Musical Events

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We spent a few days visiting Betsy's family this past week. Our motivation to do so, not that we need much motivation, was that each of Henry, Clara, and Frederick were involved in musical performances at their respective schools. Couldn't miss that. Henry is now in sixth grade and has added choir to his list of music-related extra-curricular activities (piano, saxophone, choir, musical theater). It appears after all these years, that getting boys into a choir is still a challenge for music teachers, so we are delighted to see that Henry is enjoying this opportunity.

Frederick is attending a Montessori school. Here he is with his mates singing.

After the music, each preschooler made a gingerbread house. We thought Frederick most liked slathering on the icing.

However, there were plenty of decorations to add too.

For the treats that followed, I liked the way Frederick carefully used the tongs so as to avoid spreading germs by using fingers. His mom has taught him well.

Later that same day, Clara's third grade class, along with the other third grade classes, performed a variety of seasonal Christmas, Hanukkah, and secular songs in their school gymnasium. She is the one with the pretty sparkly dress.

Clara's class, we were told, worked out the hand motions for this song.

Shiloh

(Apologies: This is a bit long. Relatives on my father's side of the family may find this of most interest. Other of you dear readers may wish to skip through some of the text to the possibly most interesting part near the end.)

In my prior posting about our recent trip to New Orleans, I mentioned that I would write separately about our stop at the Shiloh National Military Park (operated by the National Park Service) in southwest Tennessee and near Corinth, Mississippi. I enjoy reading histories and have a special interest in books about the Civil War, including biographies, battle accounts, and other topics. When I worked in Washington, DC, years ago, I really enjoyed visiting the many battlefields in that area: Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Manassas, and others. These represent much, though not all, of the eastern part of the war. I had read accounts of the war in the west too––at that time, the western front involved the states bordering the Mississippi River as well as Texas. The western front battles at Shiloh and Vicksburg were especially interesting to me because of their significance related to control of the Mississippi River and the emergence of U.S. Grant as the most eventually successful of the Union generals. Also, in my genealogical studies, I had learned of a family member who died fighting at Shiloh. So, when our trip to New Orleans arose, Kathie suggested that we include stops at Shiloh and Vicksburg in our plans.

The battle at Shiloh preceded the one at Vicksburg. After the Union army won at Shiloh, Grant proceeded south and west to eventually take Vicksburg and secure control of the Mississippi River for the Union. The Shiloh battlefield lies along the Tennessee River and is about 110 miles directly east of Memphis. The state of Mississippi is just to the south; indeed, the city of Corinth, MS was the location from which the Confederate army came to Shiloh. Corinth was an important railroad hub for the south and so was one of the objectives for the Union army.

Today's National Military Park at Shiloh is, in spite of the horrors of war once witnessed there, a very pretty destination. At the visitor's center, one can view a well-done film describing the fighting that took place April 6-7, 1862. After that, a self-guided driving tour through the park has twenty stops where one can see the locations where important things occurred during the battle and relate them back to scenes in the film. Names have been given to some of these locations: Hornet's Nest, Bloody Pond, and the Peach Orchard. There is also Shiloh Church and Pittsburgh Landing. The map below comes from the National Park Service's Shiloh guide.

Pittsburgh Landing is the name of the spot along the Tennessee River where 42,000 Union soldiers disembarked from over 180 steamboats and over 10 gunboats. The river is still navigable today. We saw one tugboat and set of barges pass by while we were visiting. Part of Grant's strategy was to quickly amass troops in the area by having them travel up the river rather than engaging in a long forced march, perhaps with fighting and losses along the way.

The battle took on the name Shiloh because of the involvement of a tiny Methodist church, Shiloh Church, that lies within the park's boundaries. An active congregation still exists in a new church at the site and has a church cemetery nearby. A model of the church that played a role during the battle is also nearby––at different times in the battle, soldiers from both sides rendezvoused or sought cover at the church.

Artillery played a major role in the battle, as they typically did in most Civil War battles. Fighting took place in both heavily wooded areas and in open fields.

Many of the important Civil War battle sites in the United States are decorated with monuments and plaques. Typically, each state that contributed soldiers to the battle will have a special monument, and then other state monuments will appear at locations on the battlefield where particular regiments fought. This is Iowa's general state monument at the Shiloh military park.

Adjacent to the park visitor's center is the Shiloh National Cemetery. Among the 23,746 casualties (killed, wounded or missing) were 3,482 dead. Because the Union army won the battle and drove the Confederate army south, Confederate soldiers were perhaps not easily identified and were laid to rest in burial trenches at several locations in the park. Union troops were, for the most part, identified and buried in individually marked graves. The organization of former Union and Confederate participants who many years later helped to establish the park and cemetery chose to leave the burial trenches alone, but many graves were relocated to this new National Cemetery, including some from other skirmishes and battles all along this region of the Tennessee River.

It was at this point that my visit to the Shiloh park became personal and, honestly, somewhat more emotional. The first question I asked when I entered the visitor's center was whether or not they had a record of the persons buried in the cemetery. They did and were able to tell me precisely where one of my ancestors was buried. Here is the entrance to the cemetery.

I took this panoramic shot of a portion of the cemetery.

There are several plaques, like the one shown here, with different verses honoring the fallen individuals.

And here is the grave of Carlton Frink who served in Company E of the 11th Iowa Infrantry Regiment, along with his brother Allen. Carlton was then a week short of his 19th birthday. Allen would have been approaching his 24th birthday. Unbelievable today, a common style of attack then was to march in lines, shoulder to shoulder, directly into the face of opposing fire. A Frink family history states that Carlton and Allen (the history names brother William, but I have verified in other sources that it was Allen) were standing beside each other. Of course, we cannot now know for certain, likely though this may be. Carlton was killed, and I have since learned that Allen was wounded, though he eventually returned to Iowa and lived to age 68.

For my sister and those of my cousins who may be interested, here is my connection to Carlton and Allen. (Because our  great grandparents were first cousins, there are actually two ways to trace this, but I'll follow the Frink to Decker names.)

• Perez Frink and Lydia Williams had 15 children, including Mary (my great great grandmother), Carlton, and Allen.
• Henry Decker and Mary Frink had six children, including Frederick (my great grandfather).
• Frederick Decker and Sarah Frink had six children, including Frank (my grandfather).
• Frank Decker had two children, including Frederick (my father).

So if I did this right, here I am with my great great grand uncle, Carlton Frink, a man who died fighting for the Union cause in the Civil War. I have wondered since if other family members have visited his grave before.

New Orleans and Other Points to the South

(Warning: This is a very long posting, though mostly pictures.) We made plans awhile ago to meet our good friends from Australia, Margaret and Murray, in New Orleans for Thanksgiving. This posting is a quick overview of the trip.

Kathie and I decided to take several days to drive to New Orleans so that we could take in a few additional sights and activities along the way. We started with a stop in Springfield, IL, where we visited the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Given the recent election, I couldn't help but have strong feelings about the contrasts between what may have been our most important President and the disastrous individual we just elected to be our next president.

We toured Lincoln's home.

And also visited the grave and memorial.

The next day, we stopped in Memphis to have chicken at a favorite place recommended by Betsy and Pete.

Vicksburg was next. I have a strong interest in the history of the Civil War. My service at NSF in Washington allowed me to visit many of the battlefields and locations (e.g. Ford's Theater) that are associated with the eastern part of the war. I had always wanted to visit Vicksburg and Shiloh to learn more about the western battles. I'll post separately in a few days about Shiloh, but here are some pictures from our visit to the Vicksburg battlefield. A most dramatic part was to see the ironclad ship named Cairo that shelled Vicksburg from the Mississippi. Years ago, the ship, after having been sunk in the river, was recovered for display in the park.

This is the gentleman we hired to give us a private tour of the battlefield.

This is the monument Iowa erected to honor its soldiers during this campaign.

The next day, the day prior to Thanksgiving, we arrived in New Orleans to rendezvous with Margaret and Murray. The first night was spent wandering along Bourbon Street. listening to the music and watching the people.

We managed to get into historic Preservation Hall for an hour's worth of good jazz.

We walked along the river the next morning. The paddle wheeler named Natchez can be seen in the background of this shot of Margaret and Kathie.

Later, we enjoyed a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner with lots of embellishments at Arnaud's.

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On the way back to the apartment we rented for the week, we came across a parade on Canal Street. The Bayou Classic, an annual football game between Grambling State and Southern universities in New Orleans, took place this weekend. The parade was a very fun and lively event.

While Margaret went shopping, Murray, Kathie and I visited the National World War II museum, which was very impressive, detailed, and interesting--one of New Orleans' most popular attractions.

A night or two later, we took an excursion on the Natchez, including a good dinner and great music by the famous Dukes of Dixieland.

We had beignets and coffee near Jackson Square and toured a museum that explained Hurricane Katrina and everything surrounding that event.

This piano belonged to performer Fats Domino and is typical of the many, many important artifacts and locations lost in the flooding that year.

There was more great music at the House of Blues.

And I got to eat great oysters on the half shell several times.

Our very good friends...

I took Murray to a New Orleans Saints versus Los Angeles Rams NFL football game on Sunday. Murray sees lots of highly competitive rugby in Australia, and though he had a general idea of our football rules, he had never seen a game before.

City Park in New Orleans at this time of year is filled with lighted exhibits. We spent a couple hours there.

On another day, we traveled out to the Whitney Plantation for a tour. This location really focuses on slavery and helped us all gain additional understanding of this horrible aspect of our history. Again, for me, given the recent election and the display of bigotry by the person we elected, this was a difficult and moving experience.

People at the plantation recommended a nearby small rural establishment for lunch. They had great cajun food. Kathie consumed six blue crabs! The rest of us sampled crayfish, alligator, catfish, and other good things.

On yet another day, we visited two units in the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. We started with the location where the Battle of New Orleans took place in 1814-15 as part of the War of 1812 with the British.

Then we traveled to the Barataria Preserve, where we were able to walk through much of a bayou.

Murray and I found this alligator (center of picture) and a snake along the way.

Eventually, after eating our way through New Orleans and seeing all these and other sights, we drove to Memphis. We chose to make a side trip on the way, driving first to historic Natchez and then driving on the Natchez Trace from Natchez to near Jackson, MS. If you don't know, the Natchez Trace is an historic parkway maintained by the National Park Service. As it did originally, the parkway links Natchez to Nashville, some 400+ miles away. No commercial traffic or amenities exist along the route, and it is truly amazing and beautiful to drive along such a road.

Once in Memphis, of course, we toured Graceland.

One of Elvis's numerous gold records.

His mother's favorite Cadillac.

We heard a fun blues band on Beale Street one night in Memphis.

After Memphis, we drove to Nashville, where we said goodbye to Margaret and Murray, who are traveling further south and then to South America before heading home. We love being together, and have now traveled together in the Mediterranean, Portugal, the U.S., and Australia. Who knows where we will meet next?

During part of our drive to Nashville, we stopped at the Shiloh National Military Park, about which I will write something of special interest for my next posting in a day or two.