In Repose Blog

172 Years Ago Today

To The People of Texas and
All Americans In The World --
February 24, 1836

Fellow citizens & compatriots --

I am beseiged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna -- I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man -- The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken -- I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls -- I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch -- The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country --

VICTORY OR DEATH

William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.
P.S. The Lord is on our side -- When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn -- We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves -
-
Travis

(From the battle of the Alamo, and the Texas Revolution)

For those of you who are NOT from Texas a small primer from Wikipedia:

The Battle (and siege) of the Alamo took place at the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas (then known as "San Antonio de Béxar") in February and March 1836. The battle was between the Republic of Mexico and the rebel Texian forces, including both Anglos (ethnic Americans) and Tejanos (ethnic Mexicans in Texas), during the Texians' fight for independence — the Texas Revolution. The 13-day siege started Tuesday, February 23, 1836, and ended on Sunday, March 6, 1836, with the capture of the mission and the death of nearly all the Texian and Tejano defenders, except for a few slaves, women and children. Despite the win, the 13-day holdout stalled the Mexican Army, and allowed Sam Houston to gather troops and supplies for his later success at the Battle of San Jacinto. The Texian revolutionaries went on to win the war.

 

This just in: The British did not Kill Napoleon

Legend has had it that British jailers murdered the French emperor. His official death certificate claims he succumbed to stomach cancer at age 51.

Th truth as recently revealed by scientists studying hair samples (saved by family and kept by museums) hair from even Napoleon's childhood, prove his arsenic levels, were indeed quite extraordinarily high.

But so were everyone else's. Samples taken from others in the early 1800's contained 100 times as much arsenic than the current average.

It seems as though the environment, poisoned by glues and dyes used during this time in history, was quite toxic by today's standards.

Museums, Legacies and People Containers.

A friend recently wrote that she is "not a museum person". Hm. My first reaction after reading that sentence was: I am totally a museum person! I would happily visit almost any type of museum I can name: Art, history, natural science, heck, even a sports museum might hold my interest at least for a while. I have been to some quirky ones over the years too that have made for some fond memories.

While visiting my friend Lynda in Florida, she and I took a tour of the Ringling Museums and of the Ca d'Zan, the mansion that circus legends John and Mable Ringling built right on the clear aqua blue water's edge on the lovely white sand of Sarasota beach.

The art museum houses an impressive collection of all types of work, and even contemporary galleries, but especially Baroque paintings and features some stunning works by Peter Paul Rubens.

The circus museum was pure delight with articles, costumes, photographs, carved circus wagons and even a diesel truck that was converted to the cannon some brave souls were shot out of to the awe of crowds in the early 20th century.

The Ca d'Zan was, however, no question, the pie'ce de resistance.

Built in the 1920's by Mable Ringling and inspired by Venetian palaces, the house has recently undergone extensive renovation and restoration and beautifully displays her legacy, now nearly 100 years later. This is where she and her husband lived and entertained society, throwing lavish parties on the marble patio while orchestras played and their yacht took guests for tours around the bay.

I was most taken with the windows and their tinted panes.

Someday I want to have window panes just like these, they are simply delightful and just as Mabel knew they would, create lovely flattering pastel light inside the home.

I have always been fascinated by houses, both monumental and spectacular such as the Ca d'Zan and yet also by the very humble and even the very poorest of shelters humans have made themselves since we moved out of caves so long ago. I think it was my friend Andrea who called houses "people containers" once when we were discussing the idea, and I think she was so right. They certainly are one way to leave a legacy, or at the very least, a story about the lives that were carried on between their walls.

The next house I visited on the trip was perhaps more moving to my soul than even this jewel by the sea, and it was most certainly much more humble. I'll tell you about that "people container" in my next post.

A Piece of Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821.

The cause of Napoleon's death has been disputed on a number of occasions. The physician chosen by Napoleon's family and the leader of the post mortem examination declared on the death certificate that it was stomach cancer that killed the exiled emperor. Later in the late 1900's, some theorists believed he was the victim of arsenic poisoning. Used at the time in medicines, hair tonics and found in unusual amounts in the wallpaper of Napoleon's home, arsenic poisoning was a viable theory, but put to rest in 2005 by extensive forensic testing.

Napoleon's autopsy was quite the event and reportedly was witnessed by many people, including a priest named Ange Vignali.

Though the body was said to be largely intact at the time of the undertaking, it seems the priest took home a souvenir. In 1916, Vignali's heirs sold a collection of Napoleonic artifacts, including what they claim to be the emperor's penis.

Having, um, changed hands for large amounts of money through the years no one has definitively proven the artifact is in fact the manhood of the late emperor.

Currently, it's in the possession of an American urologist named John Kingsley Lattimer who paid $38,000 for it at a 1969 auction.

"Spirits, Furious", a Poem by a World Trade Center Survivor

Rogue angels chiffon my nights, twelve arms flailing,

Those long whispers of limbs that curl a pale blood around my throat. 

They are maddened by my breath, as constant as God’s bare foot. 

 

I saw their burning flesh drop and felt the slow vibration of death,

A hum-drone known to the ages.

Jet fuel streamed under the lime-stripe of a firecoat, poof!

Then I ate them, I swallowed their stardust exploding on glass,

One hundred freight trains crashing.

 

Come tonight, I’ll cream your skin and feed you cowfoot and beans.

There will be a love song, then you could find my keys and my checkbook and maybe

In my room everything would feel new, like a red birth or a

Muscled and panting fish gill, or just green grass that serves as a bed

For dragonflies.

 

If not, we'll talk about it when I get there.

--Karen D. Rickenbach

(A World Trade Center survivor 56th floor, North Tower)

This poem won the Donald G. Whiteside Poetry Award, May 2002 and is posted here with permission from the author.

"Safety Coffins" Just in Case You are Buried Alive

The abnormal psychopathological fear of being buried alive is called taphophobia, (from the Greek taphos, meaning "grave".) Literally it translates into "fear of graves." Before the era of modern medicine, this fear was not entirely irrational.

During the cholera epidemics of the 18th and 19th centuries worries reached quite a peak, and many inventions were patented at that time, but history has recorded many cases of live burial.

When is a dead person, really, all the way dead? It has not always been so clear. Physicians and undertakers have employed many unusual methods to try to determine if there is any life left in the body laying before them.

From a 2001 Wired News Article:

Administering enemas of tobacco smoke to the suspected dead had a strong following among many members of the medical profession in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Other doctors preferred to insert hot pokers into various orifices, pinch nipples with pliers, and vigorously yank on the tongue of a presumed corpse in order to ascertain that their patients were quite dead.

Tongue-pulling became so popular that a device was created to automate the procedure. The suggested modus operandi was to clamp the maybe-dead person’s tongue to the machine and then turn a crank that rapidly moved the tongue in and out of the patient’s mouth.

This procedure had to be continued for at least three hours, doctors believed, so a village’s most-easily amused person was usually assigned to the task.

Fear of being buried alive was elaborated to the extent that those who could afford it would make all sorts of arrangements for the construction of a "safety coffin" to ensure this would be avoided (e.g. glass lids for observation, ropes to bells for signaling, and breathing pipes for survival until rescued).

In 1995 a modern safety coffin was patented by Fabrizio Caselli. His design included an emergency alarm, intercom, a flashlight, breathing apparatus, and both a heart monitor and stimulator.

Jamie Sue Austin who writes for In Repose, sends us a link to Vermonter.com that has photos of the grave of Timothy Clark Smith, who, presumably, is no longer affected by taphophobia.

Baba Uploads her first Story to In Repose, part 2

Today we conclude with Part 2 of Baba's story, "The First Time I Ever Rode a Horse".  Baba is busy adding photos, stories and documents to her page on In Repose.

The officers for whom I worked were some of the most infirm of the German Army. They had spent time on the front and been wounded or were ill, and not fit to serve as fighting soldiers. The commander of the garrison had only one eye. His name was Hartnack, he was a Colonel. The man I took dictation for was named Captain Astfalk. He had only one arm.

   I spent my working days taking dictation and then typing orders for the company commanders that were full of half truths and lies about how well the Germans were resisting. Even at 17 I knew I participated in a daily farce.

   Sometimes, during a break in my work I would look out the window at the long lines of parked military vehicles and wonder how many weeks it had been since any of them had seen a drop of gasoline. Here at the Feirhof we were using old parade and draft horses to pull carts of people and supplies.

   I had just finished handing Captain Astfalk a stack of briefing papers when the Air Raid siren sounded. “Go go go!” yelled Captain Astfalk. About 30 people from our building poured outside and most of them ran toward the woods nearby. I came out running with my high heel shoes and saw that some people were climbing into a small horse drawn cart. By the time I reached the cart, it was already overflowing with people, most of whom were not physically able to run to the woods. A sergeant helping with the evacuation took one look at the overfilled cart and then decided to pick me up, and while he was setting me on the horse I heard the old kitchen woman yell, “Take off those shoes and RUN!” But I was already astride the horse. I remember that there was nothing for me to hold onto but a handful of his long brown mane as the horse trotted toward the woods and the other people.

   That’s when I heard the machine gun fire. The horse heard it too and began to run madly out of control down the dirt road with the people in the cart screaming and holding on for dear life.  I managed to stay on for only a few minutes before I finally lost my grip. I slid off and landed in a ditch. The horse kept running as I laid there terrified.

   I glanced in the direction of the cart and saw the horse stumble and fall during another burst of machine gun fire. The cart turned over and the people jumped off and ran as fast as they could. Even the old kitchen woman started to run. I was one of the last ones to make it to the woods. As I reached the others I realized that I had wet myself when I was in the ditch. I hoped that no one would notice.

   When the airplanes finally left we all looked at each other in silence. Then we started to walk back to the buildings. As we walked I stopped and turned and looked for the horse and saw that it was still lying on his side, its back bloody with bullet holes. The sergeant was looking at the horse too. With a sigh he told me to turn around, follow the others and not look back.

I will never forget the sound I heard next: The single shot from the sergeant’s gun.

I know how busy life is these days. It seems like the days zoom past and there is always more work to be done than there is time to do it in. Take my advice and try to record some of your family's important stories while you still can.  We will share more of Baba's stories here as we prepare to upload them to her online page.

Baba Uploads her first Story to In Repose

Although most memorials are created for people after they pass away, here at In Repose  I am encouraging everyone to archive important family information and stories on their online page BEFORE it is too late.

Not only does the person then have a say in how they are remembered, in photos and documents and stories, they also save their family the burden of creating a memorial in what could be a terrible time of grief and stress.

I am helping my mom, known to all as Baba to upload cherished photos and important family history and stories, before they are lost forever!

We invite InRepose readers to observe this process and follow along as we begin documenting and archiving the life of this fascinating woman.

We began with one of her more harrowing accounts of life in war-torn Czechoslovakia in 1945. This story, entitled, "The First Time I Ever Rode a Horse" is my mother's story, but was told to and recorded by me.

The first time I ever rode a horse was in early April, 1945, in Budweis, Czechoslovakia. I was only 17, but employed by the German Army.

Earlier that year, the government had closed all of the high schools to support the war effort. All of the teachers were pressed into military service.  All of the other girls my age were made to work for the German Army or “Arbeitsdienst” to help run the farms or the hospitals which had lost workers to the war as well.

The boys my age were all drafted too. They received three months of marching training, and then were showed how to hold a gun. Then they were sent to the Russian front.

Our former Headquarters had been bombed the week before. Of course it was not allowed to listen to the BBC, but we knew that the war had nearly been lost. The Russian air raids happened almost every day. But increasingly the pilots used machine guns rather than bombs. That meant the day of occupation was coming soon. They wanted the soldiers dead and the buildings standing for future use.

For many weeks we had prayed for the Americans to come and to take the place of the Russians whom we were so fearful of, but our prayers had not been answered....

To read how the story ends, tune in tomorrow for part 2, or click over to Baba's page and click on the document link near the bottom of the page.

Baba's page

What the Amish Taught Me

The following is an excerpt of an article written by Rev. Rob Schenck, President of the National Clergy Council and founder, Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital. He visited the Amish community last October 2006 shortly after the terrible shootings of schoolchildren in Lancaster County....

I was one of the few non-Amish welcomed into the very private Amish mourning rituals for five slain school girls in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Few from the outside world will ever see up close these extraordinarily private and pacifistic people as they deal with the enormous suffering of losing their children to a brutal act of violence.

While they live differently, the Amish are the first to dispel any notion they are better than us. One "preacher" told me, "You English (their term for the non-Amish) sometimes think we're perfect; we're not. We've got all the problems you have, and we have bad people, too. It could have been an Amish that did this." Still, it is at times of great suffering and loss that the best of what the Amish are truly shines.

As I visited in the victims' homes, sat on the mourning benches, talked with the families about the details of that terrible day, and watched one mother tenderly care for her daughter's damaged body, I was struck by how prepared they were for this. Not simply in a technical sense, but in a deeply spiritual, philosophical and moral sense. The Amish were well rehearsed for this tragedy.

Please visit InRepose.com's main website and Resource Forum for the entire article HERE

Three Home Remedies That Can Kill You

In our modern world, expensive prescription and over-the-counter medicines from large pharmaceutical companies are what most people turn to treat various ailments. In the not-too-distant past, many folks relied on old home remedies and traditional folk medicine when they needed a cure. Although some are still used today, many of these treatments were actually deadly. Here are three home remedies best avoided...

Putting Butter On Burns

Smearing butter on a fresh burn is a classic example of an old home remedy that should be avoided at all costs. Although it may help the pain at first, the butter will actually contaminate the burn. Furthermore, bacteria will quickly start growing in the butter and allow the burn to quickly become infected.

If you have a minor burn, why not try using some natural aloe vera gel on it. This can be squeezed directly from the houseplant of the same name.

Many of us are taught from a young age to respect the wisdom and advice of our elders. When it comes to treating ailments and injuries though, you might want to get a second opinion before trying out the remedies they remember.

To read the entire article please go to our main website and Resource Forum HERE.