Well, I tried. She doesn't look or act it, but she is 78 years old and is still walking to and from the city bus every day, working overtime, singing in the church choir, and, when possible, raising grandchildren. That's the kind of energy and fortitude it took to be a school choice activist in the 1980s.
Grandma Bonnie's current schedule doesn't leave a great deal of time for blogging. She is providing day care for an "old" (terminally ill) patient and will probably have a lot of free time at some point in the next ten years, but not this week.
So here, briefly, is what's generally known in her neighborhood about Grandma Bonnie's history as a school choice activist.
In 1980, Grandma Bonnie Peters was the mother of three school-aged children. One had been classified as "gifted," one as brilliant but "a discipline problem," and the youngest (a late-born child) was bright but had some minor physical conditions that the family feared would create problems at school. After reading a misleading report about a homeschooling curriculum said to be legal in all states, the parents decided to homeschool all three children during the next school year.
In 1981, they were challenged in court. The eldest child went back to school. The middle child, no longer a "discipline problem," happened to be a nearly perfect poster child for the benefits of homeschooling. At twelve years old he could have passed for fifteen. He didn't want to go to public school, play football, and go on being the big tough kid other boys challenged to fight just to show that they were tough. He preferred a home-based curriculum that included literacy tutoring (he was teaching an adult to read), working on a summer construction job, farming, riding horses, and picking up litter. He found it easier to get through math and English exercises when the physical work that appealed to him was waiting on the other side of the boring stuff. And, given the opportunity, he wanted to go to court and testify on behalf of other children who had been abused at school and who might do better at home.
Another family, in Martinsville of all places, were already on trial for using the same homeschooling curriculum. It's not necessarily a coincidence that two of Virginia's toughest and most competitive schools, Gate City and Martinsville, claimed the children who were involved in both of these test cases. However, no contact seems ever to have been made between the families.
In November 1981, David Peters was put on trial for habitual truancy and found guilty. During a lively effort to establish "Abbott Christian Academy" (named for some of Grandma Bonnie's ancestors) as a "real school," this seventh grade boy took an academic achievement test and was pronounced ready for eleventh or twelfth grade courses in every subject except math. He was only ready for eighth grade math. The state's attorney attempted to claim that this disparity might reflect some sort of learning disorder, but didn't get very far with that.
On December 28, Holy Innocents Day, David Peters was sentenced to an unspecified term in reform school. Although he was put on probation and assigned a private tutor, the family decided that, while his father continued with the appeal to circuit court, it might be a good idea for David to go "underground." So he and his mother went to visit some supportive friends on a quiet tour of the South--Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi. They were prepared to make Mississippi their home if necessary.
His sisters recall that, after someone had raised the suggestion to their father, who had mentioned it in a letter, David Peters talked about the possibility that one of the family might die in Mississippi, and was aware that it might help the cause if he were the one. He wasn't suicidal or "depressed," but he was ironically prescient. On a hot Sunday afternoon he accepted an invitation to go swimming with a few dozen fans and new friends, in a local river. Not the exact spot shown in this Morguefile photo (thanks, BlondieB), but a similar scene...
...and, sucked into undercurrents from a passing motorboat, he drowned.
The family were feeling some resentment toward the government of Virginia at the time. David Peters was buried in Mississippi. Only his parents, sisters, and some members of a particularly supportive church group attended the graveside service. The epitaph on the temporary marker was a line with which he had greeted fans during his travels, "Thank God I'm in [your state] and not in school." This was later replaced with a permanent marker that shows his name and the dates, 1969-1982.
In the school year 1982-83, David's older sister entered college with the highest A.C.T. scores in her freshman class. His younger sister was "provisionally" allowed to use a different homeschooling curriculum until legislation that legalized homeschooling for all students was enacted into law, later that year. David Peters would have been proud.
His younger sister has never attended public school. She continued homeschooling while older relatives organized the Gate City Christian School. When that adolescent urge to spend more time with other kids and less time with parents set in, she attended Gate City Christian School. By that time the schools were on less competitive, more cooperative terms, and as a G.C.C.S. student David Peters' younger sister was able to take driver's training and get a summer job at Gate City High School.
Grandma Bonnie herself had never attended college. She finished trade school at night, concurrently with high school, and had seen no need for further education. However, when her children went to college, the future Grandma Bonnie went with them. When she finished a two-year degree, she was recognized as both the oldest member of her class, and the one with the highest grades.
Although often involved in children's and youth programs at church, Grandma Bonnie has never been employed as a teacher. She did help homeschool some of her grandchildren, though, until they felt ready to join their friends at school. She moved to Tennessee in order to be with the children who could best appreciate that state's more supportive homeschooling program, and still lives in a house big enough to be visited by all the grandchildren.
Her college studies were in geriatric nursing and business management. She planned to open a private nursing home, but never did...her patients have preferred to bring her into their homes.
Though Allergy-Ease Foods is no longer operating as a business, Grandma Bonnie Peters has no immediate plans to make her recipes for Veggie Burgers available here. Watch this space, though, for her complicated, but uniquely delicious, Rice Biscuit Bread recipe.
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