Monday, November 11, 2024

November meeting

 Planning future events at the November meeting brought out a good crowd of Historical League members. Guest speaker Diane Burke Fessler presented her book and discussed women veterans in WWII.









Tuesday, November 5, 2024

November Guest Speaker Diane Burke Fessler "No Time for Fear"

 Honoring our veterans this month, Diane Burke Fessler, author of No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses of World War II, spoke at our November meeting. Her aunt was an Army nurse who wrote letters every week from her stations overseas and led Fessler to want to write about her. After attending a reunion of the 166th General Hospital in 1989 with "Auntie Raine" (Lorraine Krause Taylor), she interviewed more than 200 nurses whose stories had not been told. Covering all theaters of war, the nurses remembered their overseas assignments, including the first flight nurses, women at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, prisoners of the Japanese in the Philippines, and African-American nurses who served in a segregated U.S. Army.

Diane grew up in Chicago, graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Journalism, and lives in Phoenix. She also contributed a chapter about women in Arizona during the 1940s to a book titled Arizona Goes to War: The Home Front and Front Lines During World War II, published by University of Arizona press.
Diane Burke Fessler and Jolynn Clarke


No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses of World War II




Monday, October 28, 2024

Ira Parsons, NHD student, wins Library of Congress Award

 Old news but always exciting and bears repeating . . . Scottsdale Student wins Library of Congress Award from Jewish News, Aug 9, 2024

The Library of Congress has awarded this year’s “Discovery or Exploration in History” prize to W. Ira Parsons, a Jewish freshman at Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, for his work, “The Fastest Man On Earth: How Col. Dr. John Stapp Revolutionized Space Medicine.”
Parsons was one of 500,000 students globally who entered historical research projects in this year’s National History Day® competition, held June 9–13 at the University of Maryland. The 2024 contest theme was Turning Points in History.
Winners from all 50 states, Washington D.C., U.S. territories, and international schools were invited to compete in the national round. 540 historians and education professionals served as judges. The Library of Congress awards its “Discovery or Exploration in History” prize to an outstanding National History Day® project in any category on American or international discovery or exploration. This year’s 50th Anniversary Honorary Committee included, among others, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden; Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan; Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch; historians Doris Kearns Goodwin, Douglas Brinkley, Heather Cox Richardson, and Walter Isaacson; documentary filmmaker Ken Burns; and journalists Jake Tapper, Jonathan Capehart, Judy Woodruff, and Wolf Blitzer.
“Participating in the National History Day National Contest in 2024 is a special honor,” said NHD Executive Director Dr. Cathy Gorn. “As the organization celebrates its 50th anniversary, the students at the National Contest witnessed history. They have shown an incredible level of critical thinking, analysis, and research skills that will benefit them beyond their participation in NHD. I am proud of the students’ achievements this contest year and look forward to how they apply the skills they developed during their research to their future careers and lives.”





Ira Parsons with NHD co-ordinator Stacey Trepanier

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Sandra Day O'Connor 1992 Arizona Historymaker

 Honored in the first group of Arizona Historymakers in 1992, SDO has been an inspiration to us all.

On October 23, 2018, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement from public life. This was not an easy step for an active public servant, but the diagnosis of dementia, likely Alzheimer's, led to the final quiet chapters of her amazing life.
In a letter to the public, she shared:
"While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings in my life. How fortunate I feel to be an American and to have been presented with the remarkable opportunities available to the citizens of our country. As a young cowgirl from the Arizona desert, I never could have imagined that one day I would become the first woman justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
I hope that I have inspired young people about civic engagement and helped pave the pathway for women who may have faced obstacles pursuing their careers. My greatest thanks to our nation, to my family, to my former colleagues, and to all the wonderful people I have had the opportunity to engage with over the years."
You can learn more about her amazing life, work, and her lasting legacy at OConnorInstitute.org.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Hassayampa Inn for lunch during Historical League October tour

 Historic Hassayampa Inn is a great place for lunch in Prescott. Our tours always include delicious food!

Thanks to Josie Pete for great photos!





Monday, October 21, 2024

Tour to Prescott Museum of Indigenous People

 No better way to enjoy a tour to Prescott's Museum of Indigenous People than in the company of Historical League members! The October tour was well attended, fun on the bus and educational at the museum with Executive Director Manuel Lucero IV speaking.

Cathy Shumard commented, "Manuel's storytelling and humor easily held our attention."

Thanks to Josie Pete for the great photos!







Sunday, October 20, 2024

Win Holden, October guest speaker

Win Holden, former publisher of "Arizona Highways" magazine and now its informal ambassador, was our October guest speaker. He enlightened us as to how the magazine has remained popular through historical and contemporary photographs, attracting elite landscape photographers and using an unconventional publishing business model.
Program co-ordinator Patt Grogg with Win Holden