Herman Thaden invented things. In fact, his tinkering around in the shed behind his house was one of the reasons why he was investigated by the government during WWI for being friendly to the enemy. It was thought he was making radios in there, with which to communicate to the Germans. Eventually, Herman patented at least seven inventions, most having to do with gardening. But his most intriguing invention was his air ship, or flying machine as it was sometimes called.
Roof Structure
Turn-Plow
Potato-Planter
Seed-Planter
Airship
Plant-Support
Airship (another patent)
Recently, a family member discovered that the Ernest Jones Aeronautical Collection, which is part of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Archives, contains a picture of Herman Thaden's flying machine. Conveniently, another family member has just moved to the D.C. area and will be looking into the possibility of obtaining a copy of that picture.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Let's Dance!
My father has mentioned an old Victrola that belonged to one of his great-aunts and on this Victrola, Syrian music, recorded on 78s, was played. Listen to a sampling of the kind of Arabic music our immigrant ancestors listened to in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. This collection of 78s once belonged to Robert Bitar (no relation to our family) of Portland, Oregon.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Rebel Yell
Have you ever heard of the Rebel Yell? Have you ever wondered what it really sounded like? Go to You Tube's Confederate Rebel Yell.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Deckner Iris
The young woman who has purchased one of the original Deckner homes in Southwest Atlanta has a unique variety of iris growing in her yard. It must be remembered that the Deckner family, who originated in Saxony, were horticulturalists in Atlanta and must have had beautifully landscaped yards. This iris is so unique because it was brought to Atlanta from Germany by one of the Deckners in the 1930s. How fortunate we are to be able to still enjoy some of the Deckner beauty.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Slander in the First Degree
Frank DeMayo: For the Record
A good practice for genealogists is to google the name of an ancestor to see if anything about him has been published on the web. A search for the name Frank DeMayo turned up some rather disconcerting information as to Frank “Chee Chee” DeMayo’s involvement in the Kansas City Mafia. A few of these web sites are mere repeats of the text that comes straight from a Wikipedia article, which cites no sources but offers a link to The American Mafia, "Kansas City Crime Bosses." This web site actually reports that “though some believe he rose to lead the Kansas City Mafia in the late 1920s, it seems unlikely because others had power and prestige in the city during that period.”1
Now I don’t normally write about the negative things in my ancestors’ lives. However, this allegation of a Mafia connection has been passed off as fact and published to the world. I feel that reference to Uncle Frank’s involvement in the Mafia needs to equally be addressed.
Uncle Frank’s niece, Nancy, knew him when she was a little girl. She had also heard talk of his imprisonment in the Atlanta Penitentiary, though she knew not his crime. A search for Frank DeMayo on Footnote.com turned up an old Bureau of Investigation case in which Uncle Frank had been investigated for bootlegging. It mentioned a prison sentence in the Leavenworth Penitentiary. Nancy obtained a copy of his Leavenworth prison file, which made no mention of the Mafia. I later found newspaper articles out of Missouri detailing his trial prior to his incarceration in Leavenworth. Although the articles report that he was eventually found guilty of violating Prohibition, he was never connected to the Mafia. We still do not know why he was sentenced to the Atlanta Pen.
While it is true that the Mafia didn’t really gain power in this country until the days of Prohibition, when they accumulated a vast amount of funds through bootlegging, the newspaper describes Frank “Chee Chee” DeMayo only as the Bootlegger King of the second largest bootlegging ring in the country. For Wikipedia and its copycat web articles, to report that Uncle Frank was a member of the Mafia is nothing short of slander. This serves to set the record straight.
Nancy concedes, “I just know that the man we read about in those reports is not the same Uncle Frank that I knew. Yet bootlegging is not the worst thing that happened in those days. He must have really repented and changed his life. I choose to remember the man I knew my Uncle to be during my childhood. He was a loving husband to Aunt Bess, a good father to [his son], and a great grandfather to [his grandchildren]. He was generous and kind to my family (and he loved dogs).”
1http://www.onewal.com/maf-b-kc.html, par. 3.
A good practice for genealogists is to google the name of an ancestor to see if anything about him has been published on the web. A search for the name Frank DeMayo turned up some rather disconcerting information as to Frank “Chee Chee” DeMayo’s involvement in the Kansas City Mafia. A few of these web sites are mere repeats of the text that comes straight from a Wikipedia article, which cites no sources but offers a link to The American Mafia, "Kansas City Crime Bosses." This web site actually reports that “though some believe he rose to lead the Kansas City Mafia in the late 1920s, it seems unlikely because others had power and prestige in the city during that period.”1
Now I don’t normally write about the negative things in my ancestors’ lives. However, this allegation of a Mafia connection has been passed off as fact and published to the world. I feel that reference to Uncle Frank’s involvement in the Mafia needs to equally be addressed.
Uncle Frank’s niece, Nancy, knew him when she was a little girl. She had also heard talk of his imprisonment in the Atlanta Penitentiary, though she knew not his crime. A search for Frank DeMayo on Footnote.com turned up an old Bureau of Investigation case in which Uncle Frank had been investigated for bootlegging. It mentioned a prison sentence in the Leavenworth Penitentiary. Nancy obtained a copy of his Leavenworth prison file, which made no mention of the Mafia. I later found newspaper articles out of Missouri detailing his trial prior to his incarceration in Leavenworth. Although the articles report that he was eventually found guilty of violating Prohibition, he was never connected to the Mafia. We still do not know why he was sentenced to the Atlanta Pen.
While it is true that the Mafia didn’t really gain power in this country until the days of Prohibition, when they accumulated a vast amount of funds through bootlegging, the newspaper describes Frank “Chee Chee” DeMayo only as the Bootlegger King of the second largest bootlegging ring in the country. For Wikipedia and its copycat web articles, to report that Uncle Frank was a member of the Mafia is nothing short of slander. This serves to set the record straight.
Nancy concedes, “I just know that the man we read about in those reports is not the same Uncle Frank that I knew. Yet bootlegging is not the worst thing that happened in those days. He must have really repented and changed his life. I choose to remember the man I knew my Uncle to be during my childhood. He was a loving husband to Aunt Bess, a good father to [his son], and a great grandfather to [his grandchildren]. He was generous and kind to my family (and he loved dogs).”
1http://www.onewal.com/maf-b-kc.html, par. 3.
Genocide During the Civil War
Though the term genocide did not exist before 1944, I do believe General Sherman was trying to commit just that on the Southern population during his famed march to the sea. His comments to his wife and fellow soldiers are no secret. They have been published often and show that he was certainly bent on destroying the people of the South.
I have brought up this notion of Sherman and genocide to a couple of people in my circle, whom I consider to be very intelligent. Both hesitate to strap the already shameful Sherman with the crime of genocide.
Consider the definition of genocide as was adopted in 1948 by the United Nations in the wake of the Jewish Holocaust.
[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[1]
After conducting a study of Sherman’s war practices enacted upon his enemies, there can be no question that Sherman would have been tried as a war criminal had he dared to carry out his campaigns today. Even his own fellow generals abhorred his tactics.
As recently as 2008, one scholar likened Sherman’s practices to “war crimes and probably genocide.”[2] It is obvious that Sherman’s army killed and wounded Confederate soldiers. But, with the able men off in other places fighting the war, Sherman rampaged his way through the South. It is no secret that Sherman encouraged his men to destroy everything in their path after they had foraged for themselves. This left the women and children and old men with no food, no livestock, no crops, no cotton bales (a source of income), no valuables for which to sell, and in many instances, no homes. Such destitution brought about starvation, a sure way to prevent the births of anymore Southerners.
One might argue the last element of the definition—that of forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. While it is true that Sherman did not remove the children from their Southern parents, he did cause that the children were forced from their homes, with their parents, while carrion from the north moved in. This resulted in the desired outcome of watering down the Southern population.
In my opinion, there is no doubt that General Sherman was trying to rid the country of Southerners through criminal means. It is true that war is hell and many unfortunate things happen to the innocent. However, there is a moral code most men live by but Sherman was dispossessed of any morals. He was not the great military mind his fans set him up to be. The hero they worship was nothing short of a war criminal, a disgrace to his uniform, no one to be lauded or honored.
[1] “What is Genocide?” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 4 May 2009. 13 Jul. 2009
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007043, par. 4
[2] Allan D. Cooper, The Geography of Genocide, University Press of America, 2008, p. 150
I have brought up this notion of Sherman and genocide to a couple of people in my circle, whom I consider to be very intelligent. Both hesitate to strap the already shameful Sherman with the crime of genocide.
Consider the definition of genocide as was adopted in 1948 by the United Nations in the wake of the Jewish Holocaust.
[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[1]
After conducting a study of Sherman’s war practices enacted upon his enemies, there can be no question that Sherman would have been tried as a war criminal had he dared to carry out his campaigns today. Even his own fellow generals abhorred his tactics.
As recently as 2008, one scholar likened Sherman’s practices to “war crimes and probably genocide.”[2] It is obvious that Sherman’s army killed and wounded Confederate soldiers. But, with the able men off in other places fighting the war, Sherman rampaged his way through the South. It is no secret that Sherman encouraged his men to destroy everything in their path after they had foraged for themselves. This left the women and children and old men with no food, no livestock, no crops, no cotton bales (a source of income), no valuables for which to sell, and in many instances, no homes. Such destitution brought about starvation, a sure way to prevent the births of anymore Southerners.
One might argue the last element of the definition—that of forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. While it is true that Sherman did not remove the children from their Southern parents, he did cause that the children were forced from their homes, with their parents, while carrion from the north moved in. This resulted in the desired outcome of watering down the Southern population.
In my opinion, there is no doubt that General Sherman was trying to rid the country of Southerners through criminal means. It is true that war is hell and many unfortunate things happen to the innocent. However, there is a moral code most men live by but Sherman was dispossessed of any morals. He was not the great military mind his fans set him up to be. The hero they worship was nothing short of a war criminal, a disgrace to his uniform, no one to be lauded or honored.
[1] “What is Genocide?” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 4 May 2009. 13 Jul. 2009
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007043, par. 4
[2] Allan D. Cooper, The Geography of Genocide, University Press of America, 2008, p. 150
The Other Side of the Coin
As I read stories and watch movies about the War Between the States, I am disappointed that the full story is not told. Reference is often made to the Union prisoners’ awful conditions at the Andersonville prison, but I’ve never heard mention of Rock Island prison, home to 12,000 Confederate prisoners. Complaints among Andersonville inmates included lack of food and medical care. It should be noted that the Confederate soldiers guarding that prison, and serving elsewhere suffered from the same lack of food and medical care. They couldn’t offer their prisoners what they themselves did not have. The Union Army had done an excellent job of cutting these necessities off from the South. Not only did the tactic succeed in crippling the Confederacy, it also starved their own men. The excuse at Rock Island? Rations were cut, as ordered by the U.S. government in response to the treatment of Union prisoners at Andersonville.[1]
In the end, 17% of the Confederate prisoners died at Rock Island compared with the 27% of Federal prisoners, who died at Andersonville.[2] If those numbers lessen the severity of Rock Island Prison, consider a lesser know prison camp in Federal territory that has been conveniently swept under the rug by the very critics of Andersonville, who also point out that Andersonville prisoners were cruelly mistreated. Camp Douglas was located in Chicago and had the highest mortality rate of all Union prisoner of war camps.[3]
"Prisoners were deprived of clothing to discourage escapes. Many wore sacks with head and arm holes cut out; few had underwear. Blankets to offset the bitter northern winter were confiscated from the few that had them. The weakest froze to death. The Chicago winter of 1864 was devastating. The loss of 1,091 lives in only four months was heaviest for any like period in the camp's history, and equaled the deaths at the highest rate of Andersonville from February to May, 1864. Yet, it is the name of Andersonville that burns in infamy, while there exists a northern counterpart of little shame."[4]
The next time you read a book or watch a movie that mentions Andersonville, remember Camp Douglas.
[1] Brenda Smelser Hay, “Rock Island Civil War Prison,” http://www.censusdiggins.com/prison_rock_island.html, 2008, par. 5.
[2] Ibid, par. 8.
[3] Brenda Smelser Hay, “Camp Douglas Prison,” http://www.censusdiggins.com/prison_camp_douglas.html, 2008, par. 1.
[4] Ibid, par. 3. See also “Camp Douglas” at http://geocities.com/BourbonStreet/2757/issues/camp.htm. Though the author of this web page seems to have had some trouble mastering HTML, his material appears to be well researched. After reading this account of Camp Douglas, Andersonville will not seem so unique.
In the end, 17% of the Confederate prisoners died at Rock Island compared with the 27% of Federal prisoners, who died at Andersonville.[2] If those numbers lessen the severity of Rock Island Prison, consider a lesser know prison camp in Federal territory that has been conveniently swept under the rug by the very critics of Andersonville, who also point out that Andersonville prisoners were cruelly mistreated. Camp Douglas was located in Chicago and had the highest mortality rate of all Union prisoner of war camps.[3]
"Prisoners were deprived of clothing to discourage escapes. Many wore sacks with head and arm holes cut out; few had underwear. Blankets to offset the bitter northern winter were confiscated from the few that had them. The weakest froze to death. The Chicago winter of 1864 was devastating. The loss of 1,091 lives in only four months was heaviest for any like period in the camp's history, and equaled the deaths at the highest rate of Andersonville from February to May, 1864. Yet, it is the name of Andersonville that burns in infamy, while there exists a northern counterpart of little shame."[4]
The next time you read a book or watch a movie that mentions Andersonville, remember Camp Douglas.
[1] Brenda Smelser Hay, “Rock Island Civil War Prison,” http://www.censusdiggins.com/prison_rock_island.html, 2008, par. 5.
[2] Ibid, par. 8.
[3] Brenda Smelser Hay, “Camp Douglas Prison,” http://www.censusdiggins.com/prison_camp_douglas.html, 2008, par. 1.
[4] Ibid, par. 3. See also “Camp Douglas” at http://geocities.com/BourbonStreet/2757/issues/camp.htm. Though the author of this web page seems to have had some trouble mastering HTML, his material appears to be well researched. After reading this account of Camp Douglas, Andersonville will not seem so unique.
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