Father’s Day is soon! I focused a bit on mothers last month with some gift ideas here and here and highlights of some different moms who I admire. (Go here, here, and here for those.)
Now I’ll share about dads.
First for my 2025 dads series is this video from Dr. Jordan Peterson. Watch and learn!
I love how he says that the most challenging and rewarding thing you can do in your whole life is to be a parent. I agree! He also says that moms tend to focus on the present needs of children and dads focus on the future. I overall agree with that too.
Want more of Dr. Peterson? Go here to hear him talk about diet with Dr. Bikman.
Want some great dad stories and songs and poetry about dads? Go here to my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook, and turn to the June section.
As summertime is upon us, with the overall fair conditions for sightseeing, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, I’m sharing one of my favorite places on earth, Orchard House, the home of the author of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. I’ve been wanting to blog about my visit for months! With the school year over, I finally have the time!
I hope every Little Women fan who reads this gets to go tour it! Such a visit will make your life more magical. I got to go there last year as part of my visit to see my sister in Maine. (You can read about that miracle here.) It was a dream come true for sure! I planted the seed of the dream in my mind, when years ago, I saw the trailer below, for the documentary called “Orchard House: Home of Little Women.” Since then, I’ve seen the full documentary and love it. You can watch in amazon.com here.
To tour Orchard House with one of my sisters, one of my daughters, one of my sons, two nieces, a son-in-law, and two of my grandchildren was the icing on the cake of the visit. If only my mom, other sister, other daughter, other nieces, sisters-in-law and daughters-in-law, all could have been there it would have been perfect! I remember so fondly my mom reading Little Women to my sisters and me when we lived close to New England, in upstate New York. We even lived in a wooden two-story gabled house kind of like Orchard House, a far cry from the brick one-story rambler we had moved from in Utah the previous winter of 1979.
The door is open to welcome you!
We toured the House on Thursday, August 15, 2024. (After my visit to NYC, Boston and Maine.) We got there almost an hour early, so it was almost embarrassing to be seen as overeager fangirls with a few somewhat-interested-but-mostly-feeling dragged-along token males in tow. We left my sister’s home in Maine shortly after 7 AM. With her leaden foot and her expert weaving through Boston rush-hour traffic, in a 15-seater Ford van, no less!, we arrived around 9:15 AM. It didn’t open until 10. I didn’t think ahead about calculating the ratios of hours in car to size of my bladder to amount of liquid drunk before and during the trip, so let’s just say I was more than eager to find a restroom as soon as we parked in the mini-parking lot up front. I hope we didn’t appear like yokels falling out of a turnip truck as I burst out of the car and walked as well as I could with a full bladder up to the office/gift shop, on the side of the house, converted from the Alcotts’ lean-to. The workers/employees/volunteers (I’m not sure if they are paid) were super kind and gracious, immediately directing me to the restroom, which is in the Museum Store (gift shop), even though the place wasn’t officially opened up yet.
So that’s the first thing to know before you go, that the restroom is inside the museum store, on the side of the building. It is a tiny room, single use restroom. Even if you arrive before opening time, (within reason) the nice people setting up for the day will let you use it if you are like me and overestimate your bladder capacity on a two-plus hour road trip across a state line to get there.
Here are 10 more things to know before you go to Orchard House, aka the Little Women House, along with a recap of my visit.
2. Why would you want to tour it? Because this home is where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women. Need I say more?! She wrote the book in only 3 months: May, June, July of 1868 while living in this home. There’s just something indescribable about being in the very place where a great book was written. You can see the very desk, built by her father, where she wrote the book. If she was the J.K. Rowling of her day, which she was, this is like seeing the napkin where J.K. first wrote the basic plot of Harry Potter.
It’s as if you can feel Louisa watching over the place, sending encouraging wishes and confidence to all aspiring authors as they tour her home. Note, this is not the place Louisa lived in as a girl. Most people know that Little Women is a story loosely based on Louisa’s own family. She had three sisters, just like Jo in the book. Jo is modeled after the author, Louisa May, Meg is based on Anna, Beth is based on Elizabeth, and Amy is based on May. In real life Elizabeth died just as Beth died in the book. The family moved into this home when Louisa May was in her 20s, after Beth had died. In Jim Bob Duggar fashion, Bronson took two buildings and put them together to make this home. It was by an orchard of apples, his favorite fruit, so he named it Orchard House. This isn’t just a visitor’s center. It’s a museum full of artifacts and stories, a total rich cheesecake slice of American history!
If you want to know why Little Women is such a great book, read my post here about finding God in Little Women. Then Listen to Sarah Mackenzie’s podcast episode interviewing the executive director of Orchard House, Jan Turnquist here.
If celebrated author L.M. Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables fame made it a point to visit Orchard House, then any aspiring writer should make it a point to visit as well! See the story of Lucy Maud’s visit here.
The home is historic in its own right, not just because the Alcotts lived there. It is amazingly old! It was built in the 1660s and housed five generations of the Hoare family. So, it was almost 200 years old when Bronson Alcott bought it in 1857 along with the 20 acres of apple orchard it sat on. The seller assumed Bronson would tear down the house and build a new one, but in true Bronson fashion, he went against expectations. It also has a cool connection with the local Native Americans who had become Christians and were being persecuted. The Hoare family gave safe shelter to them during a war. Read about all the history here. Because of all this it is a Registered National Historic Landmark.
Alcott Road is just to the east of Orchard House, intersecting with Lexington Road.
Plus, it is a remarkable testament to the successful feat of restoring an old home as the Orchard House Documentary shows. People in charge of it had a new foundation put under it to make it last much longer.
3.Where is it? In Concord MA, about a 35 minute drive from Boston. I quote from OH’s website: “Orchard House is located at 399 Lexington Road in Concord, MA, which is accessible via the major routes of MA-128/US-95, MA-2, and MA-62. The MBTA commuter rail also stops in Concord (Purple Line, to Fitchburg), with Orchard House being an approximately 25-minute walk from the depot on Thoreau Street. (If possible, please use our street address with a map app on your cell phone or GPS device).”
4.When to go: again, from the website: “From April 1st through October 31st, we are open weekdays and Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm, and Sundays from 11 am to 5 pm.
“On third Thursdays in June through December 2025, Orchard House will also be open till 8:00 pm as part of Concord’s “Third Thursdays” initiative. No reservations are required for our tours/events held on these evenings, but tickets may be limited. Check specific dates on our Events calendar or social media sites for additional details.
“From November 1st through March 31st, we are open weekdays from 11 am to 3:30 pm, Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm, and Sundays from 1 to 5 pm.
“Special year-end (Thanksgiving Week – first week in January) Hours of Operation are found here.”
If you are lucky, you might be fortunate enough to happen to visit on a free day. On the day we went, it just so happened to be such a day, when a third-party organization was paying everyone’s admission for the day! The whole group of us saved over $100, hooray! See the sign on the lower left of the home above? That’s the sign saying that “August Adventures” was happening. It meant that admission was free. So positively Providential! I don’t know if such a thing will happen again. It’s worth asking on a phone call or email. Just note, at least when I called, I could never get a live person, after multiple calls.
5. What can you expect to see? If visiting in spring or summer, first of all, expect to see a lovely flower garden as you walk up to the office in the museum store to buy your tickets if you didn’t buy them online, or use the restroom after a long road trip, LOL. The entrance to this is on the side of the home. Be sure to take time to behold the beauty of all the flowers, and notice the sections marked by signs for each of the sisters, and how the flowers in each marked section fit each sister.
The garden has a sign with an excerpt from the LW book that tells what flowers each girl planted.
Second, expect the tour to start not in the actual home, but in the outbuilding, a bunch of yards to the west of Orchard House. This is Louisa May’s father’s “School of Philosophy” building. This is where the schoolroom scene of the 2019 version of the LW movie was filmed. Inside the school, you will be shown a video. Bronson used to host meetings here with his Transcendentalist friends.
The video tells the story of Louisa May and her family and her writing of Little Women. Below is an excerpt of the video, featuring Jan Turnquist.
Then you will be escorted by a tour guide into the actual Orchard House. It has two levels. On the ground level, you will first see the kitchen. I loved hearing how Louisa May used some of her earnings from her bestselling book LW to buy a better kitchen sink for her mother, which is still there, which you can see. She yearned to give her mother all the comforts of life that she could. I just love that.
Then you will be taken into the parlor, as well as Bronson Alcott’s study with his actual books. After that, you get to go upstairs. There you will see the bedrooms, including Lousia’s desk, where this lovely sisterly story of family life with its ups and downs, love and laughter, fights and forgiveness was spun. After the girls’ room you will see the parents’ bedroom and the nursery. This is where the little boys of Anna (Meg in the book) slept. Anna and her boys came to live with the Alcotts after Anna’s husband passed away.
The tour guide said that about 80% of the objects in the home were owned by the Alcotts. Amazing! They and their descendants apparently hadn’t heard of Marie Kondo yet. You will see the boots that LMA wore to be Roderigo, just like Jo in the book, for the play that she wrote and performed with her sisters. You will also May/Amy’s art on the wall because her parents were OK with her drawing on the wall, as well as her framed art, and then of course, Louisa’s desk that her father built for her where she wrote her famous first bestseller.
6. How can you make your visit more fun?
-on your drive to or from OH, listen to some Little Women music! The theme song from the soundtrack of the 2019 movie is here and the soundtrack from the Broadway musical is here. Oh my, the theme song to the 2019 movie is just so gorgeous. It feels like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s all rolled up together into a superbly lush, romantic, auditory feast. It’s even called “Orchard House.” So yummy!
-sign the guest book and enjoy reading the lines above your signature seeing where all the other visitors hail from. The guest book and sign were on a table being set up outside when I arrived in my desperate situation. So I signed it later of course.
My grandsons and niece playing on the grass in front of Bronson’s school
-scamper on the lawn with kiddos, breathing the fresh clean air of the town of Concord, where the spirit of ’76 took form! Imagine seeing LMA’s niece Lulu (Amy/May’s daughter) and nephews Freddy and Johnny running around.
-see if you can engage the tour guides in a friendly debate about just how feminist LMA was. I just heard this podcast here (sorry I can’t remember which particular episode) from one of my favorite homeschooling mom podcasters, Jennifer Pepito. She said that when she toured OH she felt the tour guide was misrepresenting LMA as an ardent feminist.
-see if you can stump the tour guide with some tough questions about LMA’s life. I so badly wanted to do this but knew it wouldn’t be wise. We were on a tight time schedule, as we were flying out of Boston in a few hours and still wanted to go tour the Revolutionary War battle site of Concord. I knew however longer we spent at OH talking would be less time at the Concord green. So, I bit my tongue and resisted.
Here’s what I would have asked:
“Did LMA ever find love, specifically with a young man in Europe?” (I read about this possibility in a biography about her. So far nobody knows for sure if the relationship was romantic.)
“Did LMA really like Little Women, or did she just think it was a way to make money, one of the books she wrote which she called ‘moral pap for the young’?”
“Did LMA resent the fact that her father never fully provided for his family, and that LMA had to step up and function as ‘husband’ to her mother and ‘father’ to the family by providing for them things that Bronson never did?”
“Why did Bronson not fully provide for his family? Was he mentally ill or just lazy?”
-dress up in old-fashioned clothes like my nieces did when they visited with their cousins on the other side of the family tree, who live in Boston. It was part of a family reunion. They visited OH dressed up, after they had learned some 19th century skills like dancing the Virginia reel and making butter in a butter churn. This is just something fun to do, so please don’t feel like I’m adding a task to do your travel checklist. It just sounds fun, but not if it stresses you out. Jennifer Flanders of flandersfamily.info mentions how her family loves to dress up when they tour historic places. Oh, the fantasies I love to entertain!
-have a picnic on the grounds, or just down the street, across from the Wayside home, where the Alcotts lived before Orchard House. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived there at one point as well as Margaret Sidney, author of Five Little Peppers. This is what we did when we got there so early; we had a brunch, across the street from Wayside on a picnic table.
7. Then here are the things to do before you visit Orchard House:
Me with a copy of Little Women, gifted to me by my dear girlfriend Michelle
-first and foremost, read the Little Women book if you haven’t already! That way you will enjoy seeing the house so much more. You will also have more questions to ask the tour guide. The audiobook is below, with text to go with the audio.
-learn to say the “Alcott” name properly. According to Jan Turquist, it’s “All-cut” not “Awl-cot.”
-read picture books aloud to your children about LMA and her life in Concord. Above and below are some.
-read the compilation of letters and journal entries of Louisia May and her mother, Abigail May Alcott. It’s called My Heart is Boundless. My review is here.
-read the biography of Louisa May and her mother, Abigail. My review of that is here.
-watch the movies, at least the 1994 and 2019 versions. The 1994 version is better, but I still enjoy watching the 2019 version, just because it’s pretty. I do, however, have some serious beefs with it. My review of the 2019 version is here. It is definitely not as good as the 1994 version.
My BYU-attending son actually requested we watch the 1994 version at our last family cabin trip. So all the males on the trip watched it. I was so happy about that!
The repeated flashbacks in that version is confusing. I pretty much agree with the commenter in the video below about the 2019 version, except I did like the costumes. I’m not wise enough about period costumes and hair to know they did not look authentic. So many people say the casting was perfect for the 2019 version, but I respectfully disagree. I didn’t notice until watching the video below and hearing the commenter pointing it out, but now I agree that Emma Watson did not act or look like the wisest, biggest sister role of Meg. She was not great in that role. Florence Pugh should not have been cast as Amy, as she was too buxom for a 12-year-old and her voice sounded like a male chain smoker!
-read my explanation here of how you can find God in Little Women. God is definitely in the novel but was completely left out in the 2019 movie.
-if I had little girls, I would definitely check out my resources over here. Over there you will find a link to print LW paper dolls, and a link to the Little Women Cookbook. I’d do a unit study of Little Women with my little girls before I went. We would cook every recipe in that book. The authors listed every single dish mentioned in the LW book and found a recipe for it. I hope to do this someday with granddaughters!
-take this fun quiz to see which Little Women sister you are. I was surprised to come up as Jo. I feel more like Meg or Amy.
-check out the Orchard House Facebook page, where you can get the latest news on the House and see videos and photos of the House through the seasons of the year.
8. Anything to beware of? First, it’s best to buy tickets, what the staff calls “timed- entry reservations,” ahead of your desired day of visit. You do that by going online, here, to make sure you can get in. 6 AM is the deadline to buy tickets the day of. They do say they take “walk-ins” if they can accommodate them. Because the home is relatively small, admission is limited to a certain number of people per time slot. This place can’t handle the traffic of Disneyland. When we were there, we had about 20 people in our group, 10 in our family and the others were random strangers. For the day we wanted to go, because it was a free day, we couldn’t buy tickets online ahead of the day.
The website did not explain why. I kept clicking on the day and nothing would happen. It just said it was August Adventures Day and wouldn’t let me reserve tickets. (See August 15 above.) What in the heck did that mean? Did it mean only people who were part of “August Adventures” could attend because AA had reserved the place all day for some exclusive event like a party? The page had no asterisk or footnotes. When I called to ask about that the day before, from Maine, I just kept getting a recording that didn’t answer my question as to why I couldn’t buy reservations. So, we went on faith hoping we would get in, and we were happy to discover admission was free because of August Adventures. An aggravating problem that turned out to be a surprise blessing in the end.
It was a big day when we were there for this event sponsored by OH and this other organization. They had people dressed up, acting out historical roles. Jan Turnquist was also there. Lots of people were socializing. It definitely felt festive!
Here’s the executive director Jan Turnquist. If you read the history of the neighboring house, the Wayside, over here, you will learn of the connection between Orchard House and Native Americans.
Second, you are not allowed to take photographs inside the building. That’s why you don’t see any from me here in this post. But you can see some photos of the inside here.
Third, there’s no elevator. Unfortunately, that means you can’t access the second floor with a wheelchair or stroller, just the ground level. The tour guides can provide a notebook with photos of the upper level if asked.
9. What to ask the tour guide about? The sky’s the limit! The more you read about Louisa and her family before you go, the more questions you will have to ask.
10. Is there anything in the Museum Store, aka gift shop, that I should buy there because it’s not available anywhere else?
If you are a huge fan of LMA and LW, It’s so tempting when walking into the gift shop to want to buy everything! Take a breath and realize the following. Most of the books and DVDs sold there you can probably find online, like on amazon.
So if you are limited on luggage space, it would be easier to order on online from amazon and have them shipped to your home.
The cute T-shirts, socks and pencil bag with the Anna Bond design from Rifle Paper Co. you can find here. They are easy to fit into luggage. I had fun buying those. I got the shirt, socks, and T-shirt for me, the pencil bag for my artist sister and the tote bag for my daughter. (I had already bought my sister a calendar from a bookstore somewhere in Maine and also planned on getting her an apron from amazon when I got home, because I couldn’t find a blueberry apron less than $50 on the trip. I really wanted to give her a blueberry apron! So I sent one from amazon when I got home.) I saw a few items that I’m guessing are unique to the store, mainly the jewelry that appeared to be made by a local artist, and the posters of Bronson’s Alcott’s teachings.
My sister also got the socks and the shirts for her daughters for Christmas. Fun!
This picture book below was available. I had never seen it before but since then I’ve seen it on amazon here.
I got the book of Bronson’s teaching philosophy, which can be found on amazon here. It’s very small and slim. He was definitely a pioneer in acknowledging that children have different learning needs than adults do. It’s hardcover and little like I said so will easily fit in your luggage if you decide to buy it. You can see the maxims here. You can see these ideas resonating with what you read about Charlotte Mason and Montessori. He was definitely a man ahead of time! I especially love his #18 maxim, “To teach, in imitation of the Saviour.” I love that he recognized LMA’s talent for writing and provided a desk for her, going against the popular notion of the day that women shouldn’t be writers because if they did they would get sick.
The postcards are probably something in the store that can’t be bought on online. I bought one of Jessie Willcox’s print, below. Now I have it framed on my desk. I wish now I had bought the postcard showing Orchard House.
I felt a bit like the LW when we made candles out of beeswax for Candlemas last February. They probably made their own candles, right?
11. What else is there to do on the same day or trip while in the town of Concord?
-visit the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery just down and around the bend from OH on Lexington Road, where the Alcott family is buried. This is what we did while waiting for the place to open. You will also find the gravesites of other famous authors at the Authors’ Ridge section of the cemetery: Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau and their families.
Louisa is buried by her parents, sisters, and John Pratt, who is John Brooke in LW, married to Meg (Anna in real life).
The Alcott family section at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Above is the Alcotts’ section, with LMA’s grave below. She has a flag because she served as a nurse in the Civil War.
-check out Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau lived and wrote his book Walden
-visit the Old Manse, where Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau each lived at one point
-be sure to visit the Concord battlefield, part of Minute Man National Park, where “the shot was heard around the world” to start the American Revolutionary War.
I so wanted to tour the visitors’ center, but all we had time for was to walk to the battlefield, cross the famous bridge, and see the Minute Man monument.
Whew! We wanted to linger at the Concord battlefield and finish our conversation with the tour guide. Where exactly did the battle take place? on the grassy field, on the bridge, on either side of the bridge? We left not knowing exactly what the tour guide’s answer was. Anyway, we had to leave and made it to our plane on time and flew home. As you can see, one could easily spend a week in Concord exploring all these historical sites!
L.M. Montgomery said of her visit to Concord, “Concord is the only place I saw when I was away where I would like to live, it is a most charming spot and I shall never forget the delightful drive we had around it.” Undoubtedly, that’s in part because Orchard House is there and she visited it!
I hope you arrange to go some time! It’s definitely worth a visit, again and again!
You can explore so many Orchard House/LW resources here.
Ever since I watched the video I shared over here, I’ve been wanting to read this book. So I requested it through my public library’s interlibrary loan program a while ago. The ILL system delivered this time. I don’t always get the books I request, but this time, I did! I finished it this past week. It’s so good!
When Jason, the subject of the story, was 14, he heard about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ from his friends in junior high who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). He lived in Scottsdale AZ. Since he was raised Jewish, he started talking about Zion and the Messiah with some of his friends in jr. high. His LDS jr. high friends shared with him what they believe about those topics. He was impressed that he saw them living their beliefs, especially when one of them refused to look at pornography when some guys in jr. high tried to get him to look at some. Then these LDS friends gave Jason a Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
He didn’t want to read it at first. He wanted to get rid of it because he didn’t want his family to see it since his mom is Jewish and his dad is Lutheran. He decided he would burn it to get rid it. Just as he was about to put the flame to the book from a cigarette lighter, he heard a voice in his head say “Don’t burn my book.”
So then he read it. He was immediately captivated by it, especially when he saw that on the title page it saws that its purpose is to testify to Jews and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.
Thus began his conversion. He finished reading the Book of Mormon when he was 14 or 15. He took Moroni’s invitation to heart in Moroni 10:4-5 and prayed to know if the book is true. After he prayed, he said that he felt a beautiful comforting witness from the Holy Spirit, from the top of his head to his toes. After waiting until 18 to get baptized, he served a mission to Morristown NJ. He felt blessed to be able to do that because that mission has the highest concentration of Jews in the US. That was confirmation for him that the mission call came for the Lord who knows him personally. He then went on to study at BYU, live in Israel for an extended period of time, and get his PhD from Brandeis University.
I just love that reminder from reading his story that the Book of Mormon was indeed written for the “convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations—And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.” (from the title page, here.)
You can read a sample of Jason’s book, Chapter 2, where he attempts to burn the Book of Mormon, over here.
The Book of Mormon is full of so many truths. I testify that reading it brings a person closer to God more than any other book, as Joseph Smith said. (From the introduction to the Book of Mormon over here.)
I just noticed today that it also says, in Mosiah 27:30-31, my new favorite scripture, the following beautiful truth…
This is Alma the Younger telling us that Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, “remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all. Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye.”
I just love that! I invite you to ponder how Jesus the Redeemer is manifesting Himself in your life. Then share your stories with family or a friend. Write them down and keep it for posterity’s sake. Add to your writings every day in your journal.
You can see more truths from the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ over here. These truths are priceless, more precious than jewels!
Want to learn even more about the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ? Go here. I’ve even got a Book of Mormon-themed Wits and Wagers version here.
Then here’s a story of how a copy of the Book of Mormon did not burn in a house fire, even though everything around it did. Amazing!
You can also listen to more interviews of Jason here and here.
Want to hear another story of a Jew converting to Jesus Christ? Go here for the story of my husband’s aunt through marriage. She also wrote a book of her story with “burning” in the title, called The Burning Bush.
I found this mommy/grandmommy blogger last fall. Ever since then I have thoroughly enjoyed reading her gems of truth. It all started when I came home from my trip to New England last summer to visit one of my sisters. (Read about that trip here.) Sister Emily lives an idyllic life as a wife, mother to 6 children, and artist, in a big colonial home tucked in a forest. See her website here with all its artistic, nature study vibes and you will see what I mean. After returning home from that glorious vacation, I was just a little sad to be leaving my sister and her family and all those old-timey patriotic New England feels. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. All the colonial history that took place there, all the dense forests, and deep appreciation for the heritage of old-fashioned America and country living was what I was picking up. After being immersed in New England and NYC for ten days, coming back to desert Utah felt like being dropped into a barren cultural wasteland, LOL. I’m sure that’s how my pioneer ancestors felt when they entered the Salt Lake Valley and probably anyone who visits for the first time from the centuries-old cultivated East. But Utah does have its own cultural charms, that eventually emerge, plus the amazing mountains.
Anyway, I wanted to find some kind of website or blog about life in New England that captured this feeling. Something involving a homeschooling family with lots of daughters, to also feel that Little Women old-fashioned family home culture home education vibe. So, I did a search for something like “blog about mother and daughters in New England” and I came up with Leila Lawler’s blog. It has been an absolute joy to learn from!
If you are a traditional housewife and mother, you will love her! As a mother of 7 and grandmother to 21, she is just brimming with wisdom. I’m not Catholic like she is, but regardless of the difference in our theology, I find we have a lot in common. We each have 7 children, we each believe in old-fashioned mothering (being open to having babies, breastfeeding, enjoying the seasons of a mother’s life, as in, having your career be your children until they leave your nest, family rituals like dinner together and family traditions), homeschooling, and saying “no thank you” to feminism.
As an only child who was raised by feminist parents, she has has seen the bad fruits produced by feminism. She says that her father encouraged her to have a career outside the home after her college education. She resisted that and chose to be a SAHM after marriage. She thoroughly enjoys her life and radiates love and joy.
She does a weekly podcast with her husband Phil here. I don’t always understand all the Catholic terms, especially when they were talking about the new Pope, but I enjoy it, nonetheless.
Listen to her podcast interview in two parts with Carole Joy Seid of homeschoolmadesimple.net. It is so delightful! Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.
-the fact that new washing machines don’t work as well as the old ones, with their new water-use regulations. She says they don’t get clothes thoroughly clean, which is why when you are in the market for a machine you should buy a used one. Read all about it here.
-how to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas, which for her starts on Christmas Day, read here. Sounds right up my alley with my love of family traditions, especially at Christmas!
-why modern libraries aren’t the best because of a pervasive movement to remove great books, and what to do about it, this involves her Library Project, which you can read about here.
-she even has a 3-volume book set about how to be a domestic goddess in your role as wife and mother, shown above, which you can buy here.
Just call her Auntie Leila and cozy in for tutoring in all things wifely, and motherly, and homemakingly, all done for the glory of God! Thank you Leila Lawler for your example and sharing! You are an American treasure!
Want more about about other great American mothers? Go here for Jan Bloom and here for Sally Fallon Morrell.
I just discovered another great resource for studying the Doctrine and Covenants Come Follow Christ scriptures this year! It’s called “Start Here Study with Kristen Walker Smith.” You can find her YouTube Channel of that name here.
I love pictures and visual aids, so I love that her videos are short summaries of the lesson each week. It’s fun to watch the pictures being drawn as she narrates the summary, and then see the whole picture at the end. Here is her explanation of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ.
I always watch Brother Jared Halverson’s videos each week, about 30 minutes a day at his Unshaken Saints YouTube Channel. I do this while I get ready for the day after I listen to the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ for five minutes and one General Conference talk. I usually finish Brother Halverson’s video by Friday or Saturday. Sometimes I watch Sister Lili de Hoyos Anderson’s Choosing Glory videos, over here or the Pickerings’ Come Follow Christ videos. I watch those while I exercise instead of just listening because I don’t want to miss their charts with all the visual aids and pictures.
I think I’m going to start my family watching Sister Smith’s on Sunday or Monday night each week to kick off the new week’s study. I love finding new resources that are so helpful!
This movie came out about 20 years ago, and as with most movies, I never saw it when it came out, being in the throes of young motherhood. I just discovered it a few weeks ago. I watched it last week on a night when I was feeling super grumpy. I wanted to decompress after a family-circus type day when something disastrous happened right before a big plane trip the next day. Sometimes you just need movies like this.
If you have read my blog for long you know that I yearn for and enjoy watching movies about marriage. Movies that celebrate marriage for what God intends it to be. I’ve found some that do this, you can see my list here.
This movie isn’t about that. It is about romance though. It’s about a woman who wants to be married but has bad judgment in dating men. It stars Hillary Duff as the female lead, a teen daughter who decides to take over control of her mother’s unlucky love life to find the perfect man for her mom. Heather Locklear is the mom.
It’s entertaining and has some moments for thinking about what makes a perfect couple, so it’s not pure fluff. The acting is great, and I enjoyed it for the most part. I didn’t enjoy the common action in many popular plots. This is where the main character causes mayhem including property damage and a destroyed marriage, and then isn’t shown having to pay the consequences, ever. Not to mention lying for most of the movie! So that for those reasons I give out 3 out of 5 stars. So, if you can get past that, and if you are in the mood for some escapism but still want a movie about searching for marriage, sacrificial motherhood, and strengthening mother- daughter bonds, you might enjoy it. I loved that the mom acknowledges that she wouldn’t give her daughters up for anything and doesn’t regret sacrificing her dream career for her children.
Here’s the latest update on the Ezra Eagle Prophecy, first popularized by Michael Rush. This video is by Rhonda and Farrell Pickering. I enjoy learning from them! Go here to their website to learn all you can about prophecy, Isaiah, and the last days. Their timeline of the last days is most interesting!
I’m not sure why in the video they interrupt the prophecy interpretation update to show footage of a recent trip to Israel. It’s enlightening, nonetheless.
Anyway, could Trump be the first eagle head? See what Farrell has to say below.
Today’s Mother of the Day in May 2025 is Sally Fallon Morrell. She is an amazing woman!
Who is she? What makes her so amazing? She’s a wife, mother, author, blogger, researcher, nutrition expert, community builder, nonprofit foundation organizer, presenter, teacher, lecturer, and farmer. Most of all, she is a truth seeker. I have been so blessed by her seeking for truth.
Here are some of the books she’s written, below.
Credit for all Images of Book Covers Above and Below Except the Last Two: newtrendspublishing.com
She is best known for her first book, shown above. It is a cookbook that launched a revolution in people turning back to ancestral, real foods.
This last book is her response to the plandemic. It’s so interesting!
She’s so prolific! She has followed the path of seasonal motherhood that I recommend, which is to raise your family and then focus on other, out-of-the-home activities. As a graduate of Stanford, she is no slouch when it comes to academic credentials.
Have you ever heard of the back story of her first book, Nourishing Traditions? I recently read about it from the newsletters of one of her friends, Kelly the Kitchen Kop. (Sign up for that here.)
“Many years ago I was invited to my son’s 6th grade class to make cookies with them. When I got there with all my natural ingredients, all they wanted me to do was slice cookie dough–they thought making cookies was too complicated for the kids. I was angry and thought, ‘these kids are capable of real cooking!’ “So I proposed to teach a class in French cooking in the church kitchen. I had about 10 kids and we did 6 classes. I made a little notebook for them which was the genesis of Nourishing Traditions. “I didn’t make it easy. We did quiche with homemade crust. We made chicken, beef and fish stock and made reduction sauces. We made poached salmon with sorrel sauce, beef stew, chicken with cream sauce, steamed vegetables with butter. The kids LOVED it, and they ate every morsel. “I remember hating home-ec classes because they were so silly, we never did anything real. Kids of this age love to cook if you show them how! Needless to say, the adults at the school–teachers and administrators–were not the least bit interested.” (copied and pasted from Kelly’s newsletter, go here to sign up for it.)
I just love that story! It shows that sometimes the germ of a mother’s great idea which benefits so many comes from doing something with and for her child and/or other children. That cookbook is now the Cadillac of cookbooks. It’s like Julia Child meets Ralph Nader. The juicy tidbits in the sidebars showing the evils of the modern commercial food industry with stories are so intellectually delicious!
Oh and I just remembered, she has one more book, about broth! Don’t you just love the work of the illustrator for the covers of most of these books? Go to amazon or her website here to get the books. (I receive no remuneration if you buy them.)
Some of my favorite videos of her are below.
First, her introduction to the Weston A. Price Foundation, the organization she founded after discovering the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, a dentist who studied nutrition and physical degeneneration.
Second, “The Oiling of America.” It’s so important to learn what she teaches in this! She speaks truth! Just check out other books like Sugar, Salt Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us to learn about the corruption of the food industry. It’s all about money, not good nutrition!
Third, how to fix oatmeal so that it is the most digestible.
Then here’s an intro to her farm in Maryland. One of my girlfriends got to tour it several years ago one summer with her whole family. I’m so jealous! It’s so remarkable that Sally walks the walk of her talk by having her own farm so she can know intimately what goes into her food.
She is a huge proponent of raw milk. Learn the truth about that below.
Lastly, how to eat during pregnancy so you have the healthiest baby possible.
You can see the results of babies whose moms ate this way here. (This book mentioned here is a good primer for encapsulating Sally’s teachings during pregnancy and early motherhood.)
Want more of Sally? Check out her blog here. I agree with her information in this post here about how she can prove that the earth is round, not flat. It’s very informative! The site of WAPF here. It’s a goldmine of nutritional and healing truths!
I also have her in a video over here with a panel of other women talking about nutrition for babies and toddlers.
She’s coming to Salt Lake City, UT for the 2025 Wise Traditions conference. It’s the premiere conference on nutrition in the world. Go here to learn more!
I hope you enjoy learning from Sally, the mother of the true “health food” movement. She has helped many, many people reverse cavities and heal from other health challenges. She has also influenced many natural health mommy bloggers, including Sarah Pope of thehealthyhomeeconomist.com, Katie Wells of wellnessmama.com, and Kristen Michaelis of foodrenegade.com. Sally’s flagship book, Nourishing Traditions, has shown that for decades, the American public was hoodwinked into thinking that animal fats are evil. Thanks in part to her and her co-author Mary Enig, PhD, we now know that sugar, especially as refined carbs, is the cause of heart disease! Thank you, Sally, for your pioneering work in returning us to ancestral nutrition. She is truly a living national treasure!
Calling all gardeners and wanna-be gardeners! This book below and the video further down will let you learn from the brain of a master gardener, William DeMille. Read and/or watch and learn the 7 principles of a healthy soil.
This is what the front and back William’s book looks like. Get it from amazon.com here. (That’s not an affiliate link. I receive no renumeration if you buy the book through that link.) William has a thriving garden and greenhouse in the desert of northern Nevada.
Want more of William? Check out his website here, where you can learn about his classes. He has a video course so you can learn from afar, as well as classes on his farm. His YouTube videos are here.
Even though Mother’s Day 2025 is over, I’m going to continue to use the theme of mothers for my blogging throughout the rest of May. I’m going to highlight mothers in this new series I’ve created called “Mother of the Day in May.” I passionately believe in the power of mothers to influence the world for greatness. Countless every day, ordinary mothers can inspire us with their examples of sacrifice, love, intelligence, light, care, service, persistence, devotion, mother bear chemistry, beauty, and ingenuity. Mothers are the gatekeepers of Christ’s love. They do this all with the stewardship of loving children. We owe our very lives to our mothers. So let’s celebrate mothers even more, after the official day!
Today’s Mother of the Day in May is Jan Bloom. Isn’t her last name perfect for the month of May?
I just learned about Jan by hearing this podcast a few nights ago. It was the perfect capstone for the day, to listen to while I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. Jan was the guest for this interview conducted by Carole Joy Seid, of homeschoolmadesimple.net. That was Part 1.
In it, you can hear Jan’s story of how she and her husband discovered the power of great books for children on their path of homeschooling. It’s a delightful story! You will love it! Listen here.
This podcast was pure cream for the mind. So rich and delightful! I was thrilled to hear that her oldest child, a graduate of their homeschool, is studying to be a professional homeopath. I love that she and her husband are book missionaries, with a mission to share the love of good, old books across the USA as they crisscross the states. You can see their schedule for appearing at homeschool conferences here.
In the Part 2 episode, you will learn about the three books every homescool mom should own, and how to guide your children in picking books.
“80% of books in existence have been published since 1980, and 80% of those were better off left as trees.”
“Read great books, mostly old.”
Want more of Jan Bloom? Go here. Buy her books here. They will guide you in how to find the best books for your homeschooling family library.
Want more of Carole Joy Seid? Check out her interview with Sarah Mackenzie here, and her website here. She says that Gene Stratton Porter’s books are so good, parents should bribe their children $100 to read a GSP book. That makes me happy! I love those books too! Good thing my children didn’t know about that proposed bribe. We listened to the Limberlost book years ago as our “car audio” book for a few months one spring going to and from classes and I didn’t bribe them. Then we watched the movie. Both are so fabulous!
Tree of Life Mothering 