Duchess Domain: Melting Into Spring

Is Spring springing in your neck of the woods? We reached the mid-50's degrees on this sunny Monday, the last Monday of March 2010. April to follow shortly! Here is a Happy Birthday Shout-out to J. L. "Bud" Clark who lives in Northwest Oklahoma and whose birthday is coming up shortly!

Do you know someone searching for cemetery records online for Alva, Woods county, Oklahoma? Here is a link for those in search of cemetery records in Woods County, particularly, Alva, Oklahoma - Cemetery - City of Alva, Oklahoma Cemetery Records

Earth Hour 2010 … Did you participate Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. local time, for the Earth Hour that once again cascaded around the globe, from New Zealand to Hawaii. During Earth hour hundreds of millions of people, organizations, corporations and governments around the world came together to make a bold statement about their concern for climate change by doing something simple -- turning off their lights for one hour.

With all the fear, hate and angry rhetoric being spewed across the country the last few days, weeks, months and years, we brought out one of our favorite quotes:

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than ... its opposite." - Nelson Mandela

Good Night and Good Luck!
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POW Camp In Oklahoma - Camp Gruber

Roddy Riggs (riggs.chief2@gmail.com) says, "My name is Roddy Riggs. I grew up near the small community of Braggs, Oklahoma, which is adjacent to Camp Gruber. The camp had a large POW area which housed about 4,500 prisoners.

"I am researching the history of Camp Gruber and have been trying to find maps and/or aerial photos of Camp Gruber and the POW facility nearby. Would anyone possibly know where I could find such maps or photos? I know they exist.

"I got some information from the National Archives about Camp Gruber and they even sent some 8x10 pictures (none of them the POW Camp). The problem is that they have turned all of their records, (i.e., papers, maps, pictures, etc. over to private contractors, who charge a fortune for any copies). I would greatly appreciate any assistance you could give me in this matter. Thank you."
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Zoe, Oklahoma

Will Highfill (williamhighfill@charter.net) says, "Zoe, OK is located in the mountains on Highway 59 just south of Heavener, Oklahoma and is close to the Oklahoma-Arkansas state line. Shortly after the turn of the 20th century loggers made their "first cut"--mostly pine trees -- over those mountains.

Teams of horses or mules were used to "slip" the logs from where they were cut to a central loading spot from where they were hauled to a sawmill. Zoe is located near the community of Stapp -- close enough that the area is frequently referred to as "Stapp-Zoe." Cedar Lake, built during the Depression, is located nearby. The Kansas City Southern Railroad runs parallel to Highway 59 in this area."
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Remembering Kristallnacht - 9-10 Nov 1938

I know several Jewish friends, some that I have not met … Yet! I would like to dedicate this to them in remembering something that drastically affected many lives on 9-10 November 1938.

It was called "Kristallnacht," also known as "Night of Broken Glass." The German Jews prefer to call it "Reichspogromnacht." Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalˌnaxt]; literally "Crystal Night" or "Night of Broken Glass" was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9-10 November 1938. It is also known as Novemberpogrome, Reichskristallnacht, Reichspogromnacht or Pogromnacht in German.



A pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers. The term was originally used to denote extensive violence against Jews – either spontaneous or premeditated – but in English it is also applied to similar incidents against other minority groups.

Kristallnacht was triggered by the assassination in Paris of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew. In a coordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 91 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, the Gestapo and the SS. Kristallnacht also served as a pretext and a means for the wholesale confiscation of firearms from German Jews.

While the assassination of Rath served as a pretext for the attacks, Kristallnacht was part of a broader Nazi policy of antisemitism and persecution of the Jews. Kristallnacht was followed by further economic and political persecutions. It is viewed by many historians as the beginning of the Final Solution, leading towards the genocide of the Holocaust. -- Wikipedia - Kristallnacht.

The following link shows a Timeline of Kristallnacht - Nov 9, 1938 - Kristallnacht occurred on November 9, 1938. The Berlin Wall came down exactly 51 years later. — Berlin, one of the world's 10 largest Jewish centres before Kristallnacht, had a population of 160000 Jews. By the end of the Second World War, 1400 were left. Google Search - Kristallnacht.

We do NOT need another Kristallnacht or Civil War! Tear down that wall of Hate, Anger and Fear!
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Kristallnacht: The November 1938 Pogroms

Seventy-one years ago, on November 9–10, 1938, the Nazis staged vicious pogroms—state sanctioned, anti-Jewish riots—against the Jewish community of Germany. These came to be known as Kristallnacht (now commonly translated as “Night of Broken Glass”), a reference to the untold numbers of broken windows of synagogues, Jewish-owned stores, community centers, and homes plundered and destroyed during the pogroms.

Encouraged by the Nazi regime, the rioters burned or destroyed 267 synagogues, vandalized or looted 7,500 Jewish businesses, and killed at least 91 Jewish people. They also damaged many Jewish cemeteries, hospitals, schools, and homes as police and fire brigades stood aside. Kristallnacht was a turning point in history. The pogroms marked an intensification of Nazi anti-Jewish policy that would culminate in the Holocaust—the systematic, state-sponsored murder of Jews.www.ushamm.org/museum/exhibit/focux/kristallnacht/
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Events Leading To Civil War

The events leading to Civil War (1861-1865) take us back to 1619 - when English settlers in Virginia purchased 20 Africans from a Dutch ship. The Africans were sold as indentured servants, not slaves. The distinction being an indentured servant may ultimately become free for working for some number of years. It was not long before all Africans arriving were treated as slaves, bought and sold into a lifetime of slavery for them and their descendents.

What followed in the next few years was the following:

• 1641 - Massachusetts Bay Colony legalizes slavery.
• 1660 - Virginia legalizes slavery.
• 1663 - Maryland becomes the first colony to enact laws that recognize slavery for life. Under prior English law slaves who became Christians were granted freedom.
• 1667 - Virginia passes a law revoking the prior English law that allowed for slaves that converted to Christianity to become free.
• February 1688 - The first organized protest against slavery in the new world was drafted by a group of Quakers in Germantown, PA. Known as the "Germantown Protest," it argued that Christians should do as they would want to be done to them, that slavery was essentially theft as you were buying something stolen and that adultery is wrong yet slave traders/owners forced adultery on men and women by breaking up marriages when they resold husbands and wives to different owners. How could as Christians, could such actions be condoned?

Civil War Timeline

The Civil War lasted from 1861 until 1865. The southern states wanted to have their own nation and be able to decide what laws to have. The North did not want the country to be broken apart. In the election of 1860 Abraham Lincoln stated that he wanted to stop the spread of slavery.

The southern states said that if Lincoln won, they would secede (leave) the Union. The southern states seceded from the Union after Lincoln was elected. They formed their own Nation, The Confederate States of America. The war began in April of 1861 when the Confederate Army took over Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. President Lincoln was forced to declare war. The war was a long and bloody. Over 600,000 men on both sides died. Over 1,100,000 were injured. The south was devastated. General Lee surrendered to General Grant on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. This is another website showing the Civil War Timeline - pocanticohills.org/civilwar/timeline.htm
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Civil War At a Glance

When John Brown raided Harpers Ferry in 1859, he set in motion events that led directly to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. This folder, organized yearly through maps and chronologies, shows the course of the war from Fort Sumter in 1861 to Appomattox Court House and beyond in 1865. It is divided according to the two principal theaters in which the major military operations took place:

(1) The Eastern Theater, roughly comprising the area east of the Appalachians in the vicinity of the rival capitals of Washington and Richmond, and

(2) the Western Theater, primarily between the western slope of the Appalachians and the Mississippi River. Lesser operation that took place along the coasts and inland waterways and the isolated trans-Mississippi area are included in the Western Theater. Naval encounters on the high seas between cruisers, privateers, and blockade runners have been omitted. -- Civil War At A Glance -- American Civil War -- Civil War - Smithsonian Timeline

It was on October 16–18, 1859, that John Brown, attempted to amass arms for a slave insurrection. He attacked the federal armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. December 2, 1859. Brown was hung for murder and treason at Charles Town, Virginia. (This was two years after my Great-Grandfather John Robert Warwick (Sep. 1857-1937) was born. My G-Grandfather married my G-Grandmother Signora Belle Gwin, 16 January 1882, at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. SEE Marriage Ceritificate)

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln is elected President, with Hannibal Hamlin as his Vice President. On December 20, 1860, as a consequence of Lincoln’s election, a special convention of the South Carolina legislature votes to secede from the Union. It was January 9, 1861, Star of the West, an unarmed merchant vessel secretly carrying federal troops and supplies to Fort Sumter, is fired upon by South Carolina artillery at the entrance to Charleston harbor.

Between January 9–February 1, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas follow South Carolina’s lead and secede from the Union. January 29, Kansas is admitted as a state with a constitution prohibiting slavery. February, Delegates from six seceded states meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a government and elect Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America.

March 4, Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the sixteenth President of the United States. April 12–13, Fort Sumter is bombarded and surrenders to South Carolina troops led by P. G. T. Beauregard. April 15, Lincoln declares a state of insurrection and calls for 75,000 volunteers to enlist for three months of service. April 17–May 20, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina secede from the Union. April 19, Lincoln orders a blockade of all Confederate ports. April 20, Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army.

May 24, Union troops cross the Potomac River from Washington and capture Alexandria, Virginia, and vicinity. Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth is killed by a local innkeeper and is the first officer to die in the war. He becomes a martyr for the North. May 29, Richmond becomes the capital of the Confederacy. July 21, Confederate forces win a victory at the First Battle of Manassas. Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson earns the nickname “Stonewall” for his tenacity in the battle.

November 1, George B. McClellan, thirty-four, replaces the aging Winfield Scott as general-in-chief of the Union armies. November 8, The Union navy seizes Confederate commissioners to Great Britain and France—James A. Mason and John Slidell—from the British steamer Trent, inflaming tensions between the United States and Great Britain.

November, Julia Ward Howe, inspired after seeing a review of General McClellan's army in the Virginia countryside near Washington, composes the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." It is published in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. -- See More Civil At The Smithsonian.

Here are some more interesting links concerning the Civil War:

• Time Line of the civil War - 1861
• Selected Civil War Photographs
• Library of Congress
• American Civil War History - Timelines, Battle, Map, Pictures

My Thoughts

People who do not think for themselves are often scared of disagreeing with others - scared of "rocking the boat".

A Free-thinker, on the other hand, bases their self worth on something other than what people think of them. These people may still experience rejection, discomfort,and anguish, just like everyone else … but they will continue to think for themselves. I consider myself to be one of those "free-thinkers!"

There are citizens out there that are feeling frustrated. That does not mean we have to act out in anger, hatred and violence. Laying the blame is NOT the answer!

We are ALL in this TOGETHER! ... Finding a solution; meeting halfway; respecting each others Civil Rights and Cooperation from ALL sides should be one of the main goals in finding a constructive solution to making America Great!

If you do not like the way your elected officials are working, step-up, get involved, run for office in your particular party.

We, as a responsible citizen, should NOT be swayed by fear, hate, bullets or bricks! You only play into that negative rhetoric! Left, Right, Democrat, Republican, Independent, Tea Party, etc … People need to act responsibly -- reject, condone the violence -- not be swayed, controlled emotionally by fear, frustration, hate spewed by a few extremists.

One of your Civil Rights is our 1st amendment right of freedom of speech. We are ALL of differing opinions and beliefs that should be respected as such. That is what is so great about America - it is a melting pot of differences of opinions, beliefs. Without those differences we only become "robots."

Education is GOOD for EVERYONE! Do NOT be afraid to take off the blinders and see both sides of the situation!

As I learned from my older sister, Dorthy, "We are ALL in this TOGETHER!"

I reiterate, finding a constructive solution, meeting halfway, respecting each others Civil Rights, Cooperating from ALL sides is a better way to go, instead of using Destructive acts of violence.

If you do not like the way your elected officials are working, step-up, get involved through the political process, run for office in your particular party and show us all how you would build a Great American with Equality for ALL! You may leave civility-type of comments below!

Good Night and Good Luck!
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