The first Dinner History Program for the season at the Scott County Heritage Center and Museum, 1050 S Main St. in Scottsburg, will be held Friday, April 17. The meal will be served at 6 p.m. and the historical program will follow. Due to limited space, we must have all paid reservations by Friday, April 10, 4 p.m. You cab drop by on Tuesday, Friday or Saturdays to purchase your tickets from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. or you may call and use your credit card.
The historical program will be Army Guy and Red Cross Gal: World War II Through the Eyes of Two Small-Town Hoosiers
During World War II, Auburn attorney Bill Husselman served as a military police lieutenant with U.S. General George S. Patton’s Third Army as it marched across northwest Europe. Auburn music teacher Mary Brandon served as an American Red Cross club worker in Italy as Allied troops slogged up the peninsula. Never did Bill’s and Mary’s paths cross overseas, never did their duties – wildly different– overlap.
But their similar backgrounds (they were friends before the war) and their distinct voices and perspectives (as gleaned from wartime letters) form the heart of Barbara Olenyik Morrow’s latest book, Army Guy, Red Cross Gal: The Lives & Letters of Two Small-Town Hoosiers Who Helped Win World War II, written in collaboration
with Ellen England.
Morrow’s program will track Bill and Mary’s overseas paths – as Allied forces fought at Anzio and Monte Cassino, liberated Rome, crossed the English Channel, swept across France, prevailed at the Battle of the Bulge, and drove deep into Germany’s heartland, where American soldiers witnessed horrors at Buchenwald and other concentration camps.
Archival and other war-era photos will complement Morrow’s lecture. She also will highlight why these stories from 80 years ago still deserve our attention – and why war-era letters need to be preserved.
A former journalist who has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Morrow is the author of seven books, most focusing on Indiana history. Her books have featured college basketball coaching legend John Wooden, nature writer Gene Stratton-Porter, and famed Underground Railroad leader Levi Coffin. A longtime Auburn resident, she lectures extensively around the state.
Autographed copies of Army Guy, Red Cross Gal (hardback, $27, paperback, $22) will be available for purchase before and after her presentation. Her website is
www.barbaraolenyikmorrow.com.