Friday, August 15, 2014

Cross By the Side of the Road


We’ve all seen them – those crosses and shrines along the side of the road, marking where someone has died in an accident.  Many drivers find them offensive and dangerous, others find them touching and thought-provoking; some just ask “Why?”
 
Roadside memorials have had a place on our highways and byways since man began traveling.  It was only practical, and necessary to bury someone where they fell on a journey. 


The Spanish brought the tradition of descansos (meaning ‘place of rest’) to America. Coffin bearers would place a stone on the route each time they set the coffin down to rest, from the church to the cemetery.  This was a reminder for others to pray for the deceased.



Today, these memorials are set up to mark the place where someone has died.  Family members express a universal motive for creating roadside memorials: To mark the spot where their loved one drew their last breathe: where their spirit departed.




Memorials vary in look and feel, some may be made up of a bunch of flowers stuck in the ground, or a simple wooden cross with a name painted on it. Others are more elaborate, a plaque with an inscription placed on a tree, or personal mementos edged with brick or rock along the side of the road.


Opinions about these roadside shrines are mixed.  Many people see them as places of healing for families who lost a loved one in an accident. Others say they represent a startling safe-driving message for passersby. 




Those opposed find the memorials to be ghoulish, a distraction, and a road safety hazard to drivers; the shrines create problems for road workers trying to maintain the right-of-ways.  Many also oppose special exemptions that are given for roadside memorials when the law bars all others from placing signs, advertising or promotions on public property.



Problems also stem from a public space being used for personal mourning.  Many feel it is the state’s responsibility to keep roadways and right-of-ways clear of debris, and distractions. 




States around the country are discovering that roadside memorials are becoming too numerous. With over 50,000 travel-related deaths occurring each year in the U.S., memorials have started appearing everywhere, and if not constantly attended to, quickly dissolve into attention-getting eyesores.


Although there are no federal laws concerning roadside memorials, many states in the U.S. are enacting laws to limit or eliminate them. Others are trying to find a balance between a family’s desire to express grief, and the public’s right to safe roadways.





Roadside memorials remain a sensitive issue – one that each state will have to eventually come to terms with. But the bottom line must remain safety first, or the end result could be another roadside memorial ...

~ Joy

Friday, August 8, 2014

100 Facts about World War One - 100 Years After It Began


This week marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One. Here are 100 facts about that fateful war, 100 years after its beginning.




Ramp Up To War
1) The final trigger for the war came on June 28th when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife Sophie were gunned down
Archduke Ferdinand

2) “The Black Hand,” a Serbian terrorist group, planned the murders

3) Serbian nationalist and Black Hand member, Gavrilo Princip was the assassin

4) The war had actually been a long time in coming; spanning four decades of diplomatic conflicts between Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia concerning political issues, the economy, and unresolved territorial disputes involving the Balkans

Players

5) World War One was known as “The Great War”; The War to End All Wars; The War of the Nations, and is abbreviated as WWI
6) Great Britain and the British Empire declared war on Germany after the Central Powers invaded Belgium

7) The Central Powers were made up of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria

8) The Allied Powers were made up of Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Japan, Rumania, Serbia, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, Montenegro, and, eventually, the United States

9) This was the first global conflict


War Facts
10) WWI lasted for 4 years - from 1914 to 1918
  

11) WWI changed the way war was fought and influenced the way future wars would be fought
12) 65 million soldiers fought during WWI

13) It was the sixth deadliest conflict in world history

14) Soldiers came from over 40 countries and numerous colonies

15) Russia marshaled 12 million fighting troops: this was the largest army in the war

16) Of those 12 million, more than ¾ of the men were killed, wounded or MIA

17) More than 10 million soldiers died; 6 million for the Allies and 4 million for the Central Powers
Mata Hari

18) That equates to over 6,000 deaths every day during the war

19) Another 21 million were wounded

20) Mata Hari’s name was Margaretha Zelle, a Dutch exotic dancer

21) She was executed in France in 1917, accused of being a spy


Air Warfare
22) WWI was the first war to be fought in the air
Air War


23) Over 65,000 aircraft had been produced by the end of the war

24) Thirty-eight American volunteers fought in the French Air Service years before the U.S. entered the war

25) Their unit was known as the Lafayette Escadrille: One of the best fighting units on the Western Front

Zeppelin
26) The Escadrille men flew more than 3,000 missions

27) Germany built 123 Zeppelin airships

28) Zeppelins flew more than 100 bombing runs on Great Britain

29) The title “Flying Ace” was bestowed on a pilot after he had downed 5 enemy aircraft

The Red Baron
30) The Allies Top Ace was Rene Fonck of France who shot down 75 enemy planes

31) Eddie Rickenbacker was America’s Top Ace with 26 kills

32) Manfred Von Richthofen, better known as “The Red Baron,” was Germany’s Top Ace with 80 kills

33) Richthofen died April 21, 1918 after being shot down near Amiens

34) WWI was the first time aircraft carriers were used in a war


Naval Warfare
35) WWI was the last war to feature defining naval battles
German U-Boat
  

36) In the Battle of Jutland, over 250 ships took part in the fight

37) Germany built over 400 U-boats during the war

38) Of those 400, Germany lost on 178 U-boats during the war

39) The Central Powers sank over 5,500 Allied and neutral ships

40) Most were sunk in the English Channel


RMS Lusitania
41) The most famous ship to be sunk during the war was the RMS Lusitania in 1915
RMS Lusitania

42) A German sub sank her on May 7, 1915

43) A total of 1,198 people died when the Lusitania sank

44) 128 were Americans

45) The Lusitania went down within 18 minutes
 
46) This single act propelled the U.S. into the war
 
46) The United States entered the war on April 6, 1917

47) During those 18 months, over 116,000 Americans were killed

48) And 204,000 American soldiers were injured


Ground Forces
49) 1.2 million soldiers died during the Battle of the Somme


Ssgt. York
50) 58,000 British soldiers died during the first day of the Somme Battle

51) The most decorated American solider of the war was Alvin York who received a medal of honor for leading an attack on a German gun nest; killing 28 German soldiers and capturing another 32

52) The Western Front was made up of 466 miles, which stretched from the English Channel to Switzerland

53) Over 2,500 miles of trenches were dug on The Front
In the Trenches

54) For every 4 inches of trench dug, there was one soldier to defend it

55) By the end of the war, over 200,000 men had lost their lives in the trenches

56) Trench foot was a major problem during the war

57) The British army had over 20,000 cases reported during the first year
Battle of Verdun
  

58) The trenches were crawling with rats and lice

59) In 1916, the Battle of Verdun resulted in over one million causalities – all within a 10-month time frame

60) The Germans were the first to use flame-throwers in the war
WWI Tank

61) The flames could go as far as 130 feet

62) Tanks were first used in WWI

63) Tanks were originally called “landships

64) The first tank prototype was named “Little Willie


Little Willie
65) British tanks were designated as male and female: male tanks had cannons; female tanks had guns

66) This was the first war where self-powered machine gun use was widespread

67) Artillery weapons were responsible for 70% of all battlefield deaths

Big Bertha
68) Artillery barrages could be heard for hundreds of miles

69) The French had 75mm guns called “Devil Guns” by the Germans

70) Germany had a 48-ton Howitzer nicknamed “Big Bertha

71) Big Bertha could fire a 2,0050 pound shell almost 10 miles

Chemical Weapons
72) Germany had a total of 13 of these guns

73) WWI was the first time chemical weapons were used in war

74) France was the first country to use tear gas against the enemy in 1914

75) The following year, Germany was the first country to use poisonous chlorine gas against the enemy
Shell Shock

76) Over 30 different poisonous gases were used during the war

77) Over 1-million soldiers were gassed during the fighting

78) Of those, lose to 92,000 died

79) At the end of the conflict, most countries signed treaties, which outlawed the use of chemical weapons

80) More than half-a-million men died from mustard gas during the war

81) After the war over 80,000 British soldiers were diagnosed as suffering from shell shock

82) By the end of the war over 250,000 British soldiers had undergone at least one amputation


Disease
Spanish Influenza
83) The Spanish Influenza epidemic spread far and wide due in part, to WWI

84) By 1918, the U.S. Army had lost 60% of its soldiers to the flu

85) The U.S. Navy lost 40% of their men to the influenza

86) When the flu outbreak ended, at least a third of the soldiers had died from it


Other Causalities
87) Civilian deaths were over 6.6 million during the war
Aerschot

88) German soldiers shot and killed 150 civilians at Aerschot as part of their war strategy to incite terror in the public

89) Russia lost over 2 million civilians

90) During the four years of the war, 11% of France’s residents were either killed or wounded
Execution of Edith Cavell

91) A British nurse, Edith Cavell assisted 200 Allied soldiers in escaping from Belgium during the war

92) The Germans had her executed by a firing squad

93) Cavell’s death helped turn public sentiment against the Germans and the Central Powers

Sergeant Stubby
94) Over 1 million dogs died on WWI battlefields while scouting, acting as sentries or carrying messages

95) Dogs were also used to lay telegraph lines

96) The most decorated military dog during the war was Sergeant Stubby, a bull terrier mix 

97) Stubby took part in 17 battles and captured a German spy

WWI Poster
98) The war resulted in the loss of 8 million military horses

99) Over half-a-million carrier pigeons were used to carry messages along the front

100) After the war, a total of four empires collapsed: Germany, Ottoman, Austro-Hungary, and Russia


~ Joy

Friday, August 1, 2014

Calamity Jane - The Legend Continues 111 Years After Her Death

Calamity Jane
Her reputation as a rowdy woman of the Wild West has helped grow her reputation as folk hero. She was known as Calamity Jane, a professional Indian scout who dressed like a man, shot like a man, swore like a man, and drank like a man, but she could still make time to care for the sick and injured.

Gold Rush
She was born Martha Jane Canary on May 1, 1852 in Princeton, Missouri. She was the oldest of the six children that Robert W. and Charlotte (Burch) Canary had. When Martha Jane was 13, her father packed up the family and moved out west to Virginia City, Montana for the Gold Rush. Jane’s mother died in 1866 and her father died one year. As the eldest child, Martha Jane took on the responsibility of caring for the family: In 1867, she loaded up the wagon and moved them to Piedmont, Wyoming.

Martha Jane
General George Custer
Once settled, Jane worked at any job she could find including as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, dance-hall girl, nurse, miner, and an ox team driver. In 1874, she was hired by General George Custer as an Indian scout for Fort Russell; her duties included protecting Union Pacific Railroad workers from military conflicts, and driving the Native Americans onto reservations.


"Calamity" Jane
She claimed to have been christened Calamity Jane by Captain Egan because she saved him from being trampled by his horse after Indians shot him. Egan supposedly said, “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.” But many said she exaggerated her stories. A more popular version said that men were “courting calamity” if they offended her.

Mining in the Black Hills
It was 1875 when Calamity accompanied the Newton-Jenny Party into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Their expedition was sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey in order to map out the Black Hills and confirm claims that gold was located there.


Madame DuFran
Wild Bill Hickok
One year later she settled in the Deadwood area of South Dakota where she became friends with the leading madam of the Black Hills, Dora DuFran. (It was said that DuFran coined the word “cathouse” after Charlie Utter brought her a wagonload of cats for her brothel.) It was also during this time that Jane met and became infatuated with Wild Bill Hickok.

Agnes Lake Thatcher
Hickok was known throughout the Wild West as a lawman, a gunfighter and a gambler. Calamity claimed that she and Hickok had been married in 1873, but she had divorced him so that he could marry Agnes Lake Thatcher, a circus owner. There are no records to support Jane’s story.

Dead Man's Hand
Shortly before his death, Hickok had a premonition that he would die in Deadwood. He was gunned down as he sat with his back to the door, playing five-card draw. The hand he held – two aces and two eights, became known as the “dead man’s hand.”



"Black" Jack McCall
Original Hickok Grave
In later years, Calamity claimed to have led a posse after Hickok’s murderer, Jack McCall, but at the time of his death Jane was in jail, being held by military authorities. Hickok was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood.


Deadwood, SD
After Hickok’s death, Calamity Jane remained in Deadwood. She worked as a nurse during the smallpox epidemic of the late 1870’s before purchasing a ranch and moving to Miles City, Montana where she ran a lodging house.

She married Clinton Burke in August 1885, and two years later, gave birth to a daughter whom she named Jane and gave to foster parents to raise.


By 1893, Jane was traveling with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, demonstrating her riding and shooting skills, and telling her version of stories about life in the Wild West. By the summer of 1903, Jane had returned to Deadwood, an alcoholic.


Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane died on August 1, 1903 at the age of 51 in Terry, South Dakota. She was buried next to Wild Bill in Mount Moriah Cemetery, some say in accordance with her dying wishes. Others say she was buried there as a final insult to Wild Bill who had “absolutely no use” for her.
Her funeral was the largest ever held for a woman in Deadwood. 
Calamity Jane's Grave

Calamity Jane’s grave was marked with a stone topped with a lawn urn. Four faces decorate the monument, but few knew whom they represent?


I queried Michael Runge, the City Archivist of Deadwood. According to Michael, “The faces on the pedestal represent Pan, the Greek mythology god.  Beginning in the late 18th and early 19th century, there was a Greek and Roman revival.  As part of this revival, Pan’s image became popular again. Locally, stone mason, Lars Shostrom sold these bases and the urns.”


Deserted Western Town
Calamity Jane
Calamity Jane has gone down in history as one of the roughest, toughest women of the Wild West - although knowing where the truth ends and fiction begins is a trail that’s been lost in history …

~ Joy