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Hi folks! I will update everyone on the
Bridges of Love Project and what we did at the reunion in regards to that
initiative.
I had received a video recording on a
DVD from Belgium with three of the women who were children at the Castle de
Dongelberg. Ludo, our contact in Belgium said some nice words as well.
Unfortunately I could not bring it to the reunion since it was in a European
format that is not compatible with American DVD players. I was able to see it
on my computer, however.
My plan is to have this converted to the
proper format and then try to edit in some of the video footage I took of
some of the people at the reunion. That may take a while. I hope to make it
available to squadron members when it is done.
In the meantime, so that we would have
something to look at during the reunion, I printed off some still photos of
the "children" as they looked then and now, along with some letters that they
sent me for you all. Marie and I put a scrapbook of these things together and
I brought it to the reunion to share with everyone.
During the reunion, I was able to go
into Washington on Monday, thanks to Tom Ritz, who braved the traffic for us.
George Cooper accompanied us to the Library of Congress - where those
wonderful librarians had located more pictures that Toni Frissell took at the
Christmas party the squadron held in 1944 for the kids in the orphanage. We
are now trying to have 24 of those pictures printed for us (They are now
negatives only).
Earlier in the year, Bill Mather had
talked to Frieda Becker, one of the "hidden children" at the orphanage - who
now lives in Chicago. He invited her to the reunion but she could not make
it. The great discovery we made at the Library of Congress was a photo of
Bill Mather with Frieda Becker at the Christmas party.
I plan on adding that and other photos
to the scrapbook. I am then going to send the scrapbook to the "children" in
Belgium and to Frieda Becker so that they can see what we put together and
also see what the members of the squadron look like today.
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