Phoenix

FEATURE
uniform about London. Lots of defense posters. If
a street here hasn’t a memorial to the dead of the
last war it isn’t a first-class street.”
My very, very best regards…. Alma
May 1, 1939
….We’re still at Nell Gwynn House in spite of
a severe financial headache. We cant’ bring ourselves
to accept the uncomfortable quarters that
are offered for less money…
…Here are some of the words that seem strange
to an American:
Tins – No storekeeper knows what a “can’
of soup is, food comes in tins, and is generally
regarded as an American idiosyncrasy.
Que – No one stands in line, only in ques. . . .
Biscuits – never cookies.
Legacy Initiative Steering Committee “studies the past”
Accumulator – battery.
Air Screw – propeller.
Lift – elevator. The lift starts as the main floor
and goes up one story to the first floor. We’re living
four stories up but are only on the third floor.
Litter – (pronounced littah) is what picknickers
leave scattered on the lawn (and against which
there is a fine). There are litter baskets in parks
and on streets.
Fit – People feel fit if they are well.
Wireless – radio.
An Englishman pronounces tissue as it is spelled,
not as tishue. And he pronounces schedule as
shedule, not skedule. . .
“Study the Past”
These words are inscribed on a marble edifice in front of the
National Archives in Washington, D.C. How appropriate. The
Legacy Initiative Steering Committee took a research trip to
Petersburg, Virginia and the National Archives in Washington,
D.C. in October 2006.
Three of the five Park Tudor students (the Civil War team of
Andrew Pauszek ’08, Julianne Sicklesteel ’07 and Drew Grein
’07) attended a two-day Civil War symposium in Petersburg.
The weekend symposium included nationally known authors
and historians who presented a program on “The Borderlands
in the Civil War.” After learning a tremendous amount about
each border state’s unique situation prior to and during the
Civil War, we returned to Washington, D.C. Two additional
steering committee members, Adriana Keramida-Strahl ’08
and Grace Tuttle ’07, representing the WWII and Modern Wars
teams, joined us there.
We started our work early Monday morning at the Archives.
Students obtained their researcher photo-ID cards, they were
oriented to the process of ordering specific military pension
files, and they also learned how to use microfilm to find
additional information. The students soon became comfortable
working in the Archives Reading Room along with other
researchers and academicians. The steering committee’s goal
was to locate crucial information in specific military pension
files as well as photographs for our third book, “Words of War:
Wartime Memories from American and Abroad.” Through
their diligent efforts, this was accomplished.
We continued to work at Archives the next day and located
materials for the Spanish-American War. During the day, we
also took the Archive’s shuttle bus out to Archives II in College
Park, Maryland to work in the Still Photography collection.
Here, students located more materials, including numerous
photographs, which featured scenes from WWI Siberia and
France; photos of the Mexican Punitive Expedition led by Pershing
in 1916; as well as WWII photographs from Okinawa.
After completing our work at the Archives, Tim Schurtter,
our liaison to the Veteran’s History Project Office at the
Library of Congress, took us on a two-and-a-half-hour behindthe-scenes
tour of the Library of Congress, where we met the
director of the Veteran’s History Project. After restoring our
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SPRING 2007 PARK TUDOR PHOENIX 23