Lex Anteinternet: What were their lives like? Admiral McCully's adopted Russian orphans, Eugenia Z. Selifanova and Olga Krundvcher.

Lex Anteinternet: What were their lives like? Admiral McCully's ado...: 

What were their lives like? Admiral McCully's adopted Russian orphans, Eugenia Z. Selifanova and Olga Krundvcher.

Recently here I posted this:

January 11, 1921. Fractured and Rescued Russian Lives, 1921 Wyoming Legislature, Work.

Six of the seven Russian children adopted by Admiral Newton A. McCully, with their "governess" Eugenia Z. Selifanova, photographed on January 11, 1921.  

On this day in 1921, a press photographer photographed most of Admiral Newton A. McCully's adopted Russian children together with their governess who was a teenager herself.

McCully was a southern born American naval officer who had been embedded in the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo Japanese War.  In 1914 he returned to Russia as a naval attaché and he was elevated to commend of the U.S. Navy in northern Russia in 1918.  Following this he was sent to appreciate the military situation of the Whites in 1919.  He adopted these children in 1920.

McCully obviously appreciated the East due to all of this service.  A bachelor until 1927, he married Olga Krundycher, an Estonian, in 1929 on the claim that this would provide a mother for his children, and perhaps that was his reason, although I suspect that there was more to it than that.  She was later listed as their mother on census forms, even though the McCully adoptees were not all related and came themselves from varying regions of the former Russian Empire.  She was 29 years old at the time and the marriage took place in Tallinn, Estonia at which time McCully was still a serving naval officer.  He would live until 1951, dying at age 83.  She would live until 1968 and returned to Estonia for reasons of which I am not aware (or am I aware of when that occurred).

Eugenia  Selifanova was 18 or 19 years old when this photograph was taken. She later married another Russian immigrant, about 20 years her senior, and lived the rest of her life in Dearborn, Michigan. She had two children by the marriage and died in 1952.   She's already left the family, and probably had married, but the time of Admiral McCully's marriage.  Indeed, at that time McCully's mother was tasked with minding the children when he was away on duties.

It's easy to see what became of some of the children and that they had long American lives.  I wonder if anything of their early origins and culture was retained at all, or if anything of it remains in their ancestors.

Sometimes I'm haunted by the stories I post here, and they're usually things like this.  Not the big battles and the mass carnage, but rather the small stories of individuals caught up in the big events.

White Russian troops disembarking in Constantinople as refugees.

And its hard not to feel that way regarding the story of Newton McCully and his seven adopted children who had been taken out of Sevastopol as the Reds closed in on it, and then to Constantinople, and then on to the United States. 

Let's start with Admiral McCully, whom in some ways is both the central, and an ancillary, figure in our story.

Newton McCully was a South Carolinian born in 1867 whose father had served in the Civil War for, not surprisingly, the Confederacy.  McCully sought and obtained an appointment to Annapolis and, as noted above, he was embedded in the Imperial Russian Army during the Russo Japanese War.  In 1914 he returned to Russia as a naval attaché and he was elevated to commend of the U.S. Navy in northern Russia in 1918.  Following this he was sent to appreciate the military situation of the Whites in 1919.

He was a bachelor all of this time, which was not surprising for a naval officer given the life they lead.  He'd been in the Navy since 1887.

Something about Russia and Russians, or perhaps just a deep sympathy with a distressed people, heavily struck him in 1919.  During that time he had occasion to be with distressed Russians and to go into Russian orphanages and the like.  At some point he determined to attempt to bring back nine children into the United States with him.  He ended up bringing seven, as two couldn't go for various reasons (one was ill, and one was not actually an orphan, although his father consented to him going with McCully).

McCully adopted the seven children in Russia and sought diplomatic permission to bring them into the United States and to reside at his boyhood home in Anderson, South Carolina, for a time until his home in Washington D. C. could be refurbished to be suitable for children.  He had to post $5,000 a piece for each immigrant, a gigantic sum in 1921.  His mother was living and the initial plan was for the seven to live with her, there, during that time period.  Their stories, and some of their names, are noted in this period news article here:

There was, we'd note, an element of confusion on the number of children in early reports and indeed in some later ones, created in part by Euginia Selfinova's young age.  Some reports seemed to assume that she was one of the orphans, which in a way she was, and to include her in the count.  That wasn't her states however.  There were in fact seven, and she was the eighth young Russian, if looked at that way, to come into the United States with McCully.

Their names (subject to some confusion and difficulties in translation) and ages in 1921 were as follows:  Nikolai Smnov (12), Ludmila Manetzkaya (11), Anastasia Sherbotoc (Sherback)  (Sherbackova) (10), Nina Furinan (8), Feodore Pozdo (4), Ninotahkl Limendo (3) and Antonina Klimenko (2)..  Added to that was Euginia Selifanova, who was 19.  She apparently was already attached to some of the children prior to Admiral McCully asking her to come along and, according to his early interviews, asked her to come along as governess, something that tends to show up in quote marks as if there was confusion or doubt over her status.

McCully's concerns left him with quite a brood on his hands, to say the least, which no doubt explains in part why he chose to ask Selfanova to come along.  Selfanova would have been an adult at this time both in fact, experience and culture and McCully was a bachelor with a busy Naval career.

McCully, children, and Selifanova at a baseball game on November 22, 1922.  The woman in the center is "Miss Gleaves"

We'll pick up here, because of her role in the story, with Selifanova, who turns out to be one of the most difficult to trace.  We'll do that in part, as its necessary to explore Selfianova in order to discuss the story overall and later developments.

Selifanova obviously lived with the family for several years, but then another mystery develops.  Almost nothing is known about her, not surprisingly, before she accompained McCully and the children to the United States.  Her last name simply means the daughter of Selifan, which isn't very helpful and Selifanova is a fairly common Slavid last name.  It might not be Russian, for that matter, but some other Slavic language.* In the few photographs that exist of her, she uniformly has a stern appearance.

She seems to have left the McCully household prior to 1929 when an new woman enters the picture as the wife of Admiral McCully.

We'll take up McCully's wife in a moment, but the marriage in 1927 seems to have come to everyone as a surprise, in no small part as it took place in Tallinn, Estonia.  The Admiral didn't even inform his mother of the marriage until after it occurred.  Early press reports indicated that the marriage was undertaken as McCully had determined he needed a mother for the children, but much of that really doesn't wash in context.  By that time Nikolai, Ludmila, Anastasia, and Nina Furinan were all teenagers and approaching adulthood.  That still left the children at home, of course, but their minding would not have have been the burden that it early would have been, except perhaps if Selifanova had left the household.  The evidence seems to be that she had.

Indeed, her full name is associated with Andrew Trago at about this time.  "Trago" is generally a Latinate name, but Andrew was listed as Russian born on the one census form we've found noting him.  That might not be too surprising, however, as immigration agents weren't good at recording actual last names all that accurately at the time and European peasants proved to be quite willing to accept new last names.  His actual original last name may have been anything sounding close to that.  Anyhow, Adrew Trago was also Russian born but about twenty years Selfinova's senior, leading to some doubt if this is the right person.  Nonetheless, a Euginia Selifanova was was of the same age as the governess married Trago and the couple lived out their lives in Dearborn Michigan, having a son and a daughter.

Having said that, records for the couple are incredibly spotty. The showed up in a census just once, in 1940, and that document reported their son Boris as being 22 at the time.  If that's the case, he would have been born when Euginia was 16, which is clearly incorrect for these photographs.  Having said that, almost everything about the Trago family was vague.  This might simply be explained by slightly moving the dates of his birth and making him slightly younger.  Indeed, in 1940 the family may have had a reason for listing him as older than he was for one reason or another.  At any rate, at that point, Euginia disappears from history.

Euginia wasn't the only one who disappeared at that. The new bride shortly did also, but not quite as definitively.

The bride was Olga Krundycher.  In 1927 Admiral McCully married her in Tallinn, Estonia.   She was then 29 years old and, moreover, ethnically Estonian.  Indeed, she had a family last name of Sermann, and this was her second marriage, as she was a widow. The marriage seems to have come to everyone as a surprise.  The Admiral didn't even inform his mother of the marriage until after it occurred.  Early press reports indicated that the marriage was undertaken as McCully had determined he needed a mother for the children, but much of that really doesn't wash in context.  By that time Nikolai, Ludmila, Anastasia, and Nina Furinan were all teenagers and approaching adulthood.  That still left the children at home, of course, but their minding would not have have been the burden that it early would have been, except perhaps if Selifanova had left the household.

Olga, while an Estonian, appears to have been married to a Russian and perhaps a Russian army officer.  Her father's occupation is what records exist is listed as "soldier" and it may be the case that he was an Imperial Russian Army officer. The clues exist in that at the time of her wedding it was noted in Estonian papers, which covered it, that she "still" spoke some of her "native language".  If she'd grown up in Estonia we'd expect her to speak it perfectly. So its clear that she had at least some prolonged absence.

And while its certainly possible that McCully may have been willing to marry a Russian peasant, we can doubt that.  In the 1920s class distinctions were higher than they are now and McCully was of Southern aristocratic birth.  Indeed, while it might have been quasi scandalous if he'd done so, we'd note that Selifanova wasn't enormously younger than Krundycher at the time that she seems to have left the family.  Of course, we don't know anything else about Selifanova or her character, or even her opinion of McCully and vice versa.  She's truly a figure in the background, not smiling in photographs.  Krundycher is somewhat different.

Anyhow Olga was then 29 years old, ethnically Estonian and a widow. The marriage made the newspapers in Tallinn.

The Admiral may have thought Krundycher a good mother for his family, as American press reports at the time had it, and perhaps she was.  But here too we are presented with a mystery.  Other than the marriage being announced, she disappears from the record to a degree.  She's not buried with Admiral Newton, and indeed, she died in Estonia in 1968, not in the US.  

In fact, we can find her first back in Estonia by 1931, where he arrival was announced in the society page.  The marriage was presumably going well at the time and she seemed to be hailed as a bit of a celebrity.  Nonetheless, she died in Estonia nearly forty years later.  What happened?

Well, that's pretty hard to tell.  What we do know is that as late as 1943 the McCully's, Newton and Olga, were living in Florida, Admiral McCully now well retired. She is listed as his wife on materials pertaining to his death.  They seem to have still been married at the time of his death, and frankly returning to Estonia in the 40s would have been nuts.

Still, the records support she want back to Estonia at some point.  Perhaps after her husband's death, and all of her adopted children having assumed their own adult lives, she felt the call of her native country again.  Or perhaps she was just visiting it at the time of her death.

So, as to the two adult women who were part of this story, we know something at this point.  Selifanova appears to have married a few years later, and to have then lived out her life in Dearborn Michigan, dying at a fairly young age overall. 

Krundychter entered the picture as a somewhat celebrated, but much younger, bride of the Admiral but ended up back in Estonia where she lived until the end of her life many  years later.  She was born in Imperial Russia, seems to have lived in Russia for some time, suffered some sort of tragedy with her first husband, and then returned to Estonia before marrying the Admiral.  At some point, she went back to Estonia, by then an middle aged, or even elderly in context, woman and live there, apparently, until her death in the 1960s.

And what of the children?  Well, we can tell something about their lives from a few period articles and some coming quite later, which gives us a few clues about what their lives were perhaps like.  We'll sum up what we know about each first.  Let's list them out by age as of their time of their adoption and entry into the United States.

1. Nikolai Snourov (12).

Snourov was a boy soldier in the White Army when he came into the eye of Admiral McCully, and therefore hew as rescued from a really grim fate. Had he remained in Russia, and survived the war, he was young enough he could have expected service with the Reds and probably in the Second World War in the Red Army.  He may very well not have lived that long, however, as he could have been killed in combat, or by the Reds at any point leading up to World War Two, one way or another.

He not surprisingly ended up in World War Two as it was, but in the United States Navy.

Snourov was from Kharkov, Ukraine and had been born on April 1, 1909.  In 1933 he married Clair Wilhelmina Von Moser in Baltimore.  The couple had at least one son.  Nikolai did not outlive his adopted father by long, and died in 1954 at age 45.

2. Ludmila Manetzkaya (11)

Ludmila was born in Sevastapol in Crimea.  She married Raymond Francis Colee in 1934 in Florida, where she lived the rest of her life.  She died in 1985 at the age of 75.  She and her husband also had at least one child, whom was named Newton, no doubt after her adoptive father.  Newton passed away in Florida in 2004.

A charming photograph of Ludmila wearing an elaborate kokoshnik, a traditional headdress for Russian, but not Ukranian, women.  Taken in 1924, she would have been fourteen or fifteen at the time it was taken.

Ludmila McCully, 1924.

3 Anastasia Sherback  (Sherbackova) (10), 

Anastasia's real last name was Sherbackova, making her the daughter of Sherback.  On April 23, 1929, her name hit the New York Times society columns when she married William Mortiz of New York.  She was eighteen years old at the time.

4, Nina Furinan (8)

This Nina is the child who is the hardest to find anything out about.  Her age upon entry would indicate that she'd been born in 1912 or 1913.  None of the later information available supports any of the children, however, being born that year.

There are listings for an Antonina Vasilivna Forman for this family, but she was born, according to the records in 1909, which would have made her eleven when she came into the country.  This doesn't match, however, an 8 year old age at the time of entry either, but then at least one other age is also off. 

We know that in this group of children one was latter marred under the last name "Lash" and lived in Detroit.  A 1943 article on another one of the children noted that she was an artist. This is almost certainly here.

5 Feodor Pazdo Mikkaelovich(4)

Feador was born in Sevastopol in 1916.  He married Mary Ann Caruso in November, 1942, in Miami, by which time he was going by the name of Feodor McCully.  

Feodore also served in the United States Navy during World War Two.

Like a lot of the McCully children, he spent the rest of his life in Florida and South Carolina.  He did in 1970 in Florida at the age of 53.  

6 Ninotahkl Limendo (3)

Obituaries support that a Nina Mikhailovna Razahavalina McCully was part of the group and that she was born on June 30, 1915, in Yalta.  She was the daughter of Michael S. Rashavalin and Elena V. Melele.  She was clearly one of the McCully Russian orphans, so this is likely her.  She married John B. McDonald on August 22, 1941 in Santa Monica, California.  She and her husband lived in South Carolina, Florida and California, before she died on June 25, 1999 at the age of 83.

7. Antonina Klimenko (2)

Klimenko was also born in Sevastopol and her original last name is Ukrainian, not Russian.  She's the McCully child about which we know the most, perhaps because she was the youngest and likely, in some ways, the most American. . . maybe.

Antonina served in the U.S. Navy during World War Two, the family being still sufficiently noteworthy that her joining the Navy made the newspaper.  In 1945, following the war, she married George Von Bretzel and they also made their home in Florida.  George, interestingly, in spite of his last name, was also a Russian refugee, having been born in Japan to Russian parents before immigrating to the United States and serving in World War Two.  Indeed, because of his last name he likely came from a quasi aristocratic family that had German roots as well as Russian, something not uncommon for Russian nobility.

He worked for the CIA.  She lived until 1979, dying at the age of 61 in Florida.  The couple had two children.  At the time of her death in 1979 Ludmila was living in St. Augustine Florida, her sister Nina Lash in Detroit, and her sister Nina McDonald in Palos Verdes Estates, California.

Okay, so that's what became of them, but what of their lives?

Based on what we can find, they had adventurous childhoods.  Their adoptive father seems to have taken them all over the world when he could, and they accordingly lived in such places as Brazil.  Upon his retirement, he apparently bought a yacht and they lived for a time on it, before it was sunk when struck by a ship. They all survived the sinking.  In later years, they remained close to their father.

And while we can't tell for sure, there seem to have been a strong element of Russianness that was incorporated into the rest of their lives.  To the extent that we can tell, they all became American citizens only in adulthood, there father preserving the option for them, as he'd promised, for them to return to Russia, which none of them did.  They had a Russian governess early on, and then a Russian speaking Estonian step mother.  The youngest of them married another Russian refugee.  Even the youngest of them surely spoke Russian and had some knowledge of the culture of their homeland.

They also lived remarkably American lives. They spread out across the country while young, although they seemed to gravitate back towards Florida in their later years.  The boys all lived remarkably short lives for Americans, but lives that are interestingly about in context of life spans for Russians, which is usually attributed to environmental conditions in Russian culture in Russia.  As there were only two boys, this could be merely coincidental with them.

Were they raised Russian Orthodox?  Did their governess and adoptive mother instill in them a sense of a Russian identity?  Did the older ones retain it due to having been born in Russia?  Or were they just glad to have been rescued from an undoubtedly hard fate.

Of that last item, it seems we can be sure.  They called him "Dyadya" (Дядя), the Russian word for "uncle", right from the onset, but it's pretty clear he became more than that.  And its an extraordinary tale of generosity.  He entered into the role well into his middle age when some of them were very young, and with nobody really at home to help him.

*Technically "ova" merely identifies the bearer of the name as a woman.  It actually shares the same root as ovum, i.e., "egg".

Governor Orders Flags be Flown at Half Staff Statewide on Monday, December 7

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 6, 2020

CONTACT: Michael.Pearlman@wyo.gov

 

Governor Orders Flags be Flown at Half Staff Statewide on Monday, December 7

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Governor Mark Gordon, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s Proclamation, has ordered both the U.S. and State of Wyoming flag be flown at half-staff statewide on Monday, December 7 in recognition of National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The Presidential Proclamation follows:

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese forces ambushed the Naval Station Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Tragically, 2,403 Americans perished during the attack, including 68 civilians. On this National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we solemnly honor and uphold the memory of the patriots who lost their lives that day -- "a date which will live in infamy" -- and we reflect on the courage of all those who served our Nation with honor in the Second World War.

Seventy nine years ago, Imperial Japan launched an unprovoked and devastating attack on our Nation. As torpedo bombers unleashed their deadly cargo on our ships and attack aircraft rained bombs from above, brave members of the United States Navy, Marines, Army, and Army Air Forces mounted a heroic defense, manning their battle stations and returning fire through the smoke and chaos. The profound bravery in the American resistance surprised Japanese aircrews and inspired selfless sacrifice among our service members. In one instance, Machinist's Mate First Class Robert R. Scott, among 15 Sailors awarded the Medal of Honor for acts of valor on that day, refused to leave his flooding battle station within the depths of the USS CALIFORNIA, declaring to the world: "This is my station and I will stay and give them air as long as the guns are going."

Forever enshrined in our history, the attack on Pearl Harbor shocked all Americans and galvanized our Nation to fight and defeat the Axis powers of Japan, Germany, and Italy. As Americans, we promise never to forget our fallen compatriots who fought so valiantly during World War II. As a testament to their memory, more than a million people visit the site of the USS ARIZONA Memorial each year to pay their respects to the Sailors entombed within its wreckage and to all who perished that day. Despite facing tremendous adversity, the Pacific Fleet, whose homeport remains at Pearl Harbor to this day, is stronger than ever before, upholding the legacy of all those who gave their lives nearly 80 years ago.

On this National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, we recall the phrase "Remember Pearl Harbor," which stirred the fighting spirit within the hearts of the more than 16 million Americans who courageously served in World War II. Over 400,000 gave their lives in the global conflict that began, for our Nation, on that fateful Sunday morning. Today, we memorialize all those lost on December 7, 1941, declare once again that our Nation will never forget these valiant heroes, and resolve as firmly as ever that their memory and spirit will survive for as long as our Nation endures.

The Congress, by Public Law 103-308, as amended, has designated December 7 of each year as "National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim December 7, 2020, as National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. I encourage all Americans to observe this solemn day of remembrance and to honor our military, past and present, with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I urge all Federal agencies and interested organizations, groups, and individuals to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff in honor of those American patriots who died as a result of their service at Pearl Harbor.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
fourth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.

--END--

Lex Anteinternet: November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.

Lex Anteinternet: November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.: 

November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.

It was, of course, Armistice Day.

In the U.S., veterans gathered.

In France and the UK, their unknown soldiers were interred.

In the UK, Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act which provided for home rule in Ireland, in two separate political entities, north and south Ireland.  It never went into effect in the south due to the Anglo Irish War.  It simply came too late.

Merrill's Marauders to receive Congressional Gold Medal.

 

The 5307 Composite Unit (Provisional), know by most as Merrill's Marauders, have been awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, an award honoring collective heroic achievements.  The 5307th famously served in deep penetration raids in the China Burma India Theatre during World War Two.

Only eight men of the unit remain alive today.

The act reads:

AT THE SECOND SESSION

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday,
the third day of January, two thousand and twenty

To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the soldiers of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), commonly known as “Merrill’s Marauders”, in recognition of their bravery and outstanding service in the jungles of Burma during World War II.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Merrill’s Marauders Congressional Gold Medal Act”.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds that—

(1) in August 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other Allied leaders proposed the creation of a ground unit of the Armed Forces that would engage in a “long-range penetration mission” in Japanese-occupied Burma to—

(A) cut off Japanese communications and supply lines; and

(B) capture the town of Myitkyina and the Myitkyina airstrip, both of which were held by the Japanese;

(2) President Roosevelt issued a call for volunteers for “a dangerous and hazardous mission” and the call was answered by approximately 3,000 soldiers from the United States;

(3) the Army unit composed of the soldiers described in paragraph (2)—

(A) was officially designated as the “5307th Composite Unit (Provisional)” with the code name “Galahad”; and

(B) later became known as “Merrill’s Marauders” (referred to in this section as the “Marauders”) in reference to its leader, Brigadier General Frank Merrill;

(4) in February 1944, the Marauders began their approximately 1,000-mile trek through the dense Burmese jungle with no artillery support, carrying their supplies on their backs or the pack saddles of mules;

(5) over the course of their 5-month trek to Myitkyina, the Marauders fought victoriously against larger Japanese forces through 5 major and 30 minor engagements;

(6) during their march to Myitkyina, the Marauders faced hunger and disease that were exacerbated by inadequate aerial resupply drops;

(7) malaria, typhus, and dysentery inflicted more casualties on the Marauders than the Japanese;

(8) by August 1944, the Marauders had accomplished their mission, successfully disrupting Japanese supply and communication lines and taking the town of Myitkyina and the Myitkyina airstrip, the only all-weather airstrip in Northern Burma;

(9) after taking Myitkyina, only 130 Marauders out of the original 2,750 were fit for duty and all remaining Marauders still in action were evacuated to hospitals due to tropical diseases, exhaustion, and malnutrition;

(10) for their bravery and accomplishments, the Marauders were awarded the “Distinguished Unit Citation”, later redesignated as the “Presidential Unit Citation”, and a Bronze Star; and

(11) though the Marauders were operational for only a few months, the legacy of their bravery is honored by the Army through the modern day 75th Ranger Regiment, which traces its lineage directly to the 5307th Composite Unit.

SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL.

(a) Award Authorized.—The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the award, on behalf of Congress, of a single gold medal of appropriate design to the soldiers of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional) (referred to in this section as “Merrill’s Marauders”), in recognition of their bravery and outstanding service in the jungles of Burma during World War II.

(b) Design And Striking.—For the purposes of the award referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the Treasury (referred to in this Act as the “Secretary”) shall strike a gold medal with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the Secretary.

(c) Smithsonian Institution.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—Following the award of the gold medal referred to in subsection (a) in honor of Merrill’s Marauders, the gold medal shall be given to the Smithsonian Institution, where it shall be displayed as appropriate and made available for research.

(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that the Smithsonian Institution should make the gold medal received under paragraph (1) available for display elsewhere, particularly at other locations and events associated with Merrill’s Marauders.

SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS.

Under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold medal struck under section 3, at a price sufficient to cover the costs of the medals, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses.

SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS.

Medals struck pursuant to this Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.

Speaker of the House of Representatives

Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate

Mellon Foundation Announces Quarter-Billion-Dollar Grant Commitment for “Monuments Project” to Reimagine and Rebuild Commemorative Spaces and Transform the Way History is Told in the United States | The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

But what does that mean?

Here's their release on the topic:

Mellon Foundation Announces Quarter-Billion-Dollar Grant Commitment for “Monuments Project” to Reimagine and Rebuild Commemorative Spaces and Transform the Way History is Told in the United States | The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: A press release from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

And yet I still don't know what that means.

I do know that $250,000,000 is a lot of money.  But is it a lot of money in this context.  That depends, I suppose.  But it'd depend on things that aren't clear, and its not clear what they really mean. 

The Aerodrome: Congress set to name "B47 Ridge"

The Aerodrome: Congress set to name "B47 Ridge":

Congress set to name "B47 Ridge"

In 1962 a B47 bomber crashed into an unnamed ridge in the Paradise Valley region of Montana. All four crewmen were killed in the crash.

Shortly, the ridge will be named in remembrance of the event.

A BILL To designate a mountain ridge in the State of Montana as B47 Ridge.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

SECTION 1.

SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the B47 Ridge Designation Act.

SEC. 2.

DESIGNATION OF B47 RIDGE, MONTANA.  

(a) DESIGNATION.  

(1) IN GENERAL.

The unnamed mountain ridge located at 451440.89N, 1104338.75W 5 that runs south and west of Emigrant Peak in the 6 Absaroka Range in the State of Montana, which is 7 the approximate site of a crash of a B47, shall be 8 known and designated as B47 Ridge. 9

(2) REFERENCES.

Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the ridge described in paragraph (1) shall be deemed to be a reference to B47 Ridge.

(b) AUTHORIZATION FOR PLAQUE.

(1) IN GENERAL.A plaque that memorializes the crash of the B47 (including denoting the names of the victims of the crash) may be installed on B 18 47 Ridge.

(2) FUNDING.

No Federal funds may be used to design, procure, install, or maintain the plaque authorized under paragraph (1).

Ivinson Memorial Hospital, Laramie Wyoming

Residents of Laramie are well familiar with Ivinson Memorial Hospital, but may not be aware that it was originally located across from the University of Wyoming campus.

This memorial commemorates the building of the hospital in 1916, and depicts what the original structure looked like.

 

Lex Anteinternet: July 29, 1920. Echoes of wars.

Lex Anteinternet: July 29, 1920. Echoes of wars.:

July 29, 1920. Echoes of wars.

Ruth Sturtevant Smith at the launching of the U.S.S. Sturtevant on July 29, 1920. The ship was named after her brother Albert Dillon Sturtevant (1894-1918) who served as a U.S. Navy officer and was killed in World War I.

The Navy remembered Albert Dillon Sturtevant on the name of a ship.

He was an aircrewman of a Curtis Model H that had an international crew and which was shot down on February 15, 1918.  The crew survived the crash into the sea, but they were not able to be rescued by an other seaplane, as the waves were too rough.  He was the only American on the aircrew and occupied the position of gunner. He was the first serving member of the U.S. military to be brought down in an air action.

The destroyer named after him and dedicated on this day was lost to mines during World War Two.  A second destroyer was named after him in 1943 and served until 1960.

A Manly Pastime - A Baseball History Blog : Reflecting (Virtually) from Gettysburg

A Manly Pastime - A Baseball History Blog : Reflecting (Virtually) from Gettysburg: If this were any normal year (a now all too common opening qualification), this post would summarize the Flemington Neshanock's annual v...

Some Gave All: Mills Memorial Park, Mills Wyoming Rededicated.

This memorial, as I've noted on our companion Wyoming history blog, was dedicated on July 5, 1920. 

It was rededicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution yesterday, on the centennial of the original dedication.

Some Gave All: Mills Memorial Park, Mills Wyoming:

Mills Memorial Park, Mills Wyoming

The Mills Memorial Park commemorates Lt. Caspar Collins, who was killed in the 1865 Battle of Platte Bridge Station, and the bridge and Mormon ferry that was located about 1.5 miles from the park.

Lex Anteinternet: July 4, 1920. Remembrance and Forgetting

Lex Anteinternet: July 4, 1920. Remembrance and Forgetting:

July 4, 1920. Remembrance and Forgetting

On this day in 1920, the coal mining town of Hanna, Wyoming dedicated its memorial to its World War One Veterans.  

The monument before it was damaged.

An item about that appears in one of our companion blogs here:



Today In Wyoming's History: July 4: Today is Independence Day



1920  Veterans memorial to World War One veterans dedicated in Hanna, Wyoming.



The Hanna Museum's website has an article about the dedication here.



The monument is still present, and it looked like this 2012 when I photographed it.  However, since that time the actual plaque on the monument was stolen in 2015.  It was found damaged in a nearby ditch. The town was working to raise funds to repair the monument and buy a new plaque, which was apparently still the case at least as of 2019.

World War One Service Memorial, Hanna Wyoming

This is a memorial in Hanna Wyoming dedicated to all from the region who served in World War One.  Hanna is a very small town today, and the number of names on this memorial is evidence of the town once being significantly more substantially sized than it presently is.



The memorial is located on what was the Lincoln Highway at the time, but which is now a Carbon County Highway.  This was likely a central town location at the time the memorial was placed.

Hanna also is the location of the Carbon County Veterans Park which contains a substantial number of additional monuments.

I'd note that this entire item is nearly symbolic of where we are at, in some ways, as a nation today.  In 1920 the town, heavily made up of immigrants from Eastern Europe, proudly dedicated a memorial to its sons who had served in the recent war.  The Town had, at that time, barely recovered from two prior major disasters, the mine collapses at its Number One Mine. Those events had resulted in massive loss of life, and yet the town survived it.

The names of Hanna's men who served in World War One.

A century later its monument to its men who served in the Great War was damaged by would be thieves and the town is a mere shadow of its former self.



This is, of course, the second memorial I've written about this week that was damaged in acts that are acts of vandalism, not social justice.  The word "vandalism", of course, comes from the name of one of the Germanic tribes that invaded Rome in its late period who became famous for acts of destruction due to their ignorance.  The name has been used ever since for people who commit similar acts, the difference in our case is that our own failings have lead to the ignorance and the modern vandal is part of us, not an invading army from the north.



Even the monument to the huge loss of life at the Number One Mine bears a scar from a bullet.

It's pretty hard to be really optimistic on July 4, 2020.



On the same day, in the same region, Lewistown Montana endured a major flood.

Lex Anteinternet: Vandals. Colorado Civil War Memorial and the Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: Vandals. Colorado Civil War Memorial and the Zeit...:

Vandals. Colorado Civil War Memorial and the Zeitgeist

Before it was toppled, the monument to the men of Colorado who served in the Civil War

It is hard not to write this and not be angry.

This past week vandals, and that's all that they are, toppled the monument to the men from Colorado who died in the Civil War.

I posted on that monument long ago on one of our companion threads.  That post appears here; Some Gave All: Colorado Civil War Memorial, Denver Colorado:.  Now the photos serve themselves as a monument to what the memorial looked like prior to idiots, or perhaps more accurately the historically ignorant invested with self righteousness in their idiocy, forever damaged it.  They've been arrested and should receive jail time, but in the current atmosphere, combined with the fact that Denver Colorado itself is a self unaware mess, they likely won't.  Their actions are a type of monument to the disintegration of the country and what will become the replacement of a culture that's grown too anemic and too focused on itself to survive.

That no doubt sounds harsh, but it's warranted.

The protests started off, as everyone who is following the news would likely know, ostensibly with the death at the hands of Minneapolis police of George Floyd.  But that's no longer what these protests are even about.  Indeed, as Black Entertainment Television founder noted the other day in regard to the attack on monuments, these attacks are instead representative of anarchy and blacks "laugh" (his words, not mine) in what amounts to derision at the co-opting of what started off as protests in their support.  Indeed, at this point, the protesters are overwhelmingly of the WASP demographic, a declining sections of the nation's population even among those who are divided into "white and black", even though genetically and culturally no such divide actually exists.*

What is going on now is not aiming to help African Americans in any real sense, nor is it actually aimed to address their concerns.  Rather, this is an ongoing part of a movement that stretches back to the 1920s and which seeks to reinterpret American history in a propagandized fashion.  A propagandized attack that's every bit as false as the Lost Cause Myth that caused monuments to treasonous Confederate figures to go up in the first half of the 20th Century (and even later, for that matter).  In its most modern form, ironically, it flared up with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, but is origin goes back much longer than that.

It was apparently this panel, which lists Sand Creek as an engagement, which resulted in the claim of virtue on the part of the vandals  It's there, and Sand Creek was a horrific massacre that was completely unjustified, but that's one single item the monument that goes far beyond that.  Indeed, most of the engagements listed are ones that were Civil War battles.

The United States has had a "liberal" or "progressive" set of political ideals that has coexisted with conservative ones since the founding of the nation.  The concepts of the Revolution themselves were radical in nature.  While those howling in the streets point out that the founders of the Republic were flawed men, that doesn't mean that their expressed ideals weren't to be grasped and celebrated.  All of the significant Virginians no doubt were slaveholders or supported the maintenance of slavery in their colony, but that doesn't mean that the idealized it and indeed in some instances their expressions of ideals condemned it.

It's usually the ideals of people that intelligent men and women celebrate, not the actual person's themselves so much.  Indeed, it's pretty hard to find a person, outside of some astounding saints, who are admirable from birth until death, and the truth of the matter there is that most people who rant and rave about the sins of our forefathers run from the examples of saints.  St. Padre Pio, for example, would give us an example of a saintly man who was from birth.  But his sanctity took him right into the Priesthood as soon as he could do it.  He provides an example of a man who took the narrow road.  Most protesters are off the road in their personal conduct and just hoping that action takes them to a secular Heaven.

St. Matt Talbott.  Few who claim virtue are willing to really follow a virtuous example.

Indeed, even the examples of the Saints show us not that men and women of the past lack flaws, but rather that they strove to overcome them.  With some, their overcoming of that internal struggle is what made them saints.  St. Matt Talbot is a saint not because he never drank a drop in his life, but because he was a dedicated alcoholic who even stole to support his addiction until he overcame his addiction and lead what was essentially a monastic life.  St. Augustine of Hippo had lead a fairly worldly life prior to his conversion.  St. Francis of Assisi had to an extent at well.  Maximilian Kolbe took his convictions right into his execution.  Very few of the woke folks running around now who are making blanket acts of ethnic apology, let alone acts of violence, are going to dedicate their lives in that fashion to those they are "apologizing" to.  Indeed, my guess is that none will whatsoever.

Edmund Burke was a liberal English parliamentarian who defended the radical American Revolution in parliament.  He also felt that religion and manners were the underpinnings of a just society and wrote a book on that topic entitled A Vindication of Natural Society: or, a View of the Miseries and Evils arising to Mankind from every Species of Artificial Society.

At any rate, American liberalism mixed in some ways with conservatism and was grounded in the same reality that all men are flawed.  Early conservatives tended to despair of addressing societal flaws and so simply urged accepting them and slow improvement upon them.  Liberals or progressives, as those terms then were used, didn't disagree with human frailty existing, but they sought to take action quickly and where they could to address it.  They tended to find the motivation for their actions outside of themselves and in something greater.  It's no surprise that the abolitionist hymn that went on to become a Union Army battle song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, was termed that, a hymn.

Even before Howe's hymn was published there were a competing strain of liberalism, however, one born not of acknowledgment of something greater but a narcissist one that sought to destroy anything that didn't meet its definition of the prefect.  Indeed, that radical ideology came about only shortly after the radical ideology that gave birth to the United States in the 1770s, and saw its first expression in France in the 1790s.  Where as the first radical liberalism gave birth to the successful (at least so far) American Revolution, the second gave rise to the unsuccessful and malignant French Revolution.

Maximilien Robespierre who was one of the chief architects of the terror, but who saw himself as a champion of democracy.  A victim of the forces he brought about, he was executed in 1794.

The French Revolutionaries saw nothing greater than themselves and imagined themselves to represent all mankind, which was to think exactly like them or suffer teh consequences.  Taking advantage of a desperate urban French population it co-opted what was effectively a series of bread riots, seeking nothing  more than food for the table, into a narcisitic vainglorious spasm that sought to remake the physical and destroy the metaphysical to fit an imagined world of the philospher's mind.  It could not and did not succeed, but like all of its progency it resorted to terror and violence in an effort to make men compliaint to what it wanted men to be like, their nature's nto withstanding.  Coming to an end, as all of its decendants have, in teh rule of a self serving strong man who claimed to rule in the name of the people nad revolutionary ideals, it ultimately collapsed but not before doing so much damage to its own nation that its never really recovered, somethign that has been true of all of its progeny.

Rural French commoners defending a church against French revolutionary forces.  While not well recalled now, the French Revolution was very unpopular in the countryside and there was armed resistance to it.

The mob lead to Napoleon and he lead the country into dictatorship until he fell at the hands of the collection of nations he made war upon.  Not much of an example, seemingly, but one that has been followed by one set of "progressives" ever since.

Alexander Kerensky, the Socialist Minister Chairman of the Provisional Government of Russia who was deposed by the Bolsheviks.

That set gave the world the coup that deposed the elected Russian government that had deposed Czar Nicholas II and which was going down, haltingly, the same path that the American revolutionaries had in 1776 when it declared the revolt against King George III.  The coup in turn gave Russia a titanic civil war costing the lives of millions of people and a government that under successive strong men would kill millions more.  Even as that occured, however, progressives who had in 1912 sought to elect Theodore Roosevelt as President began, in part, to go over to a progressivism that admired the radial red left in Russia.  In the 1920s and 1930s the liberal and progressive wing of American politics expressed both the traditional liberalism that had prospered in the United States and in the United Kingdom (where it had existed even at the time of the Revolution) and the new radical progressivism that sought to remake the world to fit a text of their own origin.  Much smaller, it nonetheless was present, forming a smaller and often theoretical base inside the larger American liberalism that came to power during the Great Depression.

The Depression brought traditional American liberalism to the forefront in a long and lasting way.  It had certainly been in power before, however.  Lincoln was a liberal President.  Theodore Roosevelt was as well.  So, in his highly flawed way, was Woodrow Wilson. And Franklin Roosevelt clearly was.  Indeed, following FDR, Presidents Kennedy and Obama were certainly liberals who were of the traditional American type, although they certainly can be criticized in  numerous ways.

Of note, once again, before we go on, all of these liberal icons, now co-opted to some degree by other movements, had their flaws.  Wilson most of all, as he was heavily racist, for which he cannot be excused.  FDR had at least one long running affair in his background.  Kennedy, lionized today by the left, had legions of affairs and a casual treatment of life and death and meddled in the affairs of other nations.  Obama is subject to the least personal criticism and generally lead and leads an admirable personal life, but much like Wilson he tended to confuse talk with action.

The liberals of the 1960s lead the country into war in 1965 and that caused the radical left to reemerge by 1968.  Following the revelations of the 1940s that Stalin was a butcher on a par with Hitler, real radicalism had gone underground and had in fact conducted a highly successful rear guard action to disguise its complicity with the Soviet Union in the 30s and 40s.  With that behind it, in the 1960s it came back out in force once again and it's never left.  Gaining ground in the turmoil of the 1960s, Richard Nixon's paranoia combined to rise their fortunes further.  Their fortunes reversed, however, with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, which brought William F. Buckley's conservatism, a new type of conservatism that had emerged since World War Two, into the Oval Office for the first time.

Reagan was absolutely despised by the radical left turing his time in office, and it was during that time that the traditional left began to become weaker and weaker.  Remembered now as the impact of Reagan recruiting "conservative" element of the Democratic Party into the GOP, in reality the ongoing strife in the party contributed much to that.  Traditional liberal Democrats who had supported Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam found themselves out of favor with the newer left.  And while they were responsible for advancing the cause of civil rights within the Democratic Party, many found themselves out of sink with a party that was more and more going over to a host of "progressive" ideals that they did not support.  Issues like abortion, for example, started to split the party and drive members out.



Not out completely, of course, and it can legitimately be said that none of the "progressive" Democrats have been elected to the Presidency while there are certainly Democrats who have been.  Nonetheless, with that demographic making up the real traditional power base in party, that being white Americans of what was once referred to as the WASP demographic, progressive concepts have become more and more entrenched in the party.



This helped create the hard left/right split in politics that's emerged since Reagan, although it certainly isn't singularly responsible for it.  And at the same time, but not addressed in this already overlong post, Buckleyite conservatives had to contend with the rise of radical populist "conservatives" who were first given voice by Newt Gingrich and who have wide gulfs in their views with the Buckleyites.



In spite of that, the lingering success of Buckleyism in the GOP caused the Democrats to much modify their expressed views on things even while the progressives simmered in discontent.  That began to unravel, however, when President Obama was elected in 2008.  When that occurred a section of the GOP went into what might best be expressed as rage.

President Obama was a traditional liberal, not a progressive, and his policies were relatively mild in that context.  As already noted, he was fairly ineffectual in bringing them into fruition, with his confusing medical program being the half hearted signature of his administration.  Only very late in his administration, when it became very clear that conservatives would not give him credit for anything, did a more progressive set of leaning start to emerge, but even there he simply tended to follow trends rather than set them.



Be that as it may, the rage of the Obama years helped bring about the current Trump administration, although only part of that can be attributed to that fact.  More than that, declining economic fortunes in the industrial class, who were well aware that both parties had betrayed them for decades, brought about the Trump victory. But just as the Obama Presidency brought about a populist right wing rage, the election of Trump brought about an even greater progressive rage.



Over the last four years that rage has become so dominant in the Democratic party that its effectively buried traditional Democratic progressivism. While it appears at this point in time that the Democrats are set to elect a traditional liberal to the Oval Office, it's also clear that the aged Joe Biden will have to listen to the progressive wing of the party and there's reason to suspect that, given his advanced age and demeanor, he'll defer in large part to that now younger and much more vigorous wing of the party which has buried the liberal wing.  That likely means that a very "progressive" administration is about to take office.



Of course, you can't be a progressive unless you conceive of yourself as progressing towards something, and that's what really makes progressives distinct.  Lacking the concept of the metaphysical that liberals and Buckleyite conservatives have, they seek a perfect world of their own definition, never seeking to grasp that a person can't really define perfection internally.  Nonetheless, that concept, self defining perfection and then mandating its acceptance, and immediately, is their hallmark.  It has been since the 1790s.



And that is what is now being expressed in the streets.  Having co-opted a more traditional concern, justice for the accused and the rights of all minorities as men, they're condemning everyone in history as not meeting the current definition of perfection.  It's not just people who clearly stood for an evil cause, such as Confederate officers, but everyone who came before us.



All those who came before us failed to meet the progressive ideal of perfection, and being men, none of them were perfect in the first place.  They aren't honored for their imperfections, but for their ideals, but those in the streets would trample on those as well.



And so to the long dead Union veterans of Colorado.  Most of them served in the hopes of preserving the Union and by implication, if  not necessarily universally by expression, they served to free African Americans from slavery.  They also likely did not see European American domination of the Frontier as wrong.  Some of those men, those who served under Chivington at Sand Creek, participated in an atrocity. That doesn't condemn the rest who didn't.

At the end of the day, in this current tear it down zeitgeist moment, it's worth remembering that every single living human being is a descendant of colonist, murderers, and rapists. Every single one. We only imagine ourselves descendant from saints, but it isn't true, and we like to imagine that we can apologize for the misdeeds of our ancestors and it does something, but it doesn't. I'm reminded of this every time I practice law in a certain place populated by a disadvantaged class, which I do on occasion, and it's always the same handful of people working on the same problems from across the state.  I don't see the people tearing down monuments working on the problems of an affiliated underclass there.  I see a lot of workaday lawyers, men and women who represent plaintiffs and defendants, the criminally accused and the class itself there.  They're doing their jobs, but in doing them, they're a lot more "woke", in real terms, than people who attack monuments.  Lots of people express regret, but not too many people invest time in it in any ongoing way or are really willing to get their hands dirty.  Lots of people who do get their hands dirty are just doing their jobs and don't conceive of themselves as champions for anything in particular.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*This point has been made here before, but the entire concept of "race" is completely artificial.  This is all the more apparent when it the fact is considered that African Americans are one of the country's oldest demographics and are fully part of the American ethnicity, to the extent there is an American ethnicity.

Ethnicities are real, of course, but they're independent of superficialities such as skin color.  The persistence of racism, therefore, particularly in this context, is bizarre.



Related Threads:

Colorado Civil War Memorial, Denver Colorado