Rivera Exhibition at the Meadows

Take a look at the review in the Dallas Morning News of the new Rivera exhibit at the Meadows Museum, 6-21-09.

Remembering D-Day, June 6, 1944

Melinda Starnes sent me an excellent piece by Herbert London from the Wall Street Jounral, June 4, 2009, The Meaning of Bloody Omaha: On D-Day, the U.S. saved Europe from itself. If you have access to it, be sure to check it out.

Originally, D-Day was to take place on June 5, but had to be postponed due to bad weather. Gen. Eisenhower made the decision to go ahead on June 6. The night before, Winston Churchill said to his wife, "Clemmie, do you realize that 20,000 men could be dead by the time we get up in the morning." Although losses were not quite as bad as Churchill feared, they were nonetheless horrific, especially on Omaha Beach.

When I have visited the American Cemetery in Normandy, and when I stood on Omaha Beach, I felt that I was standing on sacred ground for the price of freedom was paid in blood. As we sit here in comfort and safety in the best country in the world, stop to remember that 65 years ago right this minute there were Americans crammed onto ships out in the English Channel waiting for the invasion to get underway. Think about the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions who were to shortly parachute into Normandy. Remember Sainte Mere-Eglise where the Germans shot so many of our troops as they drifted down into the town square.

On Saturday morning, pause to remember and be thankful for those brave young men in the Higgins landing craft who were about to hit the beaches. Let us never forget the sacrifices of American troops, and as we approach this 65th anniversary of June 6, 1944, especially remember Omaha, the bloodiest beach.

God bless our World War II veterans, and may future generations always remember this day.

Summer Reading - History

One of the best books that I have read in quite a while is Irmgard A. Hunt's On Hitler's Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. The book was recommended to me by Barbara Kandel. It tells the story of a girl growing up on the Obersalzburg/Berchtesgaden during the Nazi era. The author gives a lot of insight into the average person's life in the 1930s and '40s. It is extremely well written, and is a quick read.

Anyone with an interest in this period will find it hard to put down.

Add Normandy WWII Trip to In the Steps of the Third Reich Tour

Add the Normandy World War II Tour that precedes the In the Steps of the Third Reich Tour, click here for details: http://www.marcoarttours.com/GermanyPrices.html

Tribute to Our Aging Veterans

I received this from Mary Mamantov: www.beforeyougo.us. This is a wonderful tribute to our aging veterans.

Thank you Mary!

Slightly Revised & Shortened France/Germany Tours

Details about slightly revised Normandy and/or Paris Tour in July, and In the Steps of the Third Reich, July 31-Aug. 9, are now online: http://www.marcoarttours.com/

Tut is Leaving

If you have not seen the King Tut exhibit at the DMA, you need to hurry. It leaves Sun., May 17.
I very much enjoyed the exhibit. Admittedly, I did not see the Tut tour from the 1970s since that was before I was running around to exhibits.

It seems to me that people who saw the earlier Tut show are less than enthusiastic about the current exhibit. The gold funerary mask is not in this show because it is now illegal for that artifact to leave Egypt. That aside, I still think that the current King Tut exhibit at the DMA is a great show.

Go enjoy it!

Michelangelo Revealed on PBS Tonight-May 14

I received this email from Donna Laski: on PBS Channel 13 tonight at 7:00 PM, "Michelangelo Revealed," which is listed for PBS's Secrets of the Dead series."

Kimbell Buys an Early Michelangelo Painting

Did you see this? http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/051309glkimbell.40e0d7d.html

Wow, we beat the Met, but then the Kimbell beat the Louvre on their Duccio panel from the Maesta in Siena. We will have a Michelangelo painting right next door.

Germany Photos; Last Etruscan Tour at Meadows Mus.

Pictures of sites to be visited on the Inside the Steps of the Third Reich Tour can be viewed:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=MarcoArtTours&target=ALBUM&id=5334760676247069809&locked=true&authkey=Gv1sRgCJXW7rXupZb23wE&feat=email

Be sure to register by Friday morning, May 15, for the last tour of the Etruscan Exhibit at the Meadows Museum. Please visit: http://www.marcoarttours.com/EtruscanTour.html

If you have not seen the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art go see it. It's about to leave. http://dallasmuseumofart.org/Dallas_Museum_of_Art/View/Tut/ID_242657

Credit Card Payments available

Credit card payments are available for the Germany: In the Steps of the Third Reich Tour, and the Etruscan Tour at the Meadows Museum on Sat. May 16. For full details, visit: http://www.marcoarttours.com.

If you are interested in paying for the Normandy and/or Paris tour by credit card, contact martha_fielder@att.net directly since there are so many different room options.

Revised Normandy & Paris Tour; Germany Tour online

A revised Normandy and/or Paris tour information is online. The registration form is available. Please visit: http://www.marcoarttours.com.

The itinerary for the Germany tour: In the Steps of the Third Reich with visits to Munich, Dachau, Berchtesgaden, and Nuernberg are online at: http://www.marcoarttours.com.

For the prices and registration form for the Inside the Third Reich Tour, please check back Tuesday evening.

Thanks,

Martha

Venetian Art Exhbit in Boston: Titian, Tintoretto & Veronese

Donna Laski brought me this article from Newsweek, The Merchants of Venice Art, by Peter Plagens, (March 23, 2009). It tells about this wonderful exhibit of 56 old masters: "Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice" at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts through mid August. Check it out: http://www.mfa.org/venice/. This looks spectacular! Thanks DL.

New Churchill Biography

Melinda Starnes tells me that there is a new biography out on Churchill that is good. Here is the info:

Carlo D'Este. Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War, 1874-1945.

Personally, I like D'Este's biographies, I am putting this on my "to read list." If you've read it, and one to give a short review of it, please feel free to post.

Great Bookstores

From Catherine Jones:

Complete Traveller Antiquarian Bookstore
199 Madison Ave./35th St.
New York, New York
Tel: 212-685-9007
www.ctrarebooks.com

Evidently a really cool store with all sorts of wonderful collectibles.


For the Michelin historic maps, complete with the trenches:
http://www.omnimap.com/catalog/int/historical.htm

Etruscan Tour - Sat., May 2 at 10:00 a.m.

New date added for Etruscan Exhibit guided lecture tour at the Meadows Museum, SMU, on Saturday morning, May 2, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. click here for details: http://www.marcoarttours.com/EtruscanTour.html

Patton 360 Series On History Channel

Carol Farquhar told me about this series on Patton: http://www.history.com/video.do?name=Patton360&bcpid=17585606001&bclid=18120488001&bctid=18237456001

Check this out for the the schedule: http://www.history.com/content/patton360/episode-guide

Thanks Carol!

World War II Books and Mag.; Interesting Ref. to Relative

The email that I received from Peggy Farquhar has great reading suggestions, and a very interesting story about tracking down references to her sister-in-law, LaVerne, a nurse who was killed on Anzio Beach. The note reads in part:

The books I referred too were:
#1 "15 Stars" by Stanley Weintraub, author of "Silent Night". It is a good book, it also lets you see how the 'good old boys system' works.

#2 "And If I Perish"Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II, by Evelyn M.Monahan and Rosemary Neidel - Greenlee. 468 pages with loads of research.Monahan is a retired Psychologist who served in the U.S. Army WAC as a corpsman, Greenlee served in the U.S.Navy Nurse Corps, she is an RN with a Master's in Nursing.

#3 "World War II", the February/March 2009 issue of a bimonthly magazine, the nursing book was referred too in a letter to the editor. (She found this at Barnes & Noble.)

Carol and Mike loaned me their copy of "15 Stars"... When I saw the copy I got excited because when I was growing up those three gentlemen were in the news daily.

My daughter Cindi is a nurse and she is thinking about contacting the authors of the book, "And If I Perish." In the book it refers to an interview my sister-in-law had given too a Red Cross correspondent several days before she was killed. Her thinking was they might be able to give us more information on the interview. The telegram from the War Department didn't give the family a whole lot of information, and when her body was returned I don't think there was a whole lot of information known.

A side note - several years ago Bob (Peggy's husband) and I were researching something and we got a call from someone at Scott & White Hospital wanting some information on LaVerne and there was some correspondence between the hospital and us. Neither my brother-in-law's wife nor I knew LaVerne, just stories about her. My sister-in-law had occasion to be at Scott and White Hospital recently and she came across a small room off the lounge and there were reports about LaVerne in local newspapers when the incident happened, these papers were in glass cases. I, being a member of the Women's Military Museum in Washington go to the Museum every time I go thru Washington, looking in the computer for ladies I served with. They have a computer system with history and pictures of women in the services, it is in Arlington National Cemetery and opened to the public.

Thanks Peggy for a great story!

Normandy D-Day Tour Photos

The pictures in the slideshow highlight some of the places to be visited on the France/Germany tour in summer 2009.