Friday, September 17, 1999
Monument recalls Wartime America
BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — People in Butler County are rediscovering an old treasure — the Butler County Soldiers, Sailors and Pioneers Monument.
By offering longer and regular hours and more programs, curators hope to make the monument a destination point.
“Our idea is to create a program periodically,” said Bill Craig, an assistant curator. “Last year, we had a program on the Spanish-American War. Right now, we have a display on World War I to commemorate its end.”
Next month, the monument will start one of its more ambitious projects — a series of talks on World War II. They will begin at 3 p.m. every Saturday in October.
Mr. Craig said the programs are designed to attract more people to the monument and museum, at Monument and High streets. The marble-and-sandstone building, with a dome and Civil War statue on top, was built at the turn of the last century to honor Butler County's pioneers and veterans. Their names are engraved on the marble walls inside and listed in a computer file.
“We want to let people know that we're open six days a week,” he said. “Heretofore, we were open on a random basis.”
The series will start Oct. 2, when historian Jim Blount, a former editor of the Journal-News and retired Hamilton teacher, discusses “Hamilton's Homefront During World War II.”
On Oct. 9, monument curator Mary Harlan will talk about “World War II Propaganda.” On Oct. 16, John Harlan, who works in computer network applications at Miami University, will talk about “World War II Resources on the Internet.” He will be joined by Bill Thompson, executive secretary of the Veterans Service Commission, who will discuss “Researching Military Records.”
“A part of our (veterans services) job is to get documents through the Veterans Administration for our clients,” he said. “The monument and our office receive a lot of requests for military records from amateur historians or veterans looking for their own records. I will explain how to find everything from Civil War documents to papers from the present.”
John Dolibois, a former ambassador to Luxembourg and an Army interrogator at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal of 1945-46, will present “The Nuremberg Trials” on Oct. 23.
The series will end Oct. 30, when naval expert John Lorence presents “Naval Battle at Guadalcanal.”
The talks are free. For more information and to make reservations, call the monument at 867-5823.
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