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June 5, 2011
WOLF CREEK HERITAGE MUSEUM NOTES by Virginia Scott MUSEUM HAPPENINGS We are looking much better here. Our desks and projects are progressing well. We are also having visitors who are attending family reunions in the area. We especially want to thank the Babitzke family for their generosity this year. We received another bench made by Christian Babitzke, Sr. The bench was used by his children at meal time. The bench is on our porch and will have a plaque on it honoring Christian and Erna Gragert who donated the bench to us. Another project is underway. I have mentioned that we have a benefactor that is donating the funds to repair and restore our train setup. We have located a craftsman who will be picking up the train this week and will restore it to its glory and bring it back to us. We will have a special reception when it returns. On Wednesday, the "changing" will be an exhibit of salt and pepper shakers, If you have any that you would like to share with our visitors bring them in. We will display them through the summer. On May 9th column, I reported that Jason Watson, Higgins Fire Marshall, came and provided us with a safety inspection and inservice on fire extinguishers. I submitted the activity to Heritage Preservation for our May Day activity and we won a 'Reactiv' disaster Kit for our activity. Thanks, Jason for your time and support of our program HISTORICAL MUSINGS June 2, 1911, Carry Nation, perhaps the most famous prohibitionist in American history, died in Kansas. She lived in Texas for several years as a child in 1860's and again as an adult from 1879 to 1889. While in Texas, nation had numerous mystic experiences. She came to believe that she had been elected by God and that she spoke through divine inspiration. After her husband ran afoul of the feuding sides in the Jaybird-Woodpecker War, they relocated to Kansas. In 1892 she helped organize a local chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In the name of home protection she began a crusade against alcohol and tobacco that lasted the rest of her life. In 1900 she adopted the hatchet as her tool of destruction. The sale of souvenir hatchets and earnings from nationwide lecture tours allowed her to pay the fines that resulted from more than thirty arrests. June 6,1944, D-Day, the day that over 150,000 men and nearly 30,000 vehicles were transported on 5000 vessel armada across the English Channel to the French beaches. Six parachute regiments (over 13,000 men) were flown from nine British airfields in over 800 planes. More that 300 planes dropped 13,000 bombs over coastal Normandy immediately in advance of the invasion. By nightfall on June 6, more than 9000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, but more that 100,000 had made it ashore, securing French coastal villages. And within weeks, supplies were being unloaded at UTAH and OMAHA beachheads at the rate of over 20,000 tons per day. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner of war camps at the rate of 30,000 POWs per month from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Thirty-three detention facilities were in Texas alone. American journalist George Hicks made history with his radio broadcast from the deck of the U.S.S. Ancon: "You see the ships lying in all directions, just like black shadows on the grey sky,...now planes are going overhead...Heavy fire now just behind us..bombs bursting on the shore and along in the convoys." His report, including the sounds of heavy bombardment, sirens, low-flying planes, and shouting, brought Americans to the front line, with all its chaos, confusion, excitement, and death. This description of D-Day is from Did You Know? PBS American Experience. D-Day. online at www.pbs.org Again we truly THANK our WWII veterans for their service. |
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