Another item for my "to do" list

In the Style section of today's Washington Post, there was an article about the gala celebration at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. This building has been closed for renovations for the last seven years, and is scheduled to reopen to the public on July 1. The neighborhood around this building has undergone a dramatic revitalization during the closure. The MCI Arena (home to the NHL Washington Capitals and NBA Washington Wizards) has drawn large numbers of people to the area and a number of upscale retail establishments have opened in the vicinity to serve these crowds. The International Spy Museum is across the street as well.

I've never visited the American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, but I definitely want to. The portrait collection includes portraits of all the US Presidents, and the American Art collection should be interesting as well. But beyond the art collections, I'm drawn by the building itself. This museum and gallery occupies the original Patent Office Building, a Greek revival structure built in the 1830's. It was home to the agency I work for until 1932, which makes me curious about the building itself, and its history. By all accounts, it is a remarkably beautiful building.

Another WWII connection

Last week I wrote about my mother's uncle who died when his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. He wasn't the only relative of mine that served in the second World War. One of my father's uncles served in the US Army Air Forces, assigned to the 8th Air Force in England. He was a technical sergeant on a B-17, participating in the massive daytime bombing missions against the Germans. He only completed a handful of missions before his plane was shot down over Germany. He was wounded, but before bailing out of the crippled aircraft, he assisted the badly injured tail gunner out of the plane. On the ground, he was captured and shipped to a POW camp in Poland, where he stayed until the advancing Soviet army forced the Germans to relocate the prisoners westward. The POWs were forced to march through the winter countryside to new camps.

My great-uncle survived this ordeal and returned to the US. He never talked much about his wartime experiences, so I grew up knowing very little of his story. His first wife died before I was born, and when I was in high school, he remarried. His second wife convinced him to write about his experiences in WWII, and they self-published a small book telling his story. Given the technology of the time and the expense of publication, it was a very limited run, and probably only a few dozen copies of the book ever existed.

For more than a year now, I've been considering the possibility of trying to borrow the original pictures and documents used to illustrate that original book. I'd like to make high resolution scans of them, to be used in producing a new edition of the book. The print-on-demand business provides a way to make this book available as a high quality product for a very low cost. I've contacted my father's cousin (daughter of my great-uncle), and she's enthusiastic in her support for the idea. I just wrote a letter to my great-uncle's widow, who still has the original materials, asking permission to borrow them and reproduce the book. I hope she approves. My great-uncle's story is not an important one in the big picture of the war, but personal memoirs like his help to put a human face on the ordeal that was the reality of the war for the men who served.