George Washington

Mount Vernon, VA. Visited September 1997



Gilbert Stuart's Portrait



In honor of President’s Month, this is a post on our first president, born February 22, 1732; 280 years ago this month. Its impossible to compress the life and impact of George Washington into a blog. But here’s a shot. First, the legends. Wooden teeth? Never had them, though he was down to one real tooth by middle age. He never tossed a silver dollar over the Potomac. And by now we know that he didn’t chop down his father’s cherry tree, although this interview by Kermit the Frog does seem to support the story.

 

The Blogger and his lovely wife at the Washington
Monument,  New Years Day 2005

George Washington was born into the landed gentry of the Virginia Colony. He married Martha Custis, a widow with two children, when they were both twenty-seven. The couple raised both of Martha’s children from her previous marriage until they prematurely died and then raised grandchildren. They never had children of their own. Washington's initial vocation was as a surveyor but he joined the Colonial Army (British) in the French and Indian War, rising into a commanding rank and earning important battle experience. He was a natural leader and gifted horseman with a strong code of honor that earned him broad respect throughout his life.  It also didn’t hurt that at 6’2” he towered over most men of his age. These qualities made him the obvious choice to command the Continental Army in the War for Independence beginning in 1775.

 



'Washington Crossing the Delaware' by Emanuel Leutze (1851) is

to me one the great military paintings of all time

 

In addition to natural leadership qualities Washington’s strengths as a commander included a humble confidence that allowed him to work effectively in a highly charged political environment, and a tactical flexibility that allowed him to learn from mistakes and adjust to battlefield realities.(Contrary to recent commercials Washington did not rout the British in battle driving a Dodge Charger.)  He combined a rare ability to build coalition but also was a decisive leader. Washington's genius was not in battle management; he actually lost more battles than he won. But his ability to organize, train and inspire a poorly equipped rag tag volunteer army against superior numbers and quality of troops was extraordinary. The battles Washington did win were highly symbolic and seemed to come at times when the Colonies most needed them. His victory at Yorktown in 1781 which ended the war was a mix of tactical brilliance and the providential arrival of the French Fleet, sealing off any help or retreat from the sea for the British Army.







Rushmore George

What may be most remarkable about Washington is that his leadership worked effectively both in the structures of military command and in the chaos of forming a practical government out of revolution following the war. He presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and was elected first President of the United States in 1789. Probably the greatest contribution Washington gave the country is the imprint he made on the office of the Presidency – a position without any historic precedent. Washington institutionalized the Presidency as public service, not ascension to power. This was sealed with his willing decision not to seek re-election for a third term in 1797, creating a line of succession through election that marks our government to this day.





George Washington retired from public office and returned to his plantation in Mount Vernon, VA to live the life of a gentleman planter. Washington owned as many as 317 slaves but clearly agonized over the morality of slavery throughout his life. In his will he made provision to free all of his slaves following his death.  Just two years after leaving office and while still in fine health, George caught a throat infection after riding through his estate in winter weather. The infection was unresponsive to the barbaric treatments of the day. His condition deteriorated and within little over two days he had passed away. While there was considerable interest in burying him in the nation’s capitol, the nation yielded to the family wishes and he was buried at Mount Vernon. His current burial tomb is near the original site of his grave on the grounds of his estate.

 

George Washington's Tomb
at Mount Vernon

 

Plaque inside Washington's Tomb quoting John 11:25-26



In the famous eulogy by Henry ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee (father of Robert E. Lee), Washington is remembered as,



First in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and enduring scenes of private life; pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting. To his equals he was condescending, to his inferiors kind, and to the dear object of his affections exemplarily tender; correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues. His last scene comported with the whole tenor of his life—although in extreme pain, not a sigh, not a groan escaped him; and with undisturbed serenity he closed his well-spent life. Such was the man America has lost—such was the man for whom our nation mourns.

There are a gazillion Washington statues.  This one at the
George Washington Memorial Gardens in Paramus, NJ is
is interesting

Remarkably this romantic portrayal of Washington is probably not far the true character of the man known as ‘Father of our Country’.  As with all the Founding Fathers there is debate over the nature of Washington’s religious faith. He was tolerant of all faiths in the public square but rarely wrote about his personal beliefs. Yet there are numerous first hand witnesses to a pattern of daily bible reading and prayer, and there is little evidence of the embrace of the philosophical deism that was openly commented on by other Founding Fathers. It might be best to see Washington as a practical Christian of his day, with a moral nature shaped by Biblical principles and an abiding confidence in God, but not of the evangelical mindset that had begun to differentiate Gospel belief from traditional church fidelity. There may be some indication of the state of his soul at the end of his life in his last words: 'Tis Well’.



With the kids on the porch of George's crib at Mount Vernon



I visited Mount Vernon with my family on our way south to a vacation at the North Carolina Shore. It is well worth the time to go there if you are ever in the DC area.







Audrey Hepburn

Vaud, Switzerland. Visited May 2007

I realize I may be taking a bit of a risk to my masculine reputation (such as it is) by including a post on Audrey Hepburn, one of the great gay icons of the 20th Century. But I have two motivating reasons. One is that my wife Jill and I saw her grave while we were visiting with my brother in Switzerland. And this month he is moving back to the States. The second is that I have kind of a ‘six degrees of separation’ thing with Hepburn that I explain below. And, my reputation notwithstanding, at least three of her movies would make it into my personal top 100 favorite films of all time.

Audrey Hepburn (her given name was Audrey Rustin) was born in May 1929, in a small town in Belgium. During the 30’s her father became enamored with the growing Nazi party in Germany, which played a part in him eventually leaving the family. Audrey’s mother moved her children to Arnhem, Holland where they lived through the 1930’s, and then to England. They moved back to Arnhem hoping that the Netherlands’ historic neutrality would provide a safe haven for them as the clouds of war darkened. However with the German invasion of the Netherlands the family fell under the oppression of Nazi occupation. Along with her family, Audrey secretly supported the resistance; a brother was shipped to a concentration camp and an uncle executed by the Nazi’s for resisting the occupation. Audrey suffered malnutrition due to the harsh conditions that affected her the rest of her life.

With Oscar for "Roman Holiday"
at age 24

After the war she found her way to England and the London stage where she achieved sufficient success to work in movies; eventually ending up in Hollywood. Her first lead role was in Roman Holiday, (probably in the 60’s on my favorites list) opposite Gregory Peck in 1953. She won her only Academy Award for best actress for her role, launching her into a career among the first rank of film stars. Another favorite of mine is Charade (1963) with Cary Grant - somewhere in the 80’s on my list.

But my favorite Hepburn movie is My Fair Lady (1964), a top 20 on my list and, in my mind, the second best musical ever after Les Miz. She was actually a surprise for the role, selected instead of Julie Andrews (who had created the role on Broadway) even though her voice had to be dubbed for the singing. MFL raked in a ton of Academy Awards, including best picture, but Hepburn lost out on the best actress award to Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins.

Audrey Hepburn remained a star through the Sixties into the Seventies, but gradually began to leave acting and public life for involvement with UNICEF. The last part of her life was almost entirely devoted to humanitarian causes around the world focused on hunger and famine relief. Her last trip was a tour of Somalia just four months before she died. Hepburn passed away in her sleep of cancer, on the evening of 20 January 1993, at her home in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland.

What is my personal connection with Audrey Hepburn? I can get there in four degrees of separation. As mentioned above, Hepburn starred in My Fair Lady. Also in that movie was a character actor by the name of John McLiam.  McLiam is a distant cousin to my mom.  John McLiam played Harry, one of the busker pals of Alfred P. Doolittle.  McLiam had a long and moderately successful career in movies and TV before passing away in 1994. I actually met him once when I was a teenager at a family reunion in North Carolina.  A complete list of his film and TV credits (including movies from 'Cool Hand Luke' to 'Rambo-First Blood' and TV classics like Gunsmoke and MASH) can be accessed here.  

John McLiam as Harry in My Fair Lady.  See him
singing "With a Little Bit of Luck" here

So here’s the connection:

Audrey Hepburn > John McLiam > Faye Farmer > Your Blogger

This remains probably my greatest claim to fame. Audrey Hepburn is buried in a beautiful country church cemetery in the wine country of French speaking Switzerland overlooking Lake Geneva. This blog is being written on the 18th anniversary of her death.

Unnerving statue of Audrey in Morges,
Switzerland.  Have been there several
times but never saw it in person

Jill and me at Hepburn grave in Vaud, Switzerland

Buffalo Bill Cody

Visited December 2011.  Denver Colorado

This is my most recent grave venture, but I just had to move it to the front of the line.







The legend of Buffalo Bill was created by the man himself. But the facts of his life are legendary enough.

Young Bill Cody

William Frederick Cody was born February 1846 in LeClaire, Iowa Territory. He was raised mostly on the Kansas prairie as the clouds of Civil War began to darken. His father was staunchly anti-slavery – eventually dying from the effect of a knife wound he received when he was attacked while giving an abolition speech. In order to help support his family after his father’s death ‘Willy’ Cody took a job as a scout with the army. Adventure got into his bloodstream early – he set out for the California Gold Rush at age 14, but never made it past Colorado. He mined for gold, drove a stagecoach and claimed to have ridden for the Pony Express, but this has been disputed. He was a Kansas Jayhawker during the ‘Bleeding Kansas’ border wars of the mid 1850’s. During the Civil war he served as a teamster with the Union Army. His post war adventures included being a professional scout, working for the US Army, Indian Tribes and even a Russian Duke on a highly publicized royal hunt. In 1872 Cody won the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry in action as a civilian scout in Nebraska.

Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull

Cody acquired the name ‘Buffalo Bill’ for the thousands of buffalo he hunted and killed over the years. But his fame came through his shrewd capitalization on western folklore through the creation of his ‘Buffalo Bill Wild West’ show. This extravaganza of all things western – horses, guns, Indians, outlaws - proved phenomenally successful over decades of performances. Among the major attractions to the show were sharpshooter Annie Oakley and Chief Sitting Bull. In 1887 the show began a triumphant tour of Europe, playing in several major cities. The show overwhelmed the Paris Exhibition of 1889 (playing in the shadow of the brand new Eiffel Tower). While in Europe Buffalo Bill had audiences with Queen Victoria and Pope Leo. The show also drew millions of visitors when it played New York in 1886-87. Many historians hold that, at the turn of the 20th Century, Buffalo Bill was the most recognizable celebrity in the world.

 

This picture speaks for itself

Later in life Buffalo Bill retired from the show and turned his attention to taming the west through land development and irrigation. He became a successful rancher and businessman, founding the town of Cody, Wyoming. While visiting his sister in Denver, Cody passed away from kidney failure at the age of 71 in January 1917. According to his wife Louisa’s wishes (they had married in 1865) Cody was buried at the top of Lookout Mountain, in the Front Range of the Rockies just west of Denver. It is a tribute to Bill Cody’s life and legend that his death generally marks the end of what is understood as ‘the Old West’. In reporting his death one newspaper editor declared, "He has been more than picturesque; he has been worthwhile.”

Burial of Buffalo Bill in 1917

A number of films have been made about Buffalo Bill over the years.  One of the odder entries is Robert Altman's anti-western "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" starring Paul Newman in the title role.  Check out the trailer here.

My kids in front of amazingly lifelike Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley
at the Bison Ranch Buffalo Museum in Arizona - Spring of 2004. 

My excursion to Buffalo Bill’s grave was entirely unexpected. In early December 2011 I had the opportunity to preach at Sovereign Grace Church in the Aurora area just southeast of Denver. I spent the evening talking with the Senior Pastor, Mark Alderton, and we got on the topic of things we like to do. I told him about this odd hobby and the blog that follows with it, and he mentioned that Buffalo Bill is the one famous person he knows is buried in the Denver area. I had to catch a plane back to Philly around 4:00 on Sunday. At around 1:30 after the service Mark grabbed me and said ‘I think we can make Buffalo Bill. We jumped in his car and we hightailed it 40 miles up into the front range – careening up the winding road to the top of Lookout Mountain. From the parking lot we dashed up to the top of the mountain to the grave site overlooking a beautiful view of Denver on the plain below. Back in the car we careened down the mountain and drove the fifty miles to the airport. I got through security and made my gate just in time to board the last flight out of Denver to Philadelphia. I think that’s just how Buffalo Bill would have done it himself.

Your Blogger and the intrepid Pastor Mark Alderton at
Buffalo Bill's final resting place.  His Medal of Honor marker is
visible through the fence. 

Galileo Galilei

Florence Italy – July 2010

Galileo Galilei embodies the wrenching philosophical and theological collision that occurred as a result of the Renaissance. He’s called by Albert Einstein ‘the father of modern science’, yet his life and ideas were shaped profoundly by his experience with the medieval Catholic Church. I had the chance to see Galileo’s tomb at Santa Croce during a trip to Florence, Italy with my brother and daughter Kelsey and her friend Sarah a couple of years ago. There will be more entries from this amazing historic site in the future.

Galileo's telescope

Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy in 1564, the day of Michelangelo’s death, in the same year as William Shakespeare's birth. Early in his life Galileo considered entering the priesthood, but eventually chose to study mathematics at the University of Pisa. Upon completion of his degree the gifted young scholar took a position at the Accademia in Florence, where his family had moved when he was a youth. But it was as a professor at the University of Padua where Galileo’s greatest scientific theories and the controversies surrounding them emerged.

Galileo distinguished himself in a number of fields, particularly making significant advances in the development of the telescope. But it was his embrace of Copernican astronomy that brought him both fame and clerical opposition. Copernicus’ (1473-1543) theory that the earth was not the center of the universe had been condemned by the church. Through his own scientific inquiry Galileo came to adopt heliocentrism – the position that the sun was the center of the universe.

Galileo's recantation

In 1615 his advocacy of this position brought rebuke from the Roman Inquisition. Responding to this rebuke Galileo agreed to no longer teach on the view. But in 1632 Galileo published his “Dialogue Between Two World Systems” where he sought to present the worldview controversy as a reasoned discussion (which ultimately favored heliocentrism). The Vatican was not impressed, and subsequently convicted Galileo of heresy, banning the publication of any of his works extant or to be written in the future. He was also sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. Galileo lived another ten years after this controversy, dying at the relatively advanced age of 77 in 1642.  In 1992 Pope John Paul II rescinded the condemnation of Galileo by the church.

For a contemporary take on Galileo check out this video of Irish singer Declan O'Rourke doing his song "Galileo - Someone Like You".  




Painting of Galileo's Inquisition

Galileo is buried in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, immediately across the main sanctuary area from Michelangelo. 


My daughter Kelsey - the Vanna White of Santa Croce - in front of
of Galileo's tomb - Galileo's image is carved looking to the stars

What I find interesting about Galileo is that he is not the anti-religious rationalist of the Scientific Revolution that he is so often characterized to be. While he was a man with moral shortcomings (bearing two illegitimate daughters with a mistress), he was a scholar who approached the scientific endeavor with a deeply theological bent. Galileo did not see himself as a man caught between scripture and science but between the church and science. His views were actually not inconsistent with those of the Reformer John Calvin. He had a high view of the inerrancy and authority of scripture, and considered the erroneous doctrine of an earth-centered universe as an issue of poor interpretation and reading into texts by the church. Galileo believed that scripture, as rightly understood, would not contradict valid scientific evidence. The words Galileo desired to be carved as his epitaph at the end of his life speaks to his deeply God-centered view of his life and scientific pursuits.

“To the Lord; whom I worship and thank;

That governs the heavens with His eyelid

To Him I return tired, but full of living.”

    




Statue of Galileo at the Uffizi Plaza
in Florence


Other blog subjects buried at Santa Croce:

Michelangelo

Jackie Robinson

Brooklyn, NY. Visited April 2011

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born Jan. 13, 1919 in Cairo, GA. His early life was in many ways quintessentially reflective of racial inequality and segregation in the early 20th century. He was born into a family of sharecroppers in the rural south, but his family moved to the city for a better life, settling in an impoverished part of Pasadena, California.

Jackie excelled in multiple scholastic sports, encouraged by his brother Mack, who won a silver medal in track and field in the 1936 Olympic Games. His own prodigious talents came fully into view as a collegiate athlete at UCLA, where he became the first athlete at the school to letter in four sports. His greatest achievement as a collegiate athlete was winning the 1940 NCAA championship in the long jump. At this time Robinson also met his future wife Rachel who was a nursing student at UCLA.

Jackie Robinson - running back for the
UCLA Bruins

While succeeding on the athletic field as a black man in a white world, Robinson had a strong internal sense of justice which would not let him take racial prejudice lightly. During his college years Jackie interceded for a black friend who was being arrested by white police officers. He too was arrested and received a two year suspended sentence for his involvement in the altercation.

After college Robinson played semi-pro football until being drafted into the army in 1942. Assigned to a segregated tank battalion he passed officer training school but never saw combat due to another racial confrontation. Riding a non-segregated military bus, Robinson refused the bus driver’s demand that he move to the back, and was subsequently arrested and underwent court martial for the action. By the time Jackie was acquitted of all charges related to the incident the war was effectively over and he was honorably discharged.

Stealing home.  Love this picture!

Following his discharge, Robinson signed with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League. Jackie didn’t realize that at the same time Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey was on a personal crusade to integrate Major League Baseball. Rickey, a devout Christian, had come to the conviction that to deny black ballplayers the opportunity to compete at a major league level was unjust. His logic: "Ethnic prejudice has no place in sports, and baseball must recognize that truth if it is to maintain stature as a national game." Rickey was looking for a player whom he believed had both the talent and the character to withstand the extraordinary scrutiny and inevitable racial abuse he would take as a black man in a ‘white man’s world’. In Jackie Robinson he found that man.

Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers prior to the 1946 season. He spent his first year in the minor leagues, where he was well received in his home park in Montreal but regularly experienced racial derision on the road. Jackie was able to both withstand the withering discrimination of the minor leagues and succeed in the field, winning the league MVP award. He entered the Major Leagues in 1947 as the first black player in league history at the age of 28. Jackie Robinson was Rookie of the Year for 1947, hitting .297 and leading the league in stolen bases.

Statue of Jackie and his friend Pee Wee
Reese erected at Coney Island

As the man who broke the baseball color barrier, Jackie Robinson lived every game as the center of attention. To black America he was a symbol of hope in a society where race was a definer and limiter of opportunity. To many white players in the league (and some on his team), despite his proven skills, he had no place in the game. To a country still struggling to live out the ideals of its Constitution Jackie Robinson was a universal symbol of change – a cultural revolution that would never turn back. And Robinson willingly embraced the daunting role he was called to play. He played the game with singular excellence over a ten year career – was named an all star six times and league MVP in 1949. He led the Brooklyn Dodgers to a World Series championship in 1954 and finished his ten year career in 1956 with a .311 lifetime batting average. It is a testimony to Robinson’s national impact in crossing racial lines that in 1947 he was voted second most popular American, behind only Bing Crosby. In 1950, at the height of his career Jackie Robinson played himself in a full length Hollywood bio-picture.  You can check out the original trailer for The Jackie Robinson Story.

Jackie Robinson’s impact as a ballplayer proved to the baseball establishment that bringing black players into the league made competitive sense. This resulted in the most dramatic change in the history of the game. But it was his dignity, intelligent resolve and character in the almost impossible task of representing an entire race that elevated Jackie Robinson to symbol of racial change in this country.



Jackie Robinson at his induction to the Hall of Fame
with Branch Rickey and his wife Rachel

Robinson retired at the end of the 1956 season, having already made a deal to become vice president of Chock Full o Nuts coffee - the first black executive in a major American company. Within a year he was diagnosed with diabetes, an illness that would have a deteriorating impact on his post baseball life. Nevertheless these were extremely productive years for Robinson. Jackie became more than just a symbol of racial change, he used his stature as a sports legend to continue to break barriers. He became the first black ballplayer elected to the baseball Hall of Fame on his first year of eligibility in 1962 and the first black sports commentator on a major network in 1965. Robinson was active in the civil rights movement in the Sixties, participating in the March on Washington with Martin Luther King in 1963 and serving on the board of the NAACP for most of the decade. Independent regarding party affiliation, committed to racial equality but conservative in many of his ideals, Robinson was one of the few national figures in that era whose voice mattered across racial lines.

The diabetes and heart disease that increasingly sapped his vitality finally took his life and Jackie Robinson died October 24, 1972. He was only 53 years old. Robinson was buried in Cypress Hill Cemetery in Brooklyn. This sprawling cemetery is an appropriate final resting place for Jackie Robinson not only because it is just a few miles east of the site of old Ebbets Field, but it holds many prominent New York civil rights figures from the past two centuries.

Jackie and Martin Luther King.  Click here for a short
excerpt from a documentary on Jackie Robinson the player and the man

Jackie is buried at a high point in the cemetery. I visited there when I was in Brooklyn with my friend David Sacks.  His grave is surrounded by hedges. As the accompanying picture below shows, his tombstone is covered by stones. I think I have found out why. In his eulogy of Robinson, the Reverend Jesse Jackson said the following,

"When Jackie took the field, something within us reminded us of our birthright to be free. And somebody without reminded us that it could be attained. There was strength and pride and power when the big rock hit the water, and concentric circles came forth and ripples of new possibility spread throughout the nation."

If you ever go there, bring a rock with you. We are a better country because of the ripples
of new possibility that came through the life impact of Jackie Robinson.

Woodrow Wilson

Washington, DC. Visited July 1998

To me, Woodrow Wilson has always been a boring president. This isn’t based on any research or personal awareness of the man, mostly just looking at photographs.  He seems like a college professor (which he was) more than a politician or statesman.  Although he did sport the top hat with class.  But, the truth is, he was in his time a remarkable president – passing sweeping legislation that still has significant impact on our nation today. Wilson was at the helm when the Age of Empires ended with World War I and the United States ascended to the forefront of international power. And he is at the center of one of the great mysteries of the American presidency.

Woodrow Wilson was born December 1856 in Staunton, VA – the son of a Presbyterian minister. Though originally from Ohio, Wilson’s father was a slave-owning southern-minded man who stood staunchly with the Confederate cause during the Civil War. For those interested in Presbyterian history, Joseph Wilson was one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States.

Woodrow spent most of his childhood in Augusta, GA. He was prone to illness and apparently suffered from dyslexia and did not learn how to read until his teenage years. But he doggedly pursued education, eventually graduating from Princeton University in Political Science. Maturing intellectually, he was able to pass the Georgia Bar and practice law, but eventually returned to academics and received his PhD in political science from John’s Hopkins University. He taught at Bryn Mawr College and other schools before landing on the Princeton faculty, where he ascended to the office of President of the College in 1902.



Wilson statue on the University of Texas Campus.  Woodrow
Wilson is regularly ranked among the top ten U.S.
presidents in scholarly polls

Wilson’s formal political career began in an unusual way, moving straight from academics to politics – his first elected office was as governor of New Jersey in 1910. After just two years of increasing national prominence, Wilson ran for and won the presidential election, defeating incumbent William Howard Taft to become the 28th President of the United States.

Woodrow Wilson’s first term included a number of significant legislative triumphs that continue to shape our national economy, notably the creation of the graduated national income tax, the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Trade Commission. Sadly, Wilson was a man of his times, a staunch supporter of segregation both in word and deed. His first term also brought the tragedy of the unexpected death of his wife from a stroke in 1914. About 18 months later he remarried, and this marriage to Edith Galt was to have significant implications for Wilson’s second term in office.
 

Wilson started a several presidential customs, including
press conferences and throwing out the first
pitch at baseball games

Here is some odd archival footage – almost like an early photo-op. Wilson signing things, talking on one of those new fangled telephones and watching sheep on the White House lawn.

Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in 1916 primarily on the basis of his efforts to keep the US out of the war in Europe. But early in his second term he became convinced that the US could not remain neutral after it was discovered that Germany was seeking to persuade Mexico to attack the United States. The war dominated Wilson’s second term, and the influx of US military might at this crucial time effectively guaranteed an Allied defeat of Germany.

 

21,000 troops form a portrait of Woodrow
Wilson at Camp Sherman Ohio in 1918

President Wilson brought to the end of the war a grand vision for international peace that centered around the creation of a global League of Nations. His efforts at peace won him the Nobel Prize. While this idea had international popularity, it was being significantly opposed at home. Wilson embarked on a national tour to garner support from the people. It was on this tour that Wilson suffered a massive stroke, leading to one of the most unusual and controversial situations in the history of the American Presidency. The stroke left him immediately debilitated, but this fact was fully known only to his wife and his doctor. For the remainder of his presidency Edith Wilson effectively served, according to Wilson historian John Milton Cooper, as presidential ‘regent’, shaping the national agenda through what she filtered through to her enfeebled husband. Cooper further states,

"This is the worst instance of presidential disability we've ever had," said John Milton Cooper, a Wilson scholar at the University of Wisconsin. "We stumbled along . . . without a fully functioning president" for a year and a half.” (Washington Post, 2.3.07)

On the 'Wilson Family Presidency' a historian notes that, "They were flying
by the seat of their pants, doing damage control.  It's fun to watch."

At the end of his second term Wilson retired from public office, and lived largely out of the public eye at his Washington townhouse until his death three years later, on February 3, 1924. He was buried in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The Episcopal rector of the new cathedral had envisioned it as an American Westminster Abbey, but Wilson and Helen Keller are the only people buried there who seem to rise to true national historic stature.



Something really funky at the Natl. Cathedral.  In a contest to select gargoyles,
school kids selected Darth Vader's head as a fitting sculpture for the Cathedral. 
I kid you not.

When we visited the Cathedral on a home school trip in 1998 I had no idea Woodrow Wilson was buried there. I was walking along one side of the sanctuary and passed by this simple stone box with his name on the top. When we later visited the impressive JFK gravesite at Arlington that day I was struck by how different the two presidents were memorialized. It is an interesting study in history.

On a homeschool trip stumbling across WW with my daughter Melissa
and nephew Craig cica 1998.

Victor Hugo

 Paris, France – Visited June 2009

Victor Hugo is known to most people as the author of two great novels of the Romantic era – Les Miserable’s and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But over 83 years of life he came to embody all of France in his passions and impact. Eliminating all people named Napoleon he was probably the greatest celebrity in 19th Century France.

Victor Hugo was born in 1802 in Eastern France. He was literally born into controversy – his father was an atheist officer in Napoleon’s army, his mother a devout Catholic royalist. What it got for Victor was a lot of travel and an ultimate settling in Paris with his mother. It was in Paris that Victor Hugo would remain for much of his life.

Statue of Victor Hugo in Guernsey
England where he spent his
exile

From early in life Victor Hugo showed himself to be an unusually gifted writer, publishing his first collection of poems at age 20, a collection that would receive royal accolades. In his mid-twenties he began to write fiction. His first full length novel was The Hunchback of Notre Dame, published when he was 29. The book was an immediate international hit and led to the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral, which had fallen into great disrepair.  The Hunchback of Notre Dame also established Hugo as a spokesman for the underclass, a precursor of Charles Dickens in Victorian England.  It has been made into movies of all shapes and sizes.  Check out the trailers for the 1939 Charles Laughton classic and the 1996 Disney animated version to see how Hollywood has employed Hugo's tragedy for profit.  

Cosette from original illustration for Les Miserable's. 
Check out this two part '20/20' feature on the
original Broadway Opening of Les Miz,
Part One and Part Two

Following the completion of this work Victor Hugo turned his attention to what he felt would be a magnum opus. It took him seventeen years, but in 1862 Les Miserable’s, a sweeping story of social injustice and redemption, was published and immediately became an international sensation. To underscore how sweeping the effect of Les Miserable’s was, within a year it had been translated into English and Robert E. Lee had the novel given to all his senior officers in his army as an inspiration for the Confederate cause. Les Miserable’s has been universally recognized as a literary classic and has been translated into movies, plays and the world-renowned Broadway musical. Hugo published other novels throughout his life, as well as poetry, plays and other works. He also dabbled in visual art, with sufficient gifting that the great romantic painter Delacroix said that had he devoted himself to painting he could have been one of the greats of the century.

Victor Hugo’s public life was as extraordinary as his literary life. Though initially espousing the royalist Catholic sympathies of his mother, he gradually moved toward full embrace of Republicanism in post Napoleonic France and toward the atheistic rationalism (with a strain of spiritism) that swept through France in the 19th Century. A figure of enduring national prominence, Victor Hugo factored into all of the great political events in France in the century. Napoleon III’s imposition of the Third Empire in 1851 was publically denounced by Hugo, which led to his exile from France to England for nineteen years. With the fall of Napoleon III and the rebirth of the Republic, Victor Hugo returned to Paris a national hero and was elected to the National Assembly, where he played a short but largely symbolic role. He remained in Paris during the siege of 1870, rallying the desperate people in the beleaguered city by his sacrificial example.

A drawing by Victor Hugo

It probably speaks to Victor Hugo’s skepticism about the various political systems that swept through France in the turbulent years of his life when he commented,


Victor Hugo's funeral procession in Paris

I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

Victor Hugo spent his latter years in the role of statesman and national celebrity. He died in May 1885 at the age of 83. His last recorded words were ominous, considering his atheistic perspective: This is the fight of day and night. I see black light.

His funeral procession drew two million mourners to the streets of Paris. He was buried in the Pantheon, France’s version of Westminster Abbey. He is in a room with future two future blogees on this site, Emile Zola and Alexandre Dumas.

Victor Hugo's simple tomb in the Pantheon



The catacombs underneath the Pantheon in Paris

I visited the Pantheon when my wife Jill and I were in Paris for our 25th Anniversary. I actually didn’t know what it was, just this big building at the end of the street. We walked up to check it out. Jill wanted to take a rest so I walked in, and found out that there were all these famous French people buried in the basement. It took a while to find a way down, but when I got there it turns out there were all these catacombs (actually pretty nicely preserved) with caskets, statues and plaques throughout. I don’t have a picture of myself in front of any of them because you couldn’t actually get into the rooms. But it was pretty surreal down there, definitely worth wandering around.

Other notables who are that I've blogged on include Alexandre Dumas and Jean-Jacques Rousseau



Your blogger on the steps of the Pantheon

Other blog subjects buried at the Pantheon:

Rousseau