“Jackson The Plunger” is a nickname we took from one of the articles about our maternal grandfather, Edward George Jackson, who was mostly known by his middle name GEORGE since he shared the same first name with his father. Born in February 1903 and died in January of 1945, he didn’t quite reach his 43rd birthday.
1922 PAOLA HIGH SCHOOL YEAR BOOK – THE ORIOLE
1922 PAOLA HIGH SCHOOL YEAR BOOK – THE ORIOLE
FROM OUR FAMILY TREE AT ANCESTRY . COM
Our formal family trees are located within our private account through Ancestry.com. Our family website is not intended to be any type of genealogicalrecord.
It serves primarily as our contemporary blog. We do sometimes include commentary related to our family genealogy here from time to time though. This post is one of those.
HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPH: A candid photo opportunity with our second eldest grandson, OWEN, who is one of GEORGE JACKSON’s 2nd great grandsons.
Our mother Violet Jackson Burnett and other relatives often told me that I “favored” GEORGE JACKSON. As was common of elders from those generations, they didn’t speak about him or anyone else in our ancestry with any specificity. Upon discovering these old yearbook photos at our family tree website, I actually had no idea what he looked like until now.
1922 PAOLA HIGH SCHOOL YEAR BOOK – THE ORIOLE
Edward “GEORGE” Jackson of Paola, Kansas (1903-1945) was my maternal grandfather. He attended and graduated from the same city school system that I graduated from with the PHS Class of 1923. As you can see by the above school yearbook page, GEORGE attended an integrated school system.
GEORGE was the son of EDWARD Jackson, and EDWARD was the son of SOLOMON Jackson – see the names highlighted in green and yellow in the image of the1880 United States Federal Census for Edward Jackson above.
Further observation of this census document shows the ethnicity or race of both Edward Jackson (my maternal great grandfather) and his father Solomon (my 2nd maternal great grandfather) listed as “Mulatto” a term of which most dictionaries define as a (dated or offensive) noun referring to a person of mixed white and black ancestry, especially a person with one white and one black parent. Interesting.
ALSO FROM OUR FAMILY TREE AT ANCESTRY . COM
That’s just only a glimpse of my maternal Jackson family tree. My paternal Burnett family tree is just as interesting. I discovered as the eldest son of Clifford Burnett (b. 1925), I am also the grandson of Charles Burnett (b. 1846), I am also the great grandson of Peter Burnett (b. 1798), and I am also the 2nd great grandson of Doe Burnett (b. 1750).
Much of the textbook history I was taught in school growing up doesn’t match with the history I have found in the historic records, deeds, and census documents which reveal that most of my ancestors were farmers, property owners and not enslaved in the late 1700s. Discovered other interesting history too. It seems that life is always full of drama – good and otherwise. Go figure, huh? This information doesn’t change who I am as a human being, a man, a husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, nephew, or son. However, it does give me a positive connection with the continuum of my heritage in the most objective context possible. My children and grandchildren don’t have to wonder who came before them in this sense. That’s pretty cool…
COVER PHOTO
BURNETT FAMILY TRADITIONAL THANKSGIVING DINNER (2012 – LANSING, KS)
“Often we can find all of the #motivation and #answers we really need from the #history within our own #family” …
John Henry Pratt was married to my great aunt Willa Beecham Pratt. Aunt Willa was the sister of my maternal grandmother Mary Jane Beecham Jackson. John and Willa Pratt were leading citizens and well respected among both the black and white communities of Olathe, Kansas.
John Henry worked for the railroad and Willa took in laundry along with cooking for various people and functions around town. By most standards they were considered “well off.” They had no biological children of their own. And I got to know them both pretty well during a good part of my childhood of the 1960s and 1970s after we came back to Kansas when my father’s active duty Air Force service was finished. I loved and respected them very much.
PRATT CONNECTION
When our mother’s mother was killed in an automobile accident in 1930, our mother was only 6 years old and her sister (our aunt) was a toddler.
HISTORIC NOTE:The Oriole – 1922 Paola High School Year Book. I graduated from Paola High School in 1974 as the Panthers. Our maternal grandfather George Jackson is featured prominently throughout the pages of this publication. And, as you see the Paola, Kansas school district was integrated 32 YEARS BEFORE the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka school desegregation case.
ALL HER CHILDREN ROLL CALL
Our family folklore tells that it wasn’t proper for a widowed man to raise two young girls. Thus the reasoning Willa and John Pratt took our mother and her baby sister in to live with them. And our maternal grandfather George Jackson would subsequently die in a house fire several years later, truly leaving the Jackson sisters orphaned. Our mother, Violet, as a very young girl, would naturally remain inconsolable for many years but would ultimately overcome and have a great life in her own right. That’s another story …
HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPH: “Our NCAA Division 1 Athletes” – Richard (d)and Nathaniel at Kivisto Field, University of Kansas where Richard was a music education major, varsity football star, and remains an all-time letterman. He went on to greatness as a successful musician in New York City. Nathaniel was an education major, multi-event varsity track star, and walk-on varsity basketball player at Wichita State University. They were adopted by Willa and John Pratt after our mother divorced their father.
SIBLINGS ROLL CALL: Richard Dean (d); Nathaniel Anthony; Joyce Nadine; Bonnie Jean; Christopher LeRoy; Penny Lynn (d); Mary Jane; Donnie Ray; Michelle Antoine (d); Keith Duane (d).
JOHN HENRY PRATT FAMILY FOLKLORE
John Henry Pratt is a legend in our family and I want to make sure that our children and grandchildren know how significant he is to them too. I hope they tell their assigns about John Henry Pratt for generations to come.
Growing up, we called him “Dilloy” or “Deak.” I still don’t know why or what these nicknames even mean to this day and I’m in my sixties now. My lasting memory of John Henry will be his unpretentious modesty and humbleness. It was clear, even from my perspective as a boy, that the man had his priorities together.
They told me that John Henry was a World War I veteran and he fought in Europe and saw combat duty in Germany. So I asked him about it once and he told me that when his segregated unit encountered the Germans they would not fight the black soldiers. John Henry said a German soldier told him face-to-face that they didn’t have anything against the blacks who were actually politically oppressed peoples like most Germans were then. I was surprised by this but he insisted it was truth.
John Henry built his life around his family, rather than building a family around his life. I liked that. Every successful man I have been in contact with has had their own version of this ethos. At this point in my life, it’s objectively safe to say I have successfully modeled this in my own way. John Henry was a man you could look up to and admire.
They told me he adopted my two older brothers and I asked him why. John Henry told me that it was the right thing to do at the time so he did it. And that was the extent of what he had to say about that topic. John Henry was not at all mean or angry for my asking, but so matter-of-fact about it that my childish curiosity was satisfied and I left it alone.
I recall one terrible argument between my parents and the Pratts were visiting our home. My dad and John Henry used to talk outside by their vehicles. They’d talk about their cars and any other subjects of the day. My dad was frustrated with my mother and was talking lots about their issues to John Henry. John Henry listened and didn’t say anything or interject during my dad’s passionate oration.
When my dad finished, John Henry told him that all of those things were part of being a husband to a woman and a grown ass man. He told my dad that he understood his frustrations as best he could knowing the two of them and their relationship at a distance. John Henry also told my dad that my mom and us children would be taken care of if he were to leave us. That ended the conversation on that topic and they moved on amicably to discussing the football prospects of the Chiefs.
FEATURED PHOTO
“PLAY IT WHERE IT LIES” Father’s Day golf with my youngest brother Keith Duane used to be an annual tradition. He was actually a more than pretty decent golfer. Me not so much. Average at best. Golf is one thing that I actually simply do for “fun.” We simply made a point to do it so we would spend time with each other. That’s cool. I’m almost certain he’d be happy knowing I had my clubs re-gripped and am golfing again.
We, in the USA, have traditionally mostly worked until a certain age range between 62 to 72 and then we typically retire to a terminal vacation status. That was literally the tradition for the generation before our late Baby Boomer cohort.
We both have decided to “retire” in July 2020. And we are very happy about this decision because it has come by our own choice. Our lives will not change drastically in the sense of most activities. We will simply now be our own bosses. That’s pretty cool.
We both have worked almost literally our entire lives, having had jobs since we were teenagers, having served in the active duty Regular Army as professional musicians, and having engaged successful careers as educators, as well as having worked in both federal government and corporate settings too. We’ve always been entrepreneurs.
We both made a point of subsidizing our art as musicians with day jobs that afforded a good living for our family but didn’t detract from our primary calling as artists. It was a difficult balance to maintain at times. However, we have always seemed to find synergy in this regard throughout these years.
We are going to enjoy this next phase of life and look forward to the opportunities it will bring. It’s going to be cool engaging the music-related projects we have established over the years, and the unlimited positive possibilities of our nonprofit organization.
We plan to golf, bowl, walk, and enjoy our ornamental gardening activities. We plan to visit our family and friends while engaging cultural sites around the USA.
We plan to visit our musical friends in Europe again and enjoy interacting with other people throughout the world as artists and humans. We hope to visit England (UK), Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Austria among other places.
And of course, there is the music. It was our mutual love of music that literally brought us together those decades ago. We plan to continue creating, practicing and teaching lots of music going forward.
Milestones (new = Columbia Records CL 1193 ) is a modal jazz composition written by Miles Davis. It appears on the album of the same name in 1958. It has since become a jazz standard. Milestones (old = Savoy S3440-42-43 + S3440-41-43b) is also the title of a bebop standard credited to Miles Davis that pianist John Lewis had written for him while playing with Charlie Parker. (Wikipedia)
a.k.a. “Milestones (new)”
Milestones (New)
Milestones (CL 1193) is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis, recorded with his “first great quintet” augmented as a sextet. It was released in 1958 by Columbia Records. Tenor saxophonist John Coltrane‘s return to Davis’ group in 1958 coincided with the “modal phase” albums: Milestones and Kind of Blue (1959) are both considered essential examples of 1950s modern jazz. Davis at this point was experimenting with modes – scale patterns other than major and minor. In a five-star review, Allmusic‘s Thom Jurek called Milestones a classic album with blues material in both bebop and post-bop veins, as well as the “memorable” title track, which introduced modalism in jazz and defined Davis’ subsequent music in the years to follow. Andy Hermann of PopMatters felt that the album offers more aggressive swinging than Kind of Blue and showcases the first session between saxophonists Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, whose different styles “feed off each other and push each musician to greater heights.” Jim Santella of All About Jazz said that the quality of the personnel Davis enlisted was “the very best”, even though the sextet was short-lived, and that Milestones is “a seminal album that helped shape jazz history.”The Penguin Guide to Jazz selected the album as part of its suggested “Core Collection”, calling it “one of the very great modern-jazz albums.”
BURNETT FAMILY MILESTONES
1979 – 1988
Always Home
Our Last Week in Germany
Our first home together as a family was in 1979 while living in Germany. We have made several houses our home over the years. But our home has never been a structure. We’ve learned that our home has always been with each other. We rented a very nice small apartment in the Wiesner family’s house located in the quaint village of Sachsen bei Ansbach. We enjoyed going to our own home after performing, working, and touring with the Army band.
PAIDI Baby Room Furniture
Our son was born at the US Army Hospital in Nürnberg during the time we lived there. We selected all German-made furnishings for our apartment too. Our son’s bed was made by the company, PAIDI. It was modular and could be configured to a crib as well as a toddler bed. This period began our enjoyment of the art of homemaking and family life in general. Our daughter would also use this very same bed. We eventually passed that PAIDI bed on to a military couple who had a baby and was in the Army band with us in Missouri a half dozen years later.
Fort Leonard Wood Military Base Housing Then
We lived in the housing provided to us as an active duty military family and made each place a very comfortable home. During this period when we lived on post, you could customize the inside of your government quarters, and do basic landscaping of your yard, but nothing more. We put in carpet, ceiling fans, our own furnishings, and we even built a pretty cool stone patio at one place too.
Fort Leonard Wood Military Base Housing Today
Other than mowing your lawn and shoveling snow from your walkways, the maintenance was done by government housing workers. Today, military base housing has been contracted out to firms who have built new units and remodeled many of these historic properties that often dated back to the World War II Era. From what we’ve observed, the Military Housing of today is not much different than any other high quality affordable middle-class housing units found in the private civilian sector. That’s cool.
1988 – 2001
Establishing Roots
We built our first custom home in 1988. It was a really cool split tri-level ranch on about 3/4 of an acre of land and built by one of the best home builders in that community surrounding the military base where I worked with the Army band. This was not typical of most active duty military during those years. We were only able to actually build this home because the Army kept us stationed in the same place for so long. We were just in our early thirties. Many of our peers and contemporaries outside of the active duty military service life had already been living in their own homes for many years by then. Our children were just 8 and 6 years old respectively when we moved in. They literally grew up in that home. We made many family memories and naturally had some individual developmental adventures living there. We ultimately moved back home to the Kansas City metropolitan area to engage professional musician activities after our children grew up and left home to build individual autonomous lives as adults.
2001 – ONWARD
The Healing House
Transitions of any type are ultimately major disruptions to family life in terms of establishing roots in a community. Military families in the music field of our era experienced lots of moving. So, most of us could count on pulling up roots so often that buying a house wouldn’t have been practical. Our family had moved every 2-3 years until we got to that Missouri assignment and ended up being posted there so long. The only other people we knew who usually bought homes while still serving were those who were assigned at the school of music or the Military District of Washington and special command bands for literally their entire careers. And as empty-nesters, we moved back to my native Kansas City area and didn’t really know whether living here would be a good fit for us or not. So, we rented, before we bought our first home in KC – a ranch with a “vibe” and “spirit” that was regenerative to the point that we still lovingly call it “The Healing House.” We’ve found that you never really know where the last part of your working career will take you in preparation for those golden years everyone talks about. When we found KC was truly our home again, we decided to sell that home and build our Burnett Family forever home.
Forever Home
In 1998, I wrote an essay for a publication where I spoke about the various phases of life a person could likely go through. The first twenty years in your parents’ home. The next twenty years leading a family with your own children in your home. The next twenty years using the first forty years of experience to impact your community positively. And the next twenty years are basically about doing whatever your health, desires, and vigor will allow. We don’t think most people actually “retire” in the sense of not doing anything anymore, but work on passion projects well into their 80s and beyond. We’re in our fourth vicennial. It’s even lots cooler living it than we thought it would be when I wrote that article back then. Anyone who isn’t motivated about getting here and beyond in age and life should be.
Milestones (new = Columbia Records CL 1193 ) is a modal jazz composition written by Miles Davis. It appears on the album of the same name in 1958. It has since become a jazz standard. Milestones (old = Savoy S3440-42-43 + S3440-41-43b) is also the title of a bebop standard credited to Miles Davis that pianist John Lewis had written for him while playing with Charlie Parker. (Wikipedia)
a.k.a. “Milestones (old)”
Milestones (Old)
This is Miles Davis‘s very first recording session as a leader in 1947, with Charlie Parker playing tenor saxophone, rather than his normal alto saxophone voice (Session 7). Why is Parker on tenor sax? Herman Lubinsky at Savoy Records concluded that since Miles is the leader on the session, the record must not sound too much like those made with Miles as a sideman. Miles Davis All-Stars, Recorded August 14, 1947, in New York City for Savoy Records. Tracks: “Milestones,” “Little Willie Leaps,” “Half Nelson,” and “Sippin’ at Bells.” Artists: Miles Davis (trumpet), Charlie Parker (tenor sax), John Lewis (piano), Nelson Boyd (bass), and Max Roach (drums).
Featured photograph in this post is one in a series taken in 1979 by Terri Anderson Burnett using her 35 mm Olympus OM1 SLR camera. Subject matter is various images of the Weisner family’s rose garden in the yard at our home on Am Hang Straße in Sachsen bei Ansbach.
Our mother, Vi Burnett said something to me once about her family and us children that I continue to find to be subtly insightful.
“You don’t know what type of people you are raising. You just do your best and hope life doesn’t hurt them too badly that it dampens their spirit.”
— Mom Burnett
She also often quoted the adage that our children are only “on loan to us for a few years.”
But the thing that really stuck most of all is when she said that “you will never forget the times when all of your children were still living in your home.”
I understand her context much better now that I am the exact age she was when she said that to me in the 1990s. And, it’s true.
It’s not that you want to smother your children and keep them from engaging their own lives. It’s that you miss the times and when you finally figure out what you are doing, your kiddos are gone. It’s both beautiful and melancholy at once.
The goal of parenthood – bringing people into the world who didn’t ask to be here – is to nurture positive contributors to this world.
In hindsight, I can say we have done that in parenting both our son and daughter.
We’re equally proud of both of them as kick-ass adults and just as in love with them today as we were on those days we respectively met each of them in their delivery hospitals.
Thanks to Nicole and Danae at the Dwight D. Eisenhower VA Medical Center‘s CPAC where Terri Anderson Burnett works for inviting me to speak for one of their “Black History Month” events.
I gave a talk and presentation centered on the topic “African Americans and the Vote“ and enjoyed learning lots while doing the research for this opportunity.
A couple of years ago, I spoke at their “Martin Luther King Jr. Day” event.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
One Family
I enjoy discovering new facts while doing research to give talks, presentations, and even music clinics. What I learn each year during Martin Luther King, Jr. and African American recognition periods is always enlightening.
Having added “Papa” and “Nana” (grandfather and grandmother) to our monikers, we’ve now actually lived lots of significant and interesting “history” ourselves.
Ultimately, we’ve found that despite the inherentissues and mythswithin human society, the fact is that there is only one race – the human race. We are one family.
One Tribe
According to a Harvard study, music is indeed the “universal language.”
This and other contemporary studies reinforce my beliefs in this regard as well.
No matter where we’ve visited or lived in the world, we were able to communicate with others through the common bond of music. That’s cool.
VISION 20/20
#MissouriMusicEducatorsAssociation #Clinician
On January 24, 2020, I had the honor and privilege of sharing research and methods with my colleagues and peers at the annual Missouri Music Educators Association In-Service Workshop Conference. Sponsored by MMEA and Conn-Selmer, Inc.
T went with me and we had a pretty good time together as well.
Our late motherVi Burnett was a major inspirational force to me, my siblings, and many others as well. I often think of the things she used to say at times when a situation brings her voice forward in my thoughts. Thus, she is quoted often in our family blog.
PHOTO: Mom’s apartment in Paola, Kansas – 2006
Mom Burnett was a renaissance woman – even before using the word ‘renaissance’ to refer to someone who had figured out most of the handles of their life was cool.
In the latter years of her working life, mom went back to playing the piano. Having had private piano lessons as a child, picking it up again was not an issue for her.
Mom eventually held the position as church pianist at St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church where we attended during the years after our family had settled back in her paternal hometown of Paola, Kansas. A minister of music.
That church no longer exists and most of the living descendants of that wonderful church community from our youth no longer reside in that city. But it remains significant to me because it is where I got my start in music singing in the youth choir. I eventually added woodwind instruments at school and mom encouraged me.
Our family attended Sunday school and church every week growing up, went to summer Vacation Bible School classes, participated in seasonal programs produced by the church, etc. We continued these type traditions with our own children too.
Admittedly, we have learned over the years that such faith is ultimately a personal choice, – but we sincerely believe in and live by Christian principles, pray in good times and bad, and over the years have learned that family is not always limited to people who are related to you by blood.
We have a great foundation.
Living it is not just about going to a church on Sunday.
It’s about Love.
Loving one another.
The Burnett Familybranches made up of our children and grandchildren add another dimension to all of this.
We are blessed to have so much love in our lives …
Playing Music Together in Germany Dieses spontane Foto wurde von einem Kollegen namens Bob Levitsky nach dem Parade-Teil unserer Aufführung auf einem Volksfest irgendwo in Deutschland aufgenommen. Das ist Terri hinter dem jungen Mädchen mit dem Schild und ich bin links von T. Das ist unser Freund Willie Driffin, der der Tenorsaxophonist ist, der deutlich gezeigt wird.
A former colleague of ours from our days in Germany in the late 1970s sent these recordings of our Army band back then performing in several contexts. This colleague, Bruce Shockley is a fantastic musician and still performs professionally. The included photographs in this post that are not taken by me or T are primarily from the personal archives of two other former colleagues, Bob Levitsky and Dan Flake.
GERMANY ASSIGNMENT TOUR YEARS : 1976-1980
What is interesting for us today is to now look back at those days and realize 1977 was only 32 years after the end of World War II, the Cold War was still a thing, and our job with the military was to go around playing music to spread goodwill.
ANSBACH, GERMANY
To get a contextual idea of what contemporary life for us in Germany during those years was like visit the House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany website at https://www.hdg.de/
We thought our children and grandchildren might find it interesting to listen to us performing music when we first met (and before we were married in 1979). We were also just 21-year-old performing artists and gaining experience. Although we were playing 250 to 300+ concerts and ceremonies each year by then, we were still new professionals. Working that much builds chops and perspective.
We think this was from a Belgium Tour where we stayed in one of their military installations. We are seated in the front “jump seats” of our tour bus. (Photo: Bob Levitsky)
The first two recordings are from a partnership concert and are representative of what the concert band sounded like. In addition to ceremonial music, it also demonstrates the type of music we most often played for German civilian audiences or important functions. T plays flute and I play alto saxophone on these recordings.
I photograph of yours truly rendering a “gravely voiced” yet still largely questionable impression of the great Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.
1978 “Hello Dolly” 1st Armored Division “Old Ironsides” Band featuring Charlie Heintz on soprano sax.
On the road again … Waiting on the bus between gigs. (There’s T resting over the bus seat without creasing her uniform. Another photo Bob Levitsky)
The 1st AD Jazz Band files that follow are live recordings from a concert we performed in a gymnasium for the Department of Defense (DoD) high school students of the Ansbach US military community. We played everywhere from historical concert halls to outdoor concerts for combat arms specialty troops on maneuver training out in the woods. And events that included most everything in between those two…
Photo showing some of the members of the 1st Armored Division “Old Ironsides” Band performing an impromptu concert on tour in Europe.
“Corazon” from the Woody Herman band’s library. “Dvorak’s Theme” by Sammy Nestico.
The song titled “Corazon” is from the Woody Herman band’s library. It also documents the first ever improvised jazz solo that I took with the jazz band in Germany. The second song is an adaptation by the famous arranger, composer and former military musician Sammy Nestico titled “Dvorak’s Theme.” Marcus Hampton is the trumpet improviser.
Two great friends, superior musicians, and significant musical mentors to me as a young artist learning jazz: Marcus Hampton (trumpet) and Willie Driffin (tenor saxophone)
I don’t remember why the rhythm section is only guitar, bass and drums on these tracks though. We could have been between the band having replacement players assigned to us to fill for those who left to go home to the USA.We performed so many gigs. Literally hundreds each year.
“Love is a better teacher than duty.”
— Albert Einstein
At more than one point during our tour,
we worked several months straight,
then had a few days to pay bills
and take uniforms to the dry cleaners
before we were off traveling again.
We found out that we truly loved music.
Senior Enlisted Leadership: Sergeant First Class Charlie Heintz was our woodwind group leader and First Sergeant Billy Patterson was our enlisted bandleader.
Top’s remarks during a gig somewhere…
Our bandmaster was Chief Warrant Officer Benny Easter
