Monday, November 12, 2018

Veterans Day 2018 - Thank you again.

This is a repost of my original from 2013.  I am honored to be part of this great American family.

THANK YOU!




I am fortunate to live in this great country and to have had ancestors who fought in the various conflicts to keep all of us free.  My tribute today is to my Father, Grandfather, Great Great Grandfathers and my Mother...all of whom contributed directly to supporting our freedom.




Here's my Dad, Donald J. Derr in 1945...A World War II Navy Veteran:










Here's my Grandfather, Robert V. Price...a World War I Army Veteran:






Here's my Great Great Grandfather, John W. Derr...A Civil War Veteran (48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Co. D):








Here's my other Great Great Grandfather, John Z. Wagner... A Civil War Veteran (55th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Co. E):








And here' my Mom, M. Jane Price...a World War II Victory Farm Volunteer as a teenager:








 
My mom always wanted help the effort during World War II and so as a teenager in High School, she volunteer to work on a Victory Farm in Connecticut for the Summer of 1944.  This quite an adventure for a teenage girl from the coal regions of Pennsylvania.


Victory Farm Volunteers was an organization which recruited teenage boys and girls to work on various farms in support of the war effort during World War II.  My mom, like many teenagers of the time, volunteered to work on farms around the country to provide the "man power" lost when the young men went off to war.  It provide both a level of farm continuity as well as a morale boost on the home front.  My mom would later recount how she worked on a tobacco farm in Connecticut...which later in life she regretted due to the type of crop she helped farm.  However....many troops enjoyed the tobacco produced at that farm and her efforts are...in my opinion...very heroic!













 Thanks,

Jim D.