House of Gordon USA
Kid's Corner Fun Facts!
Did you Know...?
...House of Gordon Clansmen & women have done
a lot to shape the world as we know it! Here are a
few fun facts about your kinsmen and kinswomen,
did you know they were Clan Gordon?
... Juliette Gordon Low was known by her family and friends as
Daisy and she could trace her ancestors back to the founder of
Clan Gordon?
She was born in Georgia, attended school in Virginia and New York and
married a Scot. She lived in London and Scotland for many years and was
good friends with Rudyard Kipling who wrote The Jungle Book!
She was an accomplished artist and sculptress. She was most proud of
having founded the Girl Scouts of America and was buried in her Girl
Scout Uniform! Read more about her in our 2007 Annual edition of In The
House!
... John Muir is known as the first modern day conservationist? Born in Scotland
his family came to America and originally settled in Wisconsin. He later moved to
California. After temporarily losing his eyesight in a factory accident he decided to spend
his life looking for the beauty in life. He founded the Sierra Club and his efforts in
conservation inspired President Teddy Roosevelt to form our first National Park at
Yosemite! He has been called many things including the Father of Our National Parks, but
he described himself as, "a poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist
etc. etc. !!!!"
Many members of his family are members of the House of Gordon carrying on his family
tradition as Gordon clansmen! Read more about him at the National Parks Service John
Muir National Historic Site!
...A. A. Milne based the Winnie-the-Pooh stories on his son Christopher
Robin Milne and his stuffed bear? The real toys now live at the New York City
Library, much to the dismay of the Brits and the joy of the Americans! Christopher
Robin loved going to the zoo and his favorite animal there was a bear named
Winnie. He named his stuffed bear Winnie for the bear at the zoo and Pooh for his
favorite swan! The was put in because according to Christopher Robin Winnie was
a girl's name and HIS bear was a male bear and everybody knows the makes it a
boy! Read more about A A Milne and Christopher Robin and the Pooh toys!
...James Matthew Barrie known to the world as JM Barrie author of Peter Pan
was known to his family and friends as Jamie? Jamie was one of ten children born to
weaver David Barrie and Margaret Ogilvie Barrie on May 9, 1860, at Kirriemuir,
Forfarshire, a town he made famous as Thrums.
He really did have a big St. Bernard dog named Porthos who was the inspiration for Nana!
And his inspiration for Peter Pan and the Lost Boys were the Llewellyn-Davies boys.
George, Jack, Peter, Michael and Nicholas (Nico) called him Uncle Jim, and on the death
of their mother, became his wards. Read the Adventures of Peter Pan!
Check back later, because we will be adding MORE fun facts!
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...Dorothy Gayle was a Gordon? That's right we all love Judy Garland because who
else could sing "Over the Rainbow" like her, and who but a Gordon could have faced
down that witch! Her grandfather was a Milne from Aberdeen! And as all of you Gordon
Kids know that makes her a Gordon! She was very proud of it too and spoke about it
when she performed in Edinburgh! Read more about it!
... Czar Peter the Great of Russia owed his throne to a Gordon? General Patrick
Gordon of Auchleuchries in Aberdeenshire was part of the Haddo House branch of the
family. As a younger son he set out as a soldier of fortune and hired himself out to the
Swedish, Polish and finally the Russian armies. In Russia he rose to the highest ranks
and organized the army in the European and in particular the Scottish fashion
following in the Gordon tradition! In 1689 when Peter's sister Sophia tried to have him
killed and take over Russia, it was Patrick Gordon who held Moscow for Peter, putting
down the coupe, placing him firmly in control and kept him there! When he died, it was
Peter himself who held him and closed his eyes! Older kids may want to read from his
journal!
...Edward Goodrich Acheson in 1893 patented a method for making an
industrial abrasive he called "Carborundum" or silicon carbide, one of 22
patents named by The United States Patent Office as most responsible for the
industrial age? According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, "without
carborundum, the mass production manufacturing of precision-ground, interchangeable
metal parts would be practically impossible." Acheson went on to discover that when
carborundum was heated to a high temperature it produced an almost pure and
perfected form of graphite that could be used as a lubricant. During his lifetime, he was
granted 70 patents for industrial abrasives, several graphite products, processes for
the reduction of oxides, and refractories. His family originated in Forfar, Scotland.
