PLEASE HELP! A Town's History

Lily glanced up at the clock in the front of the classroom. The minute hand was crawling much too slowly. There was still more than an hour until lunchtime and Lily could already hear her stomach complaining. She slumped down in her seat and started to fiddle with the pencils on her desk.

“Is the speaker going to be here soon, Mr. Gardiner?” Kevin eagerly asked the teacher. On Monday, the teacher had told the class that someone would come give a presentation that Friday, but he hadn’t told them who it would be. All week, Lily and her classmates had been trying to guess the speaker’s identity.

“What about the President?” Steven asked. Everyone laughed at the idea of the President of the United States coming to talk to the fifth-grade glass in their small town in Oregon.

“Okay, class,” said Mr. Gardiner. “I will finally tell you the name of our speaker: Ms. Traynor. She works at the local history museum and will be sharing information with us about our town’s history.”

“History is so boring,” Lily thought. “I can’t imagine that anything interesting ever happened here.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and the principal came in with a business-like woman carrying a large briefcase. Mr. Gardiner introduced her to the class.

“Your teacher has told me that you are studying the Oregon Trail,” Ms. Traynor said. “Does anyone know how this town is an important part of the trail’s history?”

“It’s at the very end of the Oregon Trail,” Bethany answered.

“That’s right. Today, I’m going to tell you about some of the first settlers in our town.” Ms. Traynor began to pull several old black-and-white photographs from her briefcase, displaying them for the class. Some were faded at the corners, and most showed people posing stiffly for the camera. Even the children looked serious.

Lily liked looking at the photographs that demonstrated what people had worn back then. One photograph showed a pretty woman standing tall in a long dress with long sleeves and a flowered bonnet. “She must have sweltered in that outfit, like I do when I wear a sweatshirt on a warm day,” she thought. The photo made Lily think of what it might have been like to not be able to wear a short-sleeved shirt when she wanted to, or enjoy air-conditioning!

“One of the ways we study history is to read the letters and journals written by the people of the time,” Ms. Traynor explained.

“Where do you get the journals and letters?” was Steven’s query.

“People donate them to the museum so we don’t have to buy them. Many of the people who live here are descendants of the first settlers. Sometimes people have saved letters and journals from their great-grandparents. Other people find old journals and mementos when they are cleaning out their houses. I am going to share some of these historic treasures with you today.”

In one letter, a woman wrote to her sister back east describing her journey on the Oregon Trail. She told of long, hot, dusty days on the trail and cold nights camping with the wagons circled around them. She had written about crossing a river on a small, wooden raft that was rocked by the strong rapids. Some of her belongings had fallen into the river, but she had been relieved to make it safely to the other side.

When Ms. Traynor passed around a journal that had been discovered in someone’s attic, Lily couldn’t wait to look at it. It had been written by a girl around Lily’s age. She turned the pages of the small book carefully. She saw that the girl had written about her new town and her new school. The girl had been nervous about beginning school in a place where she didn’t know anyone, but the other students had made her feel welcome. She had even met her new best friend at the new school.

Then suddenly, Ms. Traynor said, “I know you all have to go to lunch, so we will end our discussion here.”

Lily looked up at the clock and saw that it was already 12:30. The hour had flown by. Then Lily thought about her grandmother’s attic. She knew her grandmother kept family letters and journals. What kinds of stories could Lily find in those journals? She couldn’t wait to find out.

**Explain why Lily’s feelings about history change as a result of Ms Traynor’s visit to the class. Support your response with examples from the text.**