|
Doughboys And Flyboys: WWI Stories By Vermonters From The Home And Battlefront exhibit at Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury, Vermont
About The Event
Doughboys And Flyboys: WWI Stories By Vermonters From The Home And Battlefront exhibit at Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury, Vermont
To commemorate the anniversary of the Armistice that ended WWI and those who served, Middlebury Vermont's Henry Sheldon Museum is featuring the exhibit "Doughboys and Flyboys: WWI Stories by Vermonters From the Home and Battlefront," which runs from July 31, 2018 through November 11. According to statistics compiled by Vermont's Adjutant General, approximately 16,000 Vermont men served in the military during WWI, half of whom - 8,000 - were overseas. Of those, 629 were killed in action or died in service and 778 were wounded in action. The exhibit concentrates on Vermont's Addison County residents who were in the service during WWI. A public appeal for WWI memorabilia resulted in a startling treasure trove of submissions from local families. Statistically, 781 Addison County men served, half overseas. Of those 41 were killed in action or died in service and 43 were wounded in action. Central to the exhibit are the histories, memorabilia, photographs, and letters of three Middlebury residents: Jacob J. Ross, M.D., who served as Flight Surgeon in France with the 17th Aero Squadron caring for the sick and wounded; Waldo Heinrichs, a pilot with the 95th Aero Squadron, known then as 'luckiest man in the war' for surviving two plane crashes and internment in a German hospital; Werner Neuse, a German by birth, who enlisted in the German army as a teenager shortly after his father, Richard Neuse, also a German soldier, was killed. Werner Neuse later immigrated to the United State, became a citizen, earned his graduate degrees and joined the faculty of Middlebury College German Department and helped to start the College's German summer language school. After the war Neuse and Heinrichs lived on the same block of South Street in Middlebury, while Ross established his home and office on College Street. Their stories and those of others from Addison County are featured in the exhibit, as are colorful recruitment and war advocacy posters from the Sheldon's Research Center Archives, together with WWI uniforms, helmets, armaments, books, and first-hand accounts. Of special interest are the letters sent by the wife of Dr. Ross, Hannah Elizabeth Holmes Ross, who remained at home in Middlebury with three children under the age of 10 . She describes the restrictions imposed in Middlebury by the Spanish influenza. Dr. Ross returned to Middlebury from the war in March 1919, only for the family to confront weeks later the death of their middle child, Ruth Ross, age 5, of bronchial pneumonia. The exhibit culminates with "In Flanders Fields," an eloquent, provocative art installation by internationally-recognized artist Fran Bull of Brandon, Vermont. Based on the WWI poem by Colonel John McCrae, who taught pathology at the University of Vermont's Medical School before the war, Fran Bull reimagines the verses as visual art. Her points of departure are the skies with singing birds, fields of red poppies and white crosses, and the lamentations of corpses. Larks become bomber planes, crosses and coffins morph into formal grids. Flowers and blood-red rags stand for lost treasures and remembrance.
Contact : mmanley@henrysheldonmuseum.org
Category: Museums and Exhibitions
, ,