American history

“Wheeling Gaunt was a person of faith and a very resilient man who did not let adversity beat him down; he used it as a motivation to achieve,” says Brenda Hubbard Ibarra, Jack and Pat’s daughter. Although she had been born and raised in Yellow Springs, Ibarra was unaware of Gaunt’s story until her mother started getting those gifts. Inspired, she immersed herself in researching that history, and in 2021, she self-published Legacy of Grace: Musings on the Life and Times of Wheeling Gaunt.

You might have seen a service flag: a blue star (or stars) on a field of white, surrounded by a red border — hanging in the picture window of a seemingly random home in the neighborhood or in a shop window of a downtown building. But many folks might be unaware, or at least unsure, of its significance.

The “my people” he speaks of — and traces his lineage to through one of his grandfathers, a full-blooded Native American — were a mixed-race group (modern-day anthropologists term it a “tri-racial isolate”) known as the Carmel Indians. They lived in Ohio’s Highland and Meigs counties until as recently as the early 1900s.

Ohio’s urban garden cemeteries are some of the country’s most distinctive memorial parks, and stunning examples can be found in nearly every population center. Here are three that are particularly outstanding and accessible. 

The initial meeting didn’t go so well, as Lincoln remembers in his autobiography, Vice President in Charge of Revolution.

Shown into his office, I told him that we of the Farm Bureau wanted to avail ourselves of the benefits of this legislation and set up our own utility plants. 

“What do you know about the utility business?” Mr. Cooke asked.

“Nothing,” I admitted cheerfully. “I was trained in dairying and animal husbandry.”

The United States maintained nearly 700 camps, in all but three states, during the war — established to help alleviate the overcrowding of POWs housed in Great Britain. Had just Italian (50,273) and Japanese (3,915) POWs been sent to the U.S., existing American camps could have handled those numbers. But late in the war, as Allied troops began to take control, an additional 371,683 German prisoners began debarking from troop ships onto America’s shores, and the POW prison system was quickly overwhelmed. U.S.

The story begins several months earlier, in March 1782, when 96 members of the Delaware tribe, who had converted to Christianity, were rounded up, massacred, and burned along with their entire village of Gnadenhutten (meaning huts, or tents, of grace) along the Tuscarawas River by Col. David Williamson and his contingent of frontier militia.

Mildred Gillars was born in Maine in 1900 and came of age in Ohio, the stepdaughter of an alcoholic dentist who once practiced in Bellevue. Home life was tumultuous. 

She graduated high school in 1917 at Conneaut, near the extreme northeastern corner of the state, and attended Ohio Wesleyan University, where she majored in dramatic arts. Gillars, who went by the nickname “Milly,” took roles in plays and earned a reputation as an excellent orator, eccentric, and a bit of a coquette. 

Egg games were popular during the late 1800s, and in Washington, D.C., residents especially enjoyed spending Easter Monday on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, where they picnicked and watched children rolling eggs — and often themselves — through the grass. After some rambunctious egg rollers damaged the landscaping in 1876, members of Congress promptly protected their turf by passing a law prohibiting people from using the Capitol grounds for a playground. Because it rained in 1877, the law wasn’t enforced until 1878, when police expelled youths carrying colored eggs from Capitol Hill.

The Fourth of July provides us an opportunity to celebrate our independence as the United States of America. Our national holiday also provides an opportunity to reflect on the courage and strength of will demonstrated by the colonial leaders who drafted and signed our famous Declaration of Independence.   

While the first few lines are more famous, the closing sentence provides a clear view of their understanding of what it takes to be truly independent.