Friday - 15 Apr/16

The cloudy skies and off and own light showers continue today. We were up and on our way to our first destination 2 hours away in Warm Springs, GA after a minor delay.

A very friendly local cat that we had already met yesterday ran right into the motorhome as soon as Charlotte opened the door.

Today's first destination was FDR's Little White House.

It was an easy drive as the winding roads through the rolling hills of mid-Georgia were good and the traffic was very light. We, as predicted, arrived at 11:30 a.m.

The Little White House was the personal retreat for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the USA. He first came to Warm Springs for polio treatment, and liked the area so much that, as Governor of New York, he had a home built on nearby Pine Mountain. The house was finished in 1932. Roosevelt kept the house after he became President, using it as a Presidential retreat.

The self-guided tour entry was through the service porch door where the Ice Box resided. Thanks to FDR's efforts to electrify rural America there was electricity at the residence.

Charlotte would really like a walk-in pantry like this one.

The fireplace brought to mind the "Fireside Chats" FDR had on the radio as he brought the nation through the tough times of the recession and then WW II.

All rooms were of a modest size and comfortable in nature.

Of course, there is an excellent view of the surrounding wilderness through the expansive rear windows bordering on the large, elevated, rear deck.

Russian portrait artist, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, was painting FDR while he was at The Little White House when he suddenly became ill and died. This "Unfinished Portrait" hangs near a finished portrait that the artist completed from sketches and memory.

After his FDR's death The Little White House was opened to the public as a museum in 1948.

The relatively new museum area houses an excellent exhibit that chronicles both FDR and Eleanor's life and accomplishments.

Included in the exhibit are two (convertible) autos that were outfitted with hand controls (designed by FDR) that he drove (himself) when visiting Warm Springs.

Once again, after viewing the history of another President Charlotte and I both had the same thoughts and we certainly hope America doesn't play the "Trump" card (grin) in the upcoming presidential election. Call us "Old Fashioned"!

After the gift shop we headed for destination #2: Andersonville (Prison) National Historic Site. Located near Andersonville, GA, Camp Sumter (aka Andersonville Prison) was a Confederate POW (Prisoner-of-war) Camp in southwestern Macon County.

The current site contains the Andersonville National Cemetery and the National Prisoner of War Museum as well as the area once occupied by the prison. Visitors can walk the 26.5-acre site of Camp Sumter, which has been outlined with double rows of white posts. Two sections of the stockade wall have been reconstructed as well as the north gate and the northeast corner.

The site is an iconic reminder of the horrors of Civil War prisons. It was overcrowded to four times its capacity, with inadequate water supply, reduction in food rations, and unsanitary conditions. Of the approximately 45,000  Union prisoners held at Camp Sumter during the war, nearly 13,000 men died. The chief causes of death were scurvy, diarrhea and dysentery. POW's formed friendships that provided care, food, and moral support for others in their social network. This helped prisoners survive the deplorable conditions that existed at the site.

The National Prisoner of War Museum on the site mirrors the horrors of American POW's that included those of Andersonville through to the current day.

Two excellent (about 30 minutes each) films shown in the theater, one on Andersonville Prison and the other on American POW's throughout other conflicts, give a chilling view into the horrors of being a prisoner-of-war. The exhibit has articles, memorabilia and reproductions from all of these eras with comments from those who managed to survive and some who did not (via diaries). It is an excellent (and sobering) insight into the realities of life as a POW.

On leaving the museum we took a quick driving tour of the massive cemetery.

During the Civil War there was no official system in place to document missing or dead soldiers. As the war ended Clara Barton, the "Angel of the Battlefield" who had achieved fame as a nurse (and went on to later found the American Red Cross) during the war, took it upon herself to fill this void.

She began to receive letters from family members trying to find out the fate of their loved ones who had not returned home. In June of 1865 a young clerk named Dorence Atwater contacted Barton and requested copies of her lists of missing soldiers. Atwater had been a prisoner at Andersonville and had been paroled to work in the hospital, where he diligently maintained a copy of the death records. At Andersonville in July and August of 1865, Atwater and Barton poured through the letters she had received, and began to search for these missing soldiers in the Andersonville Death Register and captured hospital records. While laborers worked to erect headboards in the cemetery, Barton wrote dozens of letters informing families that their loved ones had died at Andersonville. At the end of the expedition, Barton was given the honor of raising the American flag for the first time over the recently established Andersonville National Cemetery.

After returning from Andersonville, Barton set up the Missing Soldier's Office in Washington in 1865. She hired numerous clerks, including Dorence Atwater, to respond to the more than 60,000 letters that she received. By the time the Missing Soldiers Office closed in 1867, Barton and her staff had identified more than 20,000 missing soldiers, including nearly 13,000 who had died at Andersonville Prison.

Today the cemetery also an active military cemetery with regular burials of deceased veterans.

Returning to the motorhome I took a slight jog through Americus. GA. We stopped at Walmart for a restock (water, milk, etc.) and I filled the Del Sol with gas.

We stopped at Krystal for supper. It has been a few years since we had eaten at Krystal. As you can see the burgers are really the size of sliders. They have been made this way since Krystal started in 1932. I'm sure the depression had something to do with their size. You need 3 or 4 for a meal; but they taste great!

FLASHBACK MEMORY TIME: Krystal reminded me of "Ma Lalonde's" burgers. "Ma" ran a small eatery (only large enough for a counter) on the East side of Pitt St. in Cornwall, ON. It was next to Miller's Junk Yard between Fifth and Sixth streets. It was directly across from the Canadian Tire Store (previous to it's current location). The entrance was a few steps down from the sidewalk. The burgers, like Krystal's, were small. Today they would be called "Sliders". It was common to order a dozen burgers from this "Greasy Spoon" to share with a friend. As I said, they were tiny and at 10 cents each - affordable.

As a teenager I was in the hospital with an ear infection. The antibiotics meant nothing - even liquids - wouldn't "stay down". Once I could eat again my Dad filled my request: we shared two dozen "Ma Lalonde's" in the hospital room! Mmmm Good! What a treat!

Another Lalonde in Cornwall ran a French Fry wagon. All the kids would come running to the street with their nickel when they heard the "Bell" ring.

Their 5 cent piece would buy a cone shaped (Solo) water cup full of fries. If you had another nickel a soft drink could be bought (2 cent deposit for the bottle). As Archie Bunker would say: "Those were the days!"

It was a busy; but interesting day!