Lenora Rogers's Blog, page 72
August 29, 2016
The Man Who Turned Back Time
They say time waits for no man, and that’s true – unless your name happens to be William Willett. It was because of Willett that I and my wife found ourselves sitting in an empty cinema staring at a blank screen one Sunday afternoon, wondering when the film was going to start. And it was because of Willett that I was once far too early for an appointment I had rushed to attend.
I don’t think I’m the only person to have experienced frustrating episodes in my life due to Will...
August 28, 2016
The St.Clairs of Roslin
St.Clair Shield
The St.Clairs, later the Sinclair family name, dates back to the Viking Age.
Hrolf also known as Rollo (860-932), the son of Rognvald, the Earl of More, the Viking warrior who plundered Europe’s coastlines, and went on to create the French Dukedom of Normandy, at the mouth of the River Seine. Rollo was converted to Christianity and baptised by the Archbishop of Rouen in 911AD.
Rollo was the great-great-great grandfather of William I of England (William the...
August 27, 2016
The Short Life and Sad Death of Edward the Martyr
History... the interesting bits!
Edward the Martyr
Poor Edward the Martyr is one of the great ‘what ifs’ of Medieval history. It’s not that he was anything special in the kingly department, it’s simply that he didn’t get the chance to be – or to not be – any kind of king.
Born around 962 he was the eldest son of Edgar the Peaceable, king of England. His mother was Æthelfled “the Fair”, daughter of Ealdorman Ordmaer. There seems to be some confusion as to Æthelfled’s actual status (not surp...
August 25, 2016
The Great Revere Train wreck, August 26, 1871
On the evening of August 26, 1871, the Eastern Railroad’s Portland Express slammed into the rear of a stopped local train in Revere, Massachusetts. It is reported that the night was very dark and the engineer of the express thought the lights on the rear car of the stopped local train were from the station’s lamps.
The express managed to slow to 10 miles per hour, but at that point the collision had become unavoidable. The express train’s steam boiler exploded and about...
August 22, 2016
The Jewish Ghetto and Photonostalgia: Roman Vishniac’s Vanished World
On the 19th of August 1897, one of the world’s most remarkablemicrobiologists and naturalist photographers, Roman Vishniac was born in Pavlovsk, the Russian Empire. Within the art world, however, he is best remembered for his photojournalistic coverage of the Eastern European Jewish ghettos prior to World War II. In the late 1930s, Vishniac was commissioned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to photograph the Jewish poor of Eastern Europe. Out of the sixteen...
Andrée de Jongh and the Comet Line
One of the most successful World War II rescue operations was created by a 23 year-old woman named Andrée de Jongh.
De Jongh was born in 1916 in German-occupied Belgium and was raised in the shadow of what was then called the Great War. Long before she reached adulthood, De Jongh’s schoolmaster father made certain his daughter was well-versed in Belgium’s wartime history, both its villains and its heroes. Topping the list of the latter were two women executed in Brussels by the Germans: Bel...
August 20, 2016
1956 August 2: Last Union Civil War Soldier Dies
The Civil War and Northwest Wisconsin
Albert Woolson, ca. 1920
Albert Henry Woolson, the last Union Civil War soldier, died on August 2, 1956, in Duluth, Minnesota. Born in Antwerp, New York, on February 11, 1850, Albert moved to Minnesota when he was a teenager. He accompanied his mother to Windom, Minnesota, where his father was recuperating in an Army hospital. His father, Willard, was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, and died in Minnesota of his wounds.
Albert then joined Company C of...
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company…L
Regular Cavalry in the Civil War
Yes, I know that’s not how the song goes, though music afficionados can access the original 1956 song by the Andrews Sisters here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm1wuKvrxAw
The song of course must be about a cavalry unit, but we won’t get into that.
I have an affinity for buglers. The idea of someone, frequently someone too young to manage a saber or carbine, brave or foolish enough to ride a horse around a battlefield drawing attention to himself by blowin...
Life with Gastroparesis: Fighting to Eat, Fighting to Live
A guest post by Clay Gilbert, author of “Annah” and “Dark Road to Paradise” Have you ever wondered what it would be like if that nice meal out you’ve been looking forward t…
Source: Life with Gastroparesis: Fighting to Eat, Fighting to Live
August 17, 2016
Life with Gastroparesis: Fighting to Eat, Fighting to Live
A guest post by Clay Gilbert, author of “Annah” and “Dark Road to Paradise” Have you ever wondered what it would be like if that nice meal out you’ve been looking forward t…
Source: Life with Gastroparesis: Fighting to Eat, Fighting to Live
