A fourteen year old girl sits at her writing desk at the Vine Street Junior High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan and dreams of her future and writes during a class: "I like horseback riding. I was taught to ride by my father, who loved horses... I love to ride at any time of the day but I prefer the early morning or the evening before the sun has set. I also like to watch horse races which to me seem very exciting. My greatest desire is to someday, attend the Kentucky Derby. I think there must be nothing quite so thrilling as to see those fine three year olds leave the post, one of them to go...

He called himself "Pat" when he obtained a job at the coal yards in Chicago, Illinois as he considered his given name not tough enough during his early youth. Throughout his life he was interested in music and learned to play the clarinet and saxophone before he was 16 years of age. He would play in the Hull House Boys Band and later would have a band of his own which played on the radio in the early days of radio broadcasting. He played with James "Mad Dog" Petrillo who would later become a famous Chicago musician and eventual prominent leader of the American Federation of Musicians, and...

Like her mother before her, Florence Hedlund had a powerful faith in the Almighty throughout her 82 years of life, and her family was the most important undertaking in her life. After a happy childhood in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century she followed her older sister to Kalamazoo and at the age of 15 began working as a telephone operator for the Michigan State Telephone Company. At the age of 30 she had lost her husband after 13 years of marriage with four little children and faced great economic disaster with hard work and true determination. By the age of 34 Florence had...

In Common Sense, Thomas Paine wrote his impassioned plea for American independence but more importantly distinguished between the role of government and society. Society according to Paine, is all constructive and considered good when citizens join together. Government, on the other hand, is an institution whose sole purpose is to protect its citizens from their own vices. Paine further wrote that the government's role is to protect life, liberty and property, and that a government should be judged solely on the basis of the extent to which it accomplishes this goal, a belief that John...

Nestled along the banks of the Nation River in Dundas County, Ontario, Canada is a small rural community of Chesterville. It was originally named after a miller, Thomas Armstrong, and called Armstrong Mills. By 1876, years after the Buist family first settled here, it was renamed Chesterville after a merchant and telegraph operator named Chester Casselman. Robert and Helen Buist were two of the early settlers to the area having established themselves here from Scotland by 1857. They first purchased a farm in Winchester Township where some of their eight children were born, before relocating...

A month after a 19 year-old, Robert Douglas Buist arrived in Chicago, Illinois, a letter came from Chesterville, Ontario, Canada from his father. The letter was dated Wednesday, 18 April 1888 and his father wrote: "Dear Douglas, I was glad to hear you had got work and that you are well. I would advise you to stick to the place you are in and you will not gain anything by running around for bigger wages. Try and get master of the trade by steady work and not spend your means foolishly. Try and save a little in case of sickness or want of employment, times are unstable and no permanent outlook....

There is a small city located on Sturgeon Bay which flows directly into Lake Michigan through a large shipping canal. The city of Sturgeon Bay offers one of the few places in the world that one can go from deep fresh water fishing to inland lake fishing without ever leaving your boat. On the shores of the bay sat a small private resort named "De Jonge's on the Bay," in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. For three young children of Barney and Donna Tracy this resort in Door County, Wisconsin would offer countless summer joys of fishing, swimming, boating and playing during the 1970s and 1980s....

On Monday, 4 March 1839 in the library of the University of St. Andrews at St. Andrews, Fife, there occurred a unique meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of St. Andrews in which members of the Buist and Goodsir families were in attendance. The members of the Buist family whose interests included geology and mineralogy met members of the Goodsir family who were distinguished surgeons of Anstruther and Largo and whose interests embraced anatomy, zoology, natural and human history. The two prominent Fife families where linked by the marriage of George Buist (1750-1797) a tenant...

On Tuesday, 19 March 1872 James Busit joined the Perth City Police Force at the age of 21. He rose quickly up the ranks beginning on Thursday, 13 March 1873 he was promoted to 2nd Class Constable. According to his police personnel files, James Buist was described as being 5 feet, 9 1/2 inches tall; brown hair; eyes grey and had a fresh complexion. He was promoted on Thursday, 1 January 1874 to 1st Class Constable and by Thursday, 9 March 1876 was again promoted to Detective. Four years later on Thursday, 19 August 1880 James Buist was promoted to Sergeant.

"The Reverend John Buist of Tannadice and his beadle were a fair worn pair at four score. Both were magnifying their offices with much energy, notwithstanding bodily infirmities. The Minister was lame, and Johnny Young, the beadle, had feet that wanted some inches of the orthodox length, and for want of base he was easily thrown off the balance. But he was short and round, so he quickly got on one foot again. There was a diet of examination held in the church after the sermon, at which both old and young were catechized. Mr. Buist was always very sarcastic, and he put no restraint on his wild...