Truman Library Focuses on Korea 60 Years On

With her brother on her back, a war-weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-26 tank at Haengju, Korea, June 9, 1951. Photo by Major R.V. Spencer, USAF

Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War—a war that still has no end. President Harry S. Truman lived the sleepless nights of the conflict, a war that dragged his popularity with the American people to an all-time low. Now, the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum has an exhibit about this “Forgotten War”–join me to hear the curator’s take.

DEVO Band Memorabilia on Display in Columbus

Remember DEVO, the Ohio band with the bright red “Energy Dome” hat? The band performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and is preparing a new album, so the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus is putting its DEVO treasures on display now through August.

Four of the remaining members, including lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, grew up in Akron and met while attending Kent State University.

Named for the band’s first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!, the exhibit includes a costume, with the iconic red hat or “Energy Dome,” t-shirts, vintage stickers and albums.

The group’s name is based on the idea that the human race is in a process of devolution, a concept that members first read about in the 1924 pamphlet “Jocko Homo Heavenbound.” Later editions (second through fifth) of this anti-Darwinism pamphlet were published in Ashtabula, Ohio, birthplace of Clarence Darrow. A copy of the fifth edition, in the collections of the Ohio Historical Society, is on display with the DEVO Collection.

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! can be seen 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays in the lobby of the Archives-Library on the third floor of the Ohio Historical Center.

Free Summer Shows at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Summer in the City, a free live concert series, returns to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum on July 14 with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the first black string band to perform on the Grand Ole Opry stage.

Other acts:

• July 21, Free Energy, a Philadelphia rock band;

• Aug 11, Deer Tick, indie rockers;

• Aug. 18, Trans Am, a synth-rock band.

Lake Erie Guide Helps Stretch Vacation Dollars

Ohio’s 2010 Lake Erie Shores & Islands® Travel Planner has deals on lodging, attraction admission, shopping and dining at such hot spots as Kalahari Resort, Great Wolf Lodge and Sandusky’s Merry-Go-Round Museum. 800/255-3743.

All That Glitters: Ashley Prospects for Welsh Gold

Ashley gears up for her gold mine tour. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley the Traveling Teddy became a deep thinker on a recent tour of Wales–very deep, down 70 steps into a dark  shaft once worked by Romans 2,000 years ago.

Ashley travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

The Romans, who built a fort nearby at Pumsaint,  searched for gold at Dolaucothi using a drift mine into the hillside rather than a vertical shaft. They used fire and water to crack the quartz, and little children ages 10 to 14 would then sort out the quartz, looking for gold. It took a ton of quartz, according to Ray Miller of the National Trust, to yield an ounce of gold about the size of a peanut.

Archaeologists have found fragments of the Romans’ water wheels

Ray Miler of the National Trust teaches Ashley the ropes. Betsa Marsh photo

on the mining site. They’re now on display in the Cardiff Museum.

After the Romans, small-scale mining resumed in 1853 and grew until 1912, when, according to the BBC, the complex geology of the site brought an end to work there. Miners returned to Dolaucothi one last time between 1933 and 1938, after which the equipment was sold off.

Today, the National Trust has reconstructed the mineyard to the 1930s period. There’s a gold exhibit, a shop with rare Welsh gold and a tea room.

You can, of course, pan for gold there–Ashley tried her paws, but didn’t find enough to quit her day job as traveling ambassador for the students of St. Joseph.

Ray Miller of the National Trust welcomes Ashley and other travelers to the Long Adit, the Roman opening to Dolaucothi Gold Mine in Wales. Betsa Marsh photo

Toast Ohio Historical’s 125th with Free Party

The Ohio Historical Society will be throwing a big party for its 125th birthday on March 13, and everything’s free. During Happy Birthday, OHS! at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, the parking and admission will be free, as well as family activities and birthday cake from 1:30 p.m.

• A display will highlight Ohio Historical Society milestones from 1885 to 2010. Uncommon Ohio tours will feature Ohio’s Garden Path at noon and 2 p.m., and Echoes in Time Theatre will present “Saints Preserve Us! The Irish in America” at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

• In the galleries with the permanent exhibitions, Nature of Ohio and Ohio: Centuries of Change, you can meet people from the society’s past played by costumed interpreters. Shake hands with archaeologist William C. Mills, who discovered the Adena pipe in 1901, and U.S. Ambassador to Egypt J. Morton Howell, who donated the mummy known as Nasi-Khonsou-Pa-Khrodou, familiarly known as Nibit-Pi, meaning “the Mistress of the House,” and her sarcophagus to the Ohio Historical Society collections.

Today, the Ohio Historical Society has 58 historic sites and museums around the state, including the headquarters at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus. Collections total more than 3 million items, and OHS has educational and historic preservation programs in all 88 counties.

Free Genealogy Workshop at Hayes Center

Are you using RootsMagic genealogy software to build your family tree? Then here’s a free chance to meet the software creator, Bruce Buzbee, and learn the latest tips and tricks.

The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio, is leading a free workshop 1-4 p.m. April 25. The center uses RootsMagic to maintain the family history of 19th U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Pre-registration is required: 419-332-2081 or by email to bhill@rbhayes.org.

Drive-Ins and Dummies for Ashley the Bear

Ashley the SATW Traveling Teddy made a day of it recently at Northern Kentucky museums, even watching a drive-in movie in a 1959 Buick Electra at the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington, Ky.

Ashley takes the dashboard of the '59 Electra at the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington, Ky. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph’s Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

After her spin in the Buick, Ashley headed for the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Ky., to pop in on more than 700 ventriloquist dummies–hey, who you calling a dummy!?!

Ashley cuddles up to Benny the Bear, a European bear covered with real fur, at the Vent Haven Museum. Betsa Marsh photo

She made friends with dozens of figures, and tried a bit of ventriloquism herself. Can you hear me now?

Ashley makes friends with Peanut, used and donated by Jeff Dunham. Betsa Marsh photo

Indy Hotels Offer King Tut Ticket Packages

“Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharoahs” runs through Oct. 25 at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and five Indy hotels have become King Tut Hotels for the duration. They’re offering packages for two or a family of four from $129-$249 per night, with a breakfast buffet and VIP tickets to jump to the head of the line.

Explore ‘The Great War’ at National WWI Museum

By Betsa Marsh

It was, of course, the War to End All Wars, and we know how well humankind has fulfilled that prophecy since World War I engulfed the globe in 1914-1919.

This Sunday will be the 90th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, the formal document that ended the war. Maybe the best place to commemorate that day is the National World War I Museum in Kansas City.

The nation’s official WWI museum is less than three years old, but it’s retrofitted into the Liberty Memorial that grew directly out of the war. In 1919, Kansas City residents raised more than $2.5 million in 10 days, and five years later, President Calvin Coolidge delivered the dedication speech, saying “the magnitude of this memorial, and the broad base of popular support on which it rests, can scarcely fail to excite national wonder and admiration.”

Dreamers of the Liberty Memorial began collecting in 1918, and those original posters still stop you in your tracks today. Curators and donors have been adding to the collection ever since.

This can be an overwhelming museum, with a vast circular display of artifacts, interspersed with movie theaters and a diorama that jars you with shell blasts and blinding light. Then there are the two towers adjoining the central museum that have their own stories to tell of regiments and individuals soldiers.

Don’t miss the mural painted after the Liberty Memorial dedication on Nov. 1, 1921. A docent will point out that this was the only time these WWI leaders were together at one place: Lieutenant General Baron Jacques of Belgium; General Armando Diaz of Italy; Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France; General John J. Pershing of the United States; and Admiral David Beatty of Great Britain.

The dedication, and the opening of the National World War I Museum 85 years later, were both grand events with thousands of people ringing the column. But one of the most moving moments for me was just walking across the glass bridge deep into the heart of museum, above a field of 9,000 red poppies–each represents 1,000 people killed in battle.

 

Climb to the top of the towers for a fabulous view of downtown KC. Betsa Marsh photos