Take Heart My Children!

My older boys are going into fourth grade this year. You know, its been a while since I've looked into child development/psychology but simply as a mom, I see that my boys are getting to an age where a sense of identity is so important. Most of their friends in our little town go to the parish school.  They feel different. I think they are a bit too young for me to really impress upon them that being different is oftentimes a good thing.  The most successful, important, determined and creative people in this world were (and are) people who march to the beat of their own drum. They had a passion and followed it with dedication and perseverance.

Still, I want them to feel a part of something bigger than themselves. Fortunately, we start our first classes with our large homeschool group later this week. So I know that feeling of really being a part of a community (their "tribe") is coming and SOON.  I know they will love it.

But for today . . . this moment, I wanted to encourage them to take heart. You are in good company, my friends. So I did a little google search for "famous homeschooled people" and came up with this. . (from this website). Wikipedia also had a nice list.  My boys were awestruck!

Good company indeed!!  Food for the will.

Constitutional Convention Delegates

• Richard Basseti – Governor of DE
• William Blount – U.S. Senator
• George Clymer – U.S. Representative
• William Few – U.S. Senator
• Benjamin Franklin
• William Houston – Lawyer
• William S. Johnson
• William Livingston – Governor of NJ
• James Madison – 4th U.S. President
• George Mason – Justice of VA
• John Francis Mercer – U.S. Rep.
• Charles Pickney III – Governor of SC
• John Rutledge – Chief Justice
• Richard D. Spaight – Governor of NC
• George Washington
• John Witherspoon
• George Wythe – Justice of VA

Presidents

• John Adams
• John Quincy Adams
• Grover Cleveland
• James Garfield
• William Henry Harrison
• Andrew Jackson
• Thomas Jefferson
• Abraham Lincoln
• James Madison
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Theodore Roosevelt
• John Tyler
• George Washington
• Woodrow Wilson

Statesmen

• Konrad Adenauer
• Henry Fountain Ashurst
• William Jennings Bryan
• Winston Churchill
• Henry Clay
• Pierre du Pont
• Benjamin Franklin
• Alexander Hamilton
• Patrick Henry
• William Penn
• Daniel Webster

Military Leaders

• Alexander the Great – Greek Ruler
• John Barry – Senior Navy Officer
• Stonewall Jackson – Civil War General
• John Paul Jones – Father of the American Navy
• Robert E. Lee – Civil War General
• Douglas MacArthur – U.S. General
• George Patton – U.S. General
• Matthew Perry – naval officer who opened up trade with Japan
• John Pershing – U.S. General
• David Dixon Porter – Civil War Admiral

U.S. Supreme Court Judges

• John Jay
• John Marshall
• John Rutledge
• Sandra Day O’Connor

Scientists

• George Washington Carver
• Pierre Curie
• Albert Einstein
• Michael Faraday – electrochemist
• Oliver Heaviside – physicist and electromagnetism researcher
• T.H. Huxley
• Blaise Pascal
• Booker T. Washington
• Erik Demaine – Popular Science Mag: One of the Most Brilliant Scientists in America

Artists

• William Blake
• John Singleton Copley
• Claude Monet
• Grandma Moses
• Charles Peale
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Andrew Wyeth
• Jamie Wyeth

Religious Leaders

• Joan of Arc
• William Carey
• Jonathan Edwards
• Philipp Melancthon
• Dwight L. Moody
• John Newton
• John Owen
• Hudson Taylor
• John & Charles Wesley
• Brigham Young

Inventors

• Alexander Graham Bell – invented the telephone
• John Moses Browning – firearms inventor and designer
• Peter Cooper – invented skyscraper, built first U.S. commercial locomotive
• Thomas Edison – invented the stock ticker, mimeograph, phonograph, and perfected the electric light bulb
• Benjamin Franklin – invented the lightning rod
• Elias Howe – invented sewing machine
• William Lear – airplane creator
• Cyrus McCormick – invented grain reaper
• Guglielmo Marconi – developed radio
• Eli Whitney – invented the cotton gin
• Sir Frank Whittle – invented turbo jet engine
• Orville and Wilbur Wright – built the first successful airplane

Composers

• Irving Berlin
• Anton Bruckner
• Noel Coward
• Felix Mendelssohn
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Francis Poulenc
• John Philip Sousa

Writers

• Hans Christian Anderson
• Margaret Atwood
• Pearl S. Buck
• William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Willa Cather
• Agatha Christie
• Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
• Charles Dickens
• Robert Frost – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Alex Haley
• Brett Harte
• L. Ron Hubbard
• C.S. Lewis
• Amy Lowell
• Gabriela Mistral
• Sean O’Casey
• Christopher Paolini – author of #1 NY Times bestseller, Eragon
• Isabel Paterson
• Beatrix Potter – author of the beloved Peter Rabbit Tales
• Carl Sandburg
• George Bernard Shaw
• Mattie J. T. Stepanek – 11-year-old author of Heartsongs
• Mercy Warren
• Phillis Wheatley
• Walt Whitman
• Laura Ingalls Wilder

Educators

• Amos Bronson Alcott – innovative teacher, father of Louisa May Alcott
• Catharine Beecher – co-founder of the Hartford Female Seminary
• Jill Ker Conway – first woman president of Smith College
• Timothy Dwight – President of Yale University
• William Samuel Johnson – President of Columbia College
• Horace Mann – “Father of the American Common School”
• Charlotte Mason – Founder of Charlotte Mason College of Education
• Fred Terman – President of Stanford University
• Frank Vandiver – President of Texas A&M University
• Booker T. Washington – Founder of Tuskegee Institute
• John Witherspoon – President of Princeton University

Performing Artists

• Louis Armstrong – king of jazz
• Charlie Chaplin – actor
• Whoopi Goldberg – actress
• Hanson – sibling singing group
• Jennifer Love Hewitt – actress
• Yehudi Menuhin – child prodigy violinist
• Moffatts – Canadian version of Hanson
• Frankie Muniz – child actor
• LeAnne Rimes – teen-prodigy country music singer
• Barlow Girl – Alyssa, Rebecca, and Lauren Contemporary Christian Music
• Jonas Brothers – Kevin, Joe, and Nick Performers
• Jacob Clemente – Broadway Actor

Business Entrepreneurs

• Andrew Carnegie – wealthy steel industrialist
• Amadeo Giannini – Bank of America’s founder
• Horace Greeley – New York Tribune founder
• Soichiro Honda – creator of the Honda automobile company
• Peter Kindersley – book illustrator and publisher
• Ray Kroc – founder of McDonald’s fast food restaurant chain
• Jimmy Lai – newspaper publisher; founder of Giordano International
• Dr. Orison Swett Marden – founder, Success magazine
• Adolph Ochs – New York Times founder
• Joseph Pulitzer – newspaper publisher; established Pulitzer Prize
• Colonel Harland Sanders – started Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Dave Thomas – founder of the Wendy’s restaurant chain
• Mariah Witcher – founder of Mariahs Famous Cookies
• Daniel Mills – founder of Salem Ridge Press

Others

• Abigail Adams – Wife of John Adams; mother of John Quincy Adams
• Ansel Adams – Photographer
• Susan B. Anthony – reformer and women’s rights leader
• John James Audubon – ornithologist and artist
• Clara Barton – Started the Red Cross
• Elizabeth Blackwell – first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree
• John Burroughs – Naturalist
• George Rogers Clark – Explorer
• Davy Crockett – frontiersman
• Eric Hoffer – social philosopher
• Sam Houston – lawyer; first president of the Republic of Texas
• Charles Evans Hughes – jurist; Chief Justice
• Mary D. Leakey – fossil hunter; wife of Richard Leakey
• Tamara McKinney – World Cup Skier
• Harriet Martineau – first woman sociologist
• Margaret Mead – cultural anthropologist
• John Stuart Mill – Free-market Economist
• Charles Louis Montesquieu – Philosopher
• John Muir – naturalist
• Florence Nightingale – Nurse
• Thomas Paine – political writer during the American Revolution
• Bill Ridell – Newspaperman
• Will Rogers – Humorist
• Bertrand Russell – Logician
• Jim Ryan – World Runner
• Albert Schweitzer – Physician
• Sir Ernest Shackleton – Explorer
• Herbert Spencer – philosopher, sociologist
• Gloria Steinem – founder and long-time editor of Ms. magazine
• Jason Taylor – plays in the National Football League
• Mary Walker – Civil War physician; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
• Lester Frank Ward – “Father of American Sociology”
• Martha Washington – wife of George Washington
• Frances E. C. Willard – educator, temperance leader, and suffragist
• Frank Lloyd Wright – Architect
• Elijah ben Solomon Zalman – Jewish scholar
• Balaram Stack – Award winning Surfer
• Lia Del Priore – Award Winning Gymnast
• Taylor Gladstone – Ballerina

Famous Homeschool Parents

• Will Smith – singer, actor
• Michael Card – singer, songwriter
• Mike Farris – lawyer and co-founder of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
• Robert Frost – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Christopher Klicka – attorney and Senior Counsel of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
• Len Munsil – attorney and President of The Center for Arizona Policy (CAP)
• Paul Overstreet – musician, songwriter
• Kelly Preston – actress, wife of John Travolta
• Mike Smith – lawyer and co-founder of Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
• John Travolta – actor, pilot
• Lisa Whelchel – former actress, “The Facts of Life”, now a pastor’s wife and author
• Darrell Waltrip – NASCAR Racer