Veterans Day at the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly

holly 107, photo by jmbarclay.

Today is Veterans Day and I hope everyone gets a chance to to take some time to remember those who have served and are serving our nation.

I’m pretty sure this photo is from the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, Michigan. The Holly cemetery is the second national cemetery in Michigan. Michigan’s other national cemetery is the Fort Custer National Cemetery.

Michigan Veterans and Veterans Day on Absolute Michigan has a lot of good information and resources and you can get some good photos & articles about veterans on Michigan in Pictures.

You can view this photo larger in Jim’s Art slideshow and see more veterans photos in the Absolute Michigan pool.

Victory Eagle, Marshall Fredericks

“Victory Eagle” at Former Veterans Memorial Building–Detroit MI, photo by pinehurst19475.

pinehurst19475 writes:

This monumental sculptural relief (twenty-eight feet tall) by Marshall Fredericks is on the north wall of what was the Veterans Memorial Building. It symbolizes both sacrifice and victory. The building is now the UAW-Ford National Programs Center. It was designed by the firm of Harley, Ellington and Day and dedicated in 1951.

He has many more statues & sculptures from Detroit (view slideshow)

Editor’s note: I’m always surprised when I find that I’ve never featured a photo from a photographer whose work I follow closely. This is one of those times – if you’re looking for architectural photographs of Detroit and the surrounding area with informed commentary … look no further.

Higgins boats discharge their cargo … on the beaches of Saint Joseph

The Higgins boats discharge their cargo. (IMG_1314), photo by bill.d.

From the Things I Wish I Had Known About in Advance files comes this fantastic set of photos of last weekend’s D-Day re-enactment in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph (slideshow). Bill uploaded them all nice and big so be sure to cruise through that slideshow link. Or even better, download PicLens, click the set link and enjoy. (trust me on the PicLens thing – coolest web software I’ve seen in quite some time).

The 2008 Saint Joseph and Benton Harbor WWII Reenactment Weekend took place last weekend and was sponsored by the veterans’ organization Lest We Forget of SW Michigan. It was designed to teach folks about WWII history, veterans, and the equipment utilized and featured reenactments of the battles at Normandy (D-Day) and Peleliu (Palaus archipelago in the Phillipines).

Because I can, here’s a link to an amazing reenactment of the landing at Omaha Beach.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

The Ultimate Sacrifice – Black and White, photo by DarrinW.

Darrin took this photo at Veterans Cemetery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I think it’s a good idea for everyone to take a pause in their activity this weekend to consider the profound sacrifices that so many have made on the behalf of our nation … and also that there are people today making those same sacrifices.

Of the nearly 4000 US Iraq War casualties listed at icasualties.org are 145 Michigan residents from Alpena to Ypsilanti and points in between. Take a moment to read the names listed under Michigan on this page.

I am reminded of a brief comment by former Governor William Milliken in this 2006 WKAR interview where he briefly touched on the war in Iraq, saying he was gravely concerned that Americans are not called upon to sacrifice personally in this war as we have been in past conflicts. Food for thought.

Speaking of WKAR, they are have a pretty cool Michigan Voices from World War II program airing at 7 PM Sunday night (Nov 11). Their web site includes stories shared by veterans – here’s a couple from Michigan WW II veterans and you can add your own story. There’s also a link to The War by Ken Burns on PBS that includes a number of online segments.

The Freep has a number of Detroit area Veteran’s Day observances and we received details on the Detroit Veteran’s Day March held today (Saturday, Nov 10) at noon from Grand Circus Park to Campus Martius. I suppose your local paper has more because there doesn’t seem to be a statewide listing to be found.

You might also appreciate the Michigan Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Michigan in Pictures, photos for “veteran” in the Absolute Michigan pool on Flickr (slideshow), and many of the items at Absolute Michigan keyword veteran including Michigan Veterans and Veterans Day from last year.

Vintage Base Ball and the Kent Base Ball Club

2002 (213), photo by xman12.

I think it’s pretty cool that just hours after Brian H got me interested in the Kent Base Ball Club, Detroit Tiger pitcher Justin Verlander hurled a no-hitter.

The Vintage Base Ball Association says that base ball (two words prior to the 1880s) is a re-creation of the game based on rules of the late 1850s, 1860s and 1880s. Michigan boasts 13 base ball teams – more than any state.

The Kent Base Ball Club of Grand Rapids is a founding member of the Vintage Base Ball Association.

Grand Rapids’ first team, the Kent Base Ball Club of Grand Rapids was formed on April 4, 1867, when a group of Civil War veterans formed a club to continue playing the game they had learned while in the army. Silas K. Pierce, who had recently moved to the city from Ionia, was elected as the club’s first president…

One hundred and twenty-three years later, in 1990, a group of local enthusiasts led by city historian, Gordon Olson, decided to reorganize the Kents and play the game of base ball as it had originally been done in the 1860s. Olson had found the original constitution and by-laws of the Kent Base Ball Club in the Grand Rapids History and Special Collections Center at the public library, and was curious to see how the old game compared to its modern counterpart. The newly reconstituted Kents now play an average of 12-15 games per summer, and have appeared in Columbus, Ohio; Fayette State Park, Greenfield Village, Old Kent Park (all in Michigan), and Doubleday Field at Cooperstown, New York. In period uniforms, they do their best to live up to the enthusiasm and dedication to sportsmanship and fair play that motivated the original Kents.

Every year in early June they play the Silas K. Pierce Cup (State of Michigan Championship) at John Ball Park in Grand Rapids and you can get a schedule, more history and links at their site.

xman12 has over 1200 photos of the Kent Base Ball Club in action.

Lansdowne of Windsor, a Detroit River ferry boat

Crossing the Detroit River in winter c. 1904, LC-D4-22154

Under the headline of “Things I found when looking for something else” comes this photo from the massive Detroit Publishing Co. collection in the Library of Congress.

The ferry is identified as the steamer Lansdowne of Windsor, a vessel mentioned briefly in The Detroit River ferryboats in the Detroit News’ Rearview Mirror:

The old paddle-wheeled steamer, the Lansdowne, which by its retirement in 1956 was one of the oldest vessels still operating on the lakes, once carried passenger train cars across the Detroit River. It was resurrected briefly during the 1980s as a floating restaurant off downtown Detroit.

If you click the “More Photos” button at the top left of the article, you can see another (clearer) shot of the Lansdowne. The March 1970 edition of the Toronto Marine Historical Society’s Scanner  had this to say:

For well over one hundred years there have been carferries operating across the Detroit River between Windsor and Detroit, and a large portion of this period, 87 years in fact, could well be called “The Lansdowne Era.” For exactly this long, a major item on the Detroit River scene has been the paddle-driven railway ferry, LANSDOWNE.

This veteran, 294 feet in length, was completed in 1884 by the Detroit Dry Dock Co. at Wyandotte, where her iron hull was known as Hull 66. Her horizontal, low-pressure engines were built in 1872 by E.E. Gilbert & Sons at Montreal for the wooden carferry MICHIGAN (I) and they were placed in LANSDOWNE at the time of her completion. Originally equipped with four stacks and two pilothouses, the ferry now carries but two stacks and one bridge and looks somewhat gaudy in the Canadian National Railway’s new livery. Nevertheless, she is the last sidewheeler operating on the Great Lakes and holds a great charm known to anyone who has observed her or made a crossing in her.

Recent photos of the “somewhat gaudy” Lansdowne can be found at the amazing Boatnerd.com.

Michigan Soldiers & Sailors Monument

Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Detroit MI circa 1903 (LC-D4-16495)

According to the very cool site Panorama of Old Detroit by Jim Moran:

At the top of this 1871 monument to Civil War veterans is “a colossal personification of Michigan as a semi-civilized Indian queen menacingly brandishing a sword with her right hand and clutching a shield with the left.” (From an 1870’s Michigan History.) …

At the bottom of the granite monument roost four bronze eagles. On the next tier are four figures representing the miltary services: Infantry, Artillery, Cavalry, and Marine. Bronzed medallions of Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and Farragut are spaced between. And, just below the figure of Michigan are four allegorical figures representing Victory, Union, Emancipation, and History.

The plaque on the monument reads Erected by the people of Michigan in honor of the martyrs who fell and the heroes who fought in defence of Liberty and Union. The monument was moved several hundred feet from its original location to Campus Martius Park and a rededication ceremony was held on April 9, 2005.

Wikipedia’s entry on the monument says that the monument was unveiled on April 9, 1872. Attending the dedication were Generals George Armstrong Custer, Philip H. Sheridan and Ambrose E. Burnside. The Detroit Historical Museum recovered the time capsule that was placed in the monument (only a few of the contents survived). A new time capsule was placed in the monument for the rededication and the page from the DHM has the contents and links to the lists of Michigan’s veterans and fallen soldiers.