our best to honor the history of these 'book women'.  

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Jump on the Elevator of History with us and ride it back to America's involvement in World War I.  When the US brought over a segregated unit of Black Men that were mostly a labor batallion, then they were loaned to the French Infantry who gave them French helmets, equipment, weapons and rations and put them on the front lines.  For 191 days, the longest of any unit in the war they stayed on the front lines, never giving up ground, always pushing forward and cementing their legacy and their strengths forcing the US Army to reconsider it's segregation and the idea that Black soldiers weren't capable or competent fighters.  And while it would take another thirty years to desegregate the US Military, it might not have happened at all without the persistence, dedication and heroism of the Harlem Hellfighters!  

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TW - This episode we drop a few 'f' bombs, and a few other words we would not normally use.  But we are dealing with an act of domestic terrorism that has been concealed by polite history.  We discuss the rRise of Black Wall Street in the Greenwood District of Oklahoma.  How discovering oil in the early twenties brought people of all colors to to the young state of Oklahoma unintentionally creating a community of Black entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and other professionals,,This created a segregation and suspicion drove them into the community of Greenwood where they built black schools, black theaters, black hotels and black shops.  Their community was so good and prosperous that even whites would shop there when they could get a product better or cheaper.  However, one night, a young man named Dick Rowland who worked in Tulsa had to use the restroom.  Being black, he couldn't go to the bathroom where he worked he had to go to one of the 'Black Only' bathrooms and the closest one was on the top floor of the nearby Drexler Building.  The elevator was operated by one Sarah Page and as Dick rode the elevator, it shook briefly, causing Dick to wobble, he grabbed Sarah's arm to right himself, and Sarah, not expecting the contact, yelled as she was very startled.  That's it...well Dick left the elebator a clerk saaw him and reported the incident to the police.  Police arrested Roland and Black World War I veterans showed up armed, to prevent the vigilante lynch mob from attacking the jail and lynching Dick.  It was this event that set off the Tulsa Race Massacre...an overnight series of assaults, unreasonable arrests, theft, arson and murder that devastated the district of Greenwood.  And we, along with Carmita from Missing in the PNW and Murder in the PNW, tell this true story from the dark history of America and Oklahoma in this 0h-yeah-this-happened, domestic terror and if-this-doesn't-make-your-blood-boil-nothing-will episode of the Family Plot Podcast

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This week, we step away from doom, gloom and reminders of the fact that we are currently under an authoritarian administration thaat does not value human life and only serves to protect the billionaire class to talk about a magical event that happens every February in the tiny city of  Montpelier, Vermont.  It seems that, since 2002 when people in Montpelier on Valentine's day morning, they find their town covered in hearts, celebrating love, community and kindness.  More than one person has served the role of the Phantom, like the Dread Pirate Roberts, it's a title that gets passed on from time to time.  We cover the history of the tiny capital of Montpelier, the history of the Valentine Phantom and how even during a blizzard and the height of the pandemic, the Montpelier Valentine Phantom (or Bandit) was able to cover the town in hearts.  So join us for this feel good episode of the Family Plot Podcast!

(PS - The 'Secret Santa' from Independence Missouri was Larry Stewart, a Lees Summit Businessman who passed away in 2007)

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Such an episode.  One of three episodes for Black History Month this Month, we cover the amazing life of Frederick Douglass, born a slave, he managed to sneak an education which propelled him to Freedom and so much more.  He learned letters and managed to improve his education by challenging white school children and allowing them to correct him, watching men in lumberyards and shipyards mark words on boxes and objects until he could copy their strokes perfectly.  We discuss hiss first attempt to escape which got him arrested and his second which earned him Freedom.  We discuss his life as a writer, an abolitionist, a public speaker and as a consciense for the country following the Civil War (which was a war about slavery not state's rights...don't be fooled by a racist narrative).  We mention how he had the best hair of that era and his lifelong career as a speaker and statesman even touching on earlier mentions on our podcast (episode 232 and 242) and so much more in this, our first Black History Month epiosde of 2026 on the Family Plot Podcast.  Also, this week's sponsor quote is a quote from Douglass' 'Fourth of July to a Former Slave' as read by the inimitible James Earl Jones.  Credit where credit is due.  

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Man this week is a powerful episode.  Arthur talks dating, mental health, and art and we share our reasons for supporting the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and why we support #AbolishIce and #FreeMinnesota.  Then we dig into the story of teenager Grace Darling and how she, with a little help from her father, rowed out in a tiny rowboat (specifically a coble) to help 8 people who had survived a shipwreck in the Farne Islands!  She was made into a hero by the London press but she never saw the point, after all she had only done what she did to help people who needed helping.  And once again, our episode ties into the modern day as Alex Pretti lost his life just trying to help someone, a risk that Grace ran as well.  Check out the episode in this 19th century heroism and 21st century heroism have a lot in common episode of the Family Plot Podcast!  Plus the return of Edward October as the guide on our Elevator of History!

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2026 has been an interesting year for us and so far, all the episodes, we've done have had a real world echo to something happening in our world right now.  This was unplanned and this week continues that trend as we discuss the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project.  An attempt in Saint Louis to create a new type of housing for the urban poor was met with removal of any communal or public space, to maximize efficiency, segregation, patrols to keep 'able bodied men' from getting free rent by living with their families, and no funding for maintenance which instead of lifting up the urban poor, just pointed them at a life of crime in this episode where we discuss the history of this Saint Louis housing project, what the idea or originally was versus what it becoame and then how instead of spending billions for corporate welfare, we could instead spend those same billions actually helping people and stimulating the economy.  We get more than a little political and more than tired of the status quo in this episode of the Family Plot Podcast!  #AbolishIce

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Wow do we have an episode for you!  First we are joined by Courtney from Book of the Dead Podcast who is an amazing podcaster with an amazing show!  We also take a moment to comment on the murder of Renee Good and while we don't do a deep dive because it is political, we do make it clear that a) it was, in fact, a murder and b) we make it clear that it wasn't right and we are here for those listeners who may be lost, hurt or confused in these dark times.  Then we dig into the Yuba County 5, a California cold case that ranks right up there with the Dyatlov Pass Incident for being unsolvable  Maybe higher because a slab avalance seems the likely solution to that mystery...but there is no easy answer to the Yuba County 5.  Why would five men drive miles out of their way into the Plumas County forest?  Why would they get out of a car that had half a tank of gas, was mechanically sound, and not stuck.  Why would they hike 19 miles to a forest service trailer where at least three men died along the way?  Why was a fifth man discovered dead in a forest service trailer with several weeks growth of beard?  Why did he die from exposure and malnutrition when the trailer had both food and heat?  Why did he have another man's shoes with him what happened to the one man who was never found and who's gold watch was also found in the trailer?  We ask all these questions but there aren't really any answers in this mysterious, historical, true crime deep dive into a cold case from all the way back in 1978.  

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Our latest episode goes hog wild as we talk about the heroic Ida B. Wells.  From taking care of her brothers and sisters at the age of 16 after her parents and brother died of yellow fever to teaching in black schools to writing for local papers and taking on lynchings in the South.  And this wasn't even forty years after the Brooks Sumner Affair where South Virginia's Senator Preston Brooks attacked Massachussets Senator Charles Sumner hitting him over the head many times after he gave a powerful Anti-Slavery speech.  And this was a black woman born into slavery who told the truth about lynchings in a way the South was not ready to hear.  A lynch mob would tear her newspaper asunder, force the papers owner to sign a retraction at gunpoint while she happened to be in New York...and in New York she stayed continuing to write the truth about lynchings in the South, even going to England where she spoke publicly about the issue, embarassing the US abroad.  Even when she campaigned for women's suffrage, she refused to march in the back, jumping in the middle of the parade as it happened walking with white female suffragists.  Largely forgotten by history, she was quoted by US. President Joe Biden when he signed the US first anti-lynching law in 2022.  So come with us down the trail of history and lets learn about this firebrand in our first informational episode of 2026!

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