SS#169: Scholé Sisters Turns 10!

In this anniversary conversation, we pause the usual topical discussion and turn our attention backward. Not to indulge nostalgia, but to notice providence.

Scholé Sisters did not begin as a podcast. It began as conversations — emails, blog comments, audio lectures passed back and forth, long messages recorded while walking neighborhoods and folding laundry. We were mothers in different places, reading the same books, asking the same questions: What is education for? What does it look like inside ordinary homes? And how do we pursue truth and virtue while raising children at the same time?

Out of those conversations came a website, then a newsletter, then a podcast, then retreats, friendships, and eventually a book. None of it followed a clean plan. Some ideas failed. Some grew beyond expectation. Some required letting go of good things so that better ones could develop. All of it depended on the steady reality that learning is not merely information transfer but shared life — thinking together over years.

So in this episode we recount the story: how we met, what we tried first, why certain changes happened, and how seasons of motherhood reshaped the work along the way. More than a history of a project, it is a reminder that intellectual community rarely starts with strategy. It begins with conversation, continues with friendship, and endures because the pursuit of wisdom is not a phase of life but a way of living.

Scholé Sisters’ Memory Lane

Today’s Hosts and Guests

Scholé Every Day: What We’re Reading

The Notebook, Roland Allen

Pam came ready. She must miss telling everyone about her Scholé Every Day!

Scholé Every Day, Brandy Vencel, Mystie Winckler, Abby Wahl

It took us 10 years of podcasting, but we actually did it and distilled our primary vision into a book – that’s not about homeschooling.

A Scholé Sisters Timeline

2006

• Mystie and Brandy interacted in the comments on Cindy Rollins’ blog

2008

• Mystie received a personal email from Brandy.
• Sarah and Pam connected online on an “old Catholic homeschooling forum” while Pam was pregnant with her youngest.

2012

• Mystie published Simplified Dinners (a PDF sold on her website).
• Mystie began reaching out to bloggers for affiliate reviews; she contacted Sarah via Sarah’s blog contact form.

2013

• Sarah’s twins were born (her 5th and 6th children).
• Mystie figured out from Sarah’s blog that they lived within ~2 hours; Mistie and her friend Kirsti visited Sarah at Sarah’s house and held the twins. During that visit, Sarah repeatedly told Mystie: “You need to talk to Pam.”

2014

• Sarah sent the earliest “vision-casting” email pitching the Scholé Sisters idea to Pam and Mystie.
• ScholeSisters.com launches as a group blog with the initial series, You’re More Classical Than You Think.
• Scholé Sister’s makes its first purchase: An iPod Touch for Brandy so she could be part of the Voxer conversations.
• Sarah self-published Teaching from Rest (as an ebook) and mentions the Scholé Sisters project.
• Sarah launched the Read-Aloud Revival podcast.

2015

• Sarah read Essentialism and cut every online endeavor except RAR. Brandy asked to save Scholé Sisters and kept the domain; Mystie made it a monthly email newsletter.
• Classical Academic Press published an expanded second edition of Teaching from Rest
• Classical Academic Press went big on using the term Scholé in their materials.

2016

• The Scholé Sisters podcast kicked off in February 2016.
• Sarah first spoke at GHC (Great Homeschool Conventions) and meets Pam for the first time.

2017

• First Scholé Sisters retreat (Lead) took place in Portland, OR as an excuse for Mystie, Brandy, Pam, and Dawn Garrett to meet in person; at the arranged meetup, Abby showed up as a fan and sat next to Mystie.
• They set up an online forum on the website called “Find Your Sisters.” Abby was the most active participant.
• Mystie and Abby attended a Charlotte Mason retreat in Seattle where Brandy was speaking and they all hit it off again.

2018

• Mystie flew on an airplane for the first time with her friend Kirsti to attend GHC Cincinnatti where Sarah, Pam, and Brandy were speaking. They had a Scholé Sisters panel session as well.
• The second retreat (Learn) was in Chattanooga and Cindy Rollins joined them.

2019

• Abby appeared as a guest on the podcast for the first time: Episode 50: “A little less talk and a lot more action.”
• Abby officially became a moderator/host of the Sistership in 2019.
• Pam made an attempt at Essentialism herself and tried leaving the podcast except as an occasional cohost.
• The third retreat (Laugh) was in California in a house on the beach where Cindy Rollins joined them with a few other online/local friends (but not Abby).
• Mystie stayed at Abby’s house when traveling for a cousin’s wedding and there asked Abby if she would join Scholé Sisters.
• Scholé Sisters became an official LLC
• They replaced the dysfunctional forums with a private community. the Sistership, on Mighty Networks, and made Abby its queen.

2020

• The Scholé Sisters’ recorded their retreat (Love) in Phoenix, where Karen Glass was going to come be with them, but it was 2020. This was Abby’s first retreat as a Scholé Sister.

2021

• Sarah opened a publishing house called Waxwing Books.
• The Scholé Sisters retreat (Homeschool Essentials: Memory) was in Coeur de’Alene, Idaho, and they decided to try a retreat with just the four of them.
• Pam fully left the podcast so she could finish her own homeschool journey well with fewer irons in the fire.
• The first Sistership mentorship happened: Excellent Marxmanship.

2022

• Mystie’s family moved to Idaho from Washington State.
• They start talking about writing a book and agree they should.
• The retreat (Homeschool Essentials: Habit) was in Dallas, TX and at the retreat they outline the book (it ended up nothing like this outline) and decide that the book’s mission is to save Western civilization.

2023

• The Sistership moved to Circle.
• The retreat (Homeschool Essentials: Time) was in Hood River, OR.
• The Scholé Sisters realize they are getting old and will soon age out of homeschooling “in the trenches” and begin brainstorming the future of Scholé Sisters and land on the phrase “thinking mom” that set the trajectory for the actual book.

2024

• Brandy’s family moved to Texas and she got her first smart phone.
• The annual retreat (Homeschool Essentials: Attention) was in Boise, Idaho.

2025

• The annual retreat (Homeschool Essentials: Curriculum) was in Boise, Idaho.
• Scholé Every Day released right before Thanksgiving.

2026

• Brandy is homeschooling a 16-year-old who will be 17 in October; Brandy says this may be her last year homeschooling with a new potential dual-enrollment plan.
• Scholé Sisters plan to launch a second podcast in the fall called Scholé Every Day (book-club style).
• Also, maybe Brandy will be fired from making the graphics.

Scholé Sisters Trivia (from this episode)

• The Scholé Sisters idea began with an email Sarah sent in February 2014.
• The organization existed before the podcast — the podcast didn’t launch until February 2016.
• The first Scholé Sisters content plan was weekly written posts, not audio.
• Before becoming a podcast, Scholé Sisters briefly existed as a monthly newsletter.
• One of the earliest “organizational purchases” was buying Brandy an iPod Touch so she could participate in conversations.
• Sarah’s Read-Aloud Revival podcast launched in April 2014.
• At the time they started, almost no homeschooling podcasts existed.
• The first Scholé Sisters retreat took place in Portland in 2017.
• Abby first attended a Portland meetup before she was part of the team.
• Abby’s first appearance on the podcast was spring 2019 (Episode 50).
• Abby began podcasting regularly in 2020.
• The online forum community existed before the Sistership, but it largely failed.
• The group became online friends before social media existed.
• The original tagline included: “Find your sisters.”
• The founding vision intentionally represented different approaches to classical education, including Charlotte Mason.

Mentioned in the Episode

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