Tag Archives: family history

To Ben on Father’s Day, 2020: “Ben as Dad”

[Note:  I guess that, as a historian who is “retired but not shy,” I’ve spent lots of time over the past decade looking back, on my career as a History teacher and on the road that led me there.  It … Continue reading

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Memories of Betts on Mother’s Day

[NOTE:  The is a re-post of last year’s Mother’s Day offering, honoring my late mother.  Except for removing last year’s date from the title and adding this explanatory note, the post is the same as in 2020.  If you did … Continue reading

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“But You Get What You Need”: One Historian’s “Contingent” Career, Part 2

[Note: When I began teaching at The Westminster Schools in Atlanta in the autumn of 1973, I didn’t anticipate staying for the long term. Surely something better (i.e., a college teaching post) would come along? But no:  instead, I found … Continue reading

Posted in "Education Courses", American History, Books, Education, Elective History Course for 9th and 10th Graders, family history, Historical Reflection, History, History Curriculum, History graduate school, History Teaching, memoir, Popular Culture, Prep School, prep school teaching with a PhD, Research, Retirement, Southern (Georgia) History, Southern History, Sun Belt, Teaching, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Ben, An American Dad, 1921-1986, Part VI: A Dad Alone, 1964-1986

[Note: The events of the summer of 1964 [see here] put an end to Betts and Ben Lamplugh’s marriage and shattered their family: Betts’ bus trip to Newark; Ben’s angry phone call later that day; and Betts’ refusal either to … Continue reading

Posted in American History, Delaware, Education, family history, genealogy, Historical Reflection, History, memoir, Newark (Del.) High School Class of 1962, Popular Culture, Research, Retirement, Rick Lamplugh, Teaching, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”: One Historian’s “Contingent” Career, Part 1

[Note: Since I was first introduced to it, I’ve loved the term contingent to describe event(s) in history that suggest there is no single unstoppable, ideological wave moving humanity in some preordained direction (e.g., democracy, Christianity, Marxism, progress, the Enlightenment). … Continue reading

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Ben, An American Dad, 1921-1986: Part V: Memories of Ben, as “Dad” (2019)

  [NOTE: It’s not normal for me to wax retrospective on Father’s Day, but every so often I do. 2019 was one of those years. I had begun work on this blog series about my father, Ben Lamplugh, and I … Continue reading

Posted in American History, Cold War, Delaware, Education, Episcopal Church, family history, genealogy, Historical Reflection, History, memoir, Popular Culture, Research, Retirement, Rick Lamplugh, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ben, an American Dad, 1921-1986, Part IV: Postwar America, 1946-1964

[NOTE:   When Ben Lamplugh returned home early in 1946, he found himself in a house full of women:  Betts and her son Rus were living with her sister Gertie, Gertie’s daughter Lynn, and two boarders, the England sisters, in an … Continue reading

Posted in American History, Cold War, Delaware, family history, Historical Reflection, History, Interdisciplinary Work, memoir, Popular Culture, Research, Retirement, Rick Lamplugh, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ben: An American Dad, 1921-1986, Part III, World War II

[NOTE:  This installment in a series about my father’s life and his role as an “American Dad” takes him, his wife, and, eventually, their first child, through the end of the Second World War (For earlier posts, go here and … Continue reading

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Ben: An American Dad, 1921-1986, Part II: The Wedding Photograph

[Note:  When we three Lamplugh siblings gathered at Judy’s home to remember our late mother, Elsie Elizabeth (“Betts”) Lamplugh, a couple of years ago, Judy had a surprise for us:  She had retrieved, and then had reproduced, a wedding picture … Continue reading

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Ben: An American Dad, 1921-1986, Part I: Introduction: “The only father we had”

[Note:  Between 2017 and 2019, I published here a series of posts based on the writings of my late mother, Elsie Elizabeth (Betts) Lamplugh (1923-2013).  Betts’ writings included a brief history of her Dobson-Knighton family and, more importantly, a memoir … Continue reading

Posted in American History, Delaware, family history, genealogy, Historical Reflection, History, memoir, Popular Culture, Research, Retirement, Uncategorized, WP Long Read | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments