Family Plot

Well this was as fun an episode to do as (we hope) it is for you to listen to.  In Arthur's Corner he talks Dandy's World, getting over illness and his return to school as well as his recent popularity as a young transman on Threads.  The rest of the Laura suggested show we discuss Clara Barton, her life as a young, possibly neurodivergent woman, how she grew up with only one close friend and the...

There is so much going on in this episode, we almost needed a playbook.  First, we visit Arthur's Corner to find out he's feeling sick and he recently lost his kitten.  After that we dig in the Death of Ricky C. McCormick, a man one psychiatrist diagnosed with having "a brick wall in his mind",  We cover his mother, his potential father (we have no real idea who that might be) his unsuccessful att...

This week we head to Carthage Missouri to attend the birth of a Wild West :Legend, the Bandit Queen Belle Starr,  We discuss her birth, her family, her brothers who all came to bad ends, including one who disappeared mysteriously.  We discuss her family's ties to the South as the Civil War came and went and her family's move to Scylene, Texas where she drove one of the wagons.  She idolized the Ja...

TRIGGER WARNING - This Episode contains mentions of accidental shootings and murder-suicide.  If these are too much for you, please, feel free to skip the episode.  You Matter! Well, Friends and Neighbors, pull up a chair and sit a spell as we go back to the birth of Kansas City to talk a little about the early days of Kansas City and a figure that came out of it named Sands. W. Hopkins.  A child...

This week on Family Plot, we’re joined by our youngest plotter—8-year-old Lexi Boese—who asked us to tell the story of Autherine Juanita Lucy, the first Black student admitted to the University of Alabama. Her brave enrollment in 1956 was court-ordered and historic… and it ignited the largest anti-integration riot in American history. What followed was a shameful twist: Lucy was expelled “for her...

In this episode we are joined by Kelsey Black, of the Book Burrow Bookstore in Pflugerville Texas as we discuss the history of Bookstores as Resistance Centers.  We discuss David Ruggles and the first Black-owned bookstore in the United States and how he was a figurative and literal stop on the Underground Railroad, selling books about feminism and the abolitionist movement.  We talk the FBI's ill...

This is such an episode, so full of information that you will not believe it!  This week, our second of 2 PRIDE episodes this month, we discuss the life and times of Harvey Milk.  We will look into the history of this young gay man who will grow up in the fifties and sixties before becoming a popular merchant and politician in the Castro Street area of San Francisco.  We cover his political career...

Arthur couldn't be with us as we recorded the episode, so he recorded his parts early and danged if it don't sound like he was there with us!  Arthur was starting on his first shift at McDonald's and was happy with his first day of work.  He mentions it in his corner.  Meanwhile Dad, Mom and Brenda discuss Delphine LaLaurie, her life and strangeness and how cruel she was to her slaves.  We also di...

It's time to watch To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar! and get ready for PRIDE!  Put on your most rainbow-y outfit and catch this, the first of two special PRIDE episodes this month!  Today's episode we introduce Alice B. Toklas.  Lover, confidant and essentially spouse to writer Gertrude Stein, she also was a writer in her own right and one of her books The Alice B. Toklas contained...

Like a good candy bar, this episode is chock full of nutty goodness!  In Arthur's corner he discusses (among other things) a concert he recently attended featuring Staind and Breaking Benjamin, among others.  Dean suggests that it was a butt rock concert, promptimg stares from Laura and Arthur.  Plus we go back to episode 18 to discuss famed Independence fugitive Sharon Kinne, discussing her life...

Our very special 250th Episode begins with a word of congratulations from the one and only Ed October from OctoberpodAM.  The show itself is full of goodness about the life of Eliza, not Alexander Hamilton.  We cover this sutprising and interesting woman in our special episode of the Family Plot Podcast.  This week's subject was chosen by Laura so we lead off with her and learn so much about this...

This episode comes with a Trigger Warning as we discuss potential victims of suicide as well as infant mortality in the section After Arthur's Corner and again in our final thoughts.  If these things are too much for you, feel free to skip, you matter. That being said, this episode gets weird as we discuss the strange life of Phil Schneider, the myster of Valiant Thor and the interesting events ca...

Well, we have a gem of an episode here, where we look into the life of James MacLaine and William Plunkett.  We follow what we can of their births and young lives as we discuss how the pair came to be the Gentleman Bandits that they were, what famous people they robbed, how they got caught and their final, if quite different, fates.  We also discuss what a blunderbuss is and why it would make a go...

What an episode!!! In Arthur's Corner, he discusses fudge, chocolate chip cookies and 12 Angry Men.  We also discuss the neurodivergent line that seems to run through our family.  Then we settle down and begin to discuss this week's subject, Victoria California Woodhull.  This woman, born to a devout spiritualist and a con man that got them ran out of their Homer Ohio home.  She's married to a 'do...

Well this episode is a ton of fun.  We are joined by longtime friend of the Fam, Stand Up Comic and Dutch Uncle Dale Hilton.  He requested we cover a topic called the Whisky Wars and it is a doozy.  In 1973 Canada and Denmark were unable to agree as to which country owned the kidney-shaped nothing of an island called Hans Island.  With neither side willing to set aside their claim to the island, t...

This episode has so much going on, we don't know where to begin.  Arthur discusses a recent family visit to Kansas City's Case Park and some rather naughty grafitti he discovered.  The family discusses their favorite Kansas City Barbecue joint and Arthur discusses making Spanish Tortillas.  All that plus we cover the strange case of the Greenbrier Ghost, the only ghost in American history to impli...

We cover soooo very much in this episode.  The Seven Layer Dip of Hell.  Author S. J. Tilly. Stuffed Austrian Shepherds.  Sponsor Girls.  And so very much more as we head, in spirit, to Milwaukee Wisconsin to talk about the life, trial, and conviction of Lawrencia 'Laurie' Bembenek.  We cover her life's story and how she was brutally railroaded into a murder conviction for a murder that it is impo...

This episode we have so much to talk about, that we barely have time to talk about the episode.  We discuss Mrs. O'Leary's cow, the movie 'Near Dark', the Independence Center Mall, more stuff in Arthur's Corner, what it must have been like to be an inmate freed because of the fire and so, so much more.  We examine the histroy of the city around the time of the fire and whether or not the fire play...

We are joined in this episode by member of the Fam, longtime friend and writer extraordinaire Dan B. Fierce as well as Lexi Boese as we discuss the origins of four more fairy tales.  We divide & conquer as Dean takes Rip Van Winmkle, Arthur covers Jack & the Beanstalk, Dan covers the tale of Bluebeard and Laura tells us the story of Rapunzel.  Afterwards, we talk about the tales origin,wha...

What can I say about this episode?  It runs the gamut.  The main topic is the Triangle Shirtwaiste Fire and how two businessmen who were in the habit of locking doors while employees worked doomed 147 mostly immigrants and women to their deaths.  We talk the history of the company, the state of the US for workers in 1911 and the fire itself.  We also cover the trial and the legacy of the fire.  Ar...

We have so MUCH rich muchness in this episode.  A veritable souffle of things to learn and family banter!  Lexi stops by to tell us she feeels sponsored.  Gotta love our 7 year old.  Arthur lets us know about his upcoming trip to Planet Comicon in his corner and we talk about being without water as the trailer court we live in ;upgrades' their pipes.  And none of that is even the show topic!!!  Ev...

So in the 17th Century, in Rome, Giulia Tofana led a group of women who made devotional oils, cosmetic liquids and of course, poison.  This poison was a famed untraceable and undetectable poison for it's time and it was dubbed Aqua Tofana.  4 doses they said, could put any man in his grave.  It was a way for women, who could not get a divorce to get out of some very bad situations and over 20 year...

In this episode we cover the life of actress, comedienne and producer, Lucille Ball.  We talk about her life, her time with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, her time as the queen of Television and the legacy she left behind.  We talk her marriage to Desi and her second husband Gary Morton.  We talk her time as the head of Desilu studios, shows she discovered and her legacy today.  Plus in Arthur's corner we t...

What an episode!  This week we go back to 1839 to attend the birth of a young Black man named Robert Smalls.  We watch him grow and learn how he loved the sea, how he came to work on a Coinfederate Navy Ship called the Planter and how, in the dead of night, he stole that ship, picked up his family and the families of his crewmates and guided the ship to the Union Blockade and in doing so became a...

There is so much to this episode!  First, Cam Sully of the Jacked Up Review Show joins us as we talk ancient Gods and Goddesses from different cultures around the world.  Is Ishtar the goddess of the worst movie ever?  Maybe.  We also discuss gods of homosexuality and 'filthy' sex.  We also talk some of the Gods holidays.  Plus, Valentines at Cirilla's with cats.  It'll mean more when you listen t...