Meet the Gordon Family

We’d like you to have the opportunity to know us, the Gordon family, better. We began selling educational materials in 1988 shortly after we began our home schooling journey. At that time, we operated as Family Education Resources out of the garage of our Tacoma, Washington, home. From the beginning, our goal was to help home schooling families be good stewards of their budgets while providing them excellent resources. The entire family was involved in sorting, inventorying, and selling the used textbooks and library books we bought from public and Christian school surplus sales.

In 1990, we moved to a home that included a huge warehouse and retail space in Tukwila, Washington. This move gave us plenty of space for the over 10,000 used books we now had for sale. Having a retail space, separate from our home but on the same property, was really a blessing. We gradually added new and consigned books specifically for home schoolers to our offerings. Beverly began offering homes school supervising, achievement testing, and home school classes and workshops in the classroom space in our shop.

As Home Schoolers, We Understand Your Needs

To enhance our home schooling, we traveled around the Northwest bringing a sampling of our books that we would set up to sell in churches, grange halls, and hotel meeting rooms. When Beverly found herself answering the same questions repeatedly, she began doing talks to families who came to purchase books. It was not long before more people came to hear her talks, than came to buy our books. Fortunately, we did continue to sell enough books to support this ministry.

Our Three Daughters

Our oldest daughter, Amelia (a.k.a. Amy), graduated from home schooling in June 1992. After graduating she attended culinary arts school. She is now a busy mother of three active boys (13, 10, and 5) and one little princess (3 years). Amy gets plenty of opportunity to use her culinary training with her little brood.

Angie, our next in line, attended community college through an early entrance program her last two years of her schooling, graduating in 1994. She later attended police academy. Angie married Sam Cavanaugh, now a U.S. Navy Chief, in November 1996. They have a daughter, Caitlynn.

Spelling Power Launches Us Into Publishing Business

As our two oldest children became more and more independent, Beverly found she had more free time than she’d enjoyed in 20 years. This gave her time to finally sit down and document the research and methods she used to solve our Angie’s spelling problems. Spelling Power was published in the early Spring of 1994. Since then we have published a variety of different educational titles. We specialize in educational books and resources that are well-researched and are consistent with the philosophy of multi-aged, multi-sensory, multi-learning-style, and individualized educational materials.

Just before the first edition of Spelling Power rolled off the presses our youngest, Merina, came to live with us. Two weeks after exhibiting Spelling Power for the first time, Merina crawled across the room. Well, so much for hours and hours of uninterrupted writing! Merina is now 16 years old and "doing" High School at home. She has grown up an active participant in our business.

We Open Castlemoyle Books & Buster House Tea Room in Pomeroy

The growth of our business and Beverly’s health sent us looking for a larger place with a dryer climate than Seattle offered. We found the perfect place in October, 1998, when we happened upon Pomeroy, Washington, and the historic Hotel Revere. Pomeroy is a little town (pop. 1,500) in the S.E. corner of the state. Farming and tourism are its claim to fame. The Lewis and Clark Trail follows U.S. Hwy. 12 which is also Main Street.

Built in 1886, the hotel is on the National Historic Register and once offered 45 guest rooms with the main floor devoted to retail and office space. Having been vacant since 1978, the hotel needed a lot of work. Beverly’s parents moved to Pomeroy along with us to help with the renovations. So far, we have renovated the main floor lobby into a bookstore. We have also completed a tea room, our offices, and warehouse space. We proudly re-opened the store and tearoom in 2006. The 45 hotel rooms have become our home. The upper floors include our home, a "mother-in-law suite" for Beverly's mom and guest suites. Progress on the hotel is slow since we work on it and live debt-free. We hope to someday offer hospitality to home school families that visit our scenic area.

And beyond...

Today, over 30 years since our adventure began, we are still a family run business and actively home educating. We find the opportunity of sharing devotions, meals and work as a multi-generational family to be a very rewarding lifestyle. We also still feel the call to serve the needs of home and classroom educators. We sincerely hope you will give us the opportunity to serve you and your family too!