Shiloh 150

Today is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. This is a picture of the sunrise at Shiloh National Cemetery this morning--I wish I had been the photographer! :) Some of my lucky friends are at Shiloh today participating in a two-day battle re-enactment. The Battle of Shiloh began when Confederate forces under the command of Albert Sidney Johnston attacked Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army. The Union ended up winning the battle, but both sides suffered heavy losses--3,482 men were killed and 16,420 men were wounded.

One of the most significant losses for the Confederacy was when Albert Sidney Johnston was killed on April 6, 1862. At the time he was the top Confederate general. Here is his monument at Shiloh in the general vicinity of where he was killed. You might recognize his name from Mormon/Utah history--he is the one that President Buchanan sent out to the Utah Territory in 1857 to quell the "Mormon Rebellion." Since there was no rebellion, Johnston and his troops ended up just kind of hanging out for a couple of years at Camp Floyd in Utah, where I used to work! If Camp Floyd had hired me when I applied for a job there last year, we would have had some Johnston programs there today to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death. But since they didn't hire me, they didn't get any of my good ideas :)

I took this picture and the one of Johnston's monument when Mom and I visited Shiloh National Military Park in August 2007 on our way from Natchez up to Charleston, Illinois when Mom was helping me move to graduate school. We spent the night at the General's Quarters Inn B&B in Corinth, MS, and then went to Shiloh the next morning. I'm so glad we stopped there! I was a little sad because I was missing my Natchez friends, but Mom and I had a nice visit to the battlefield. It is hard to comprehend everything that happened there!

Today, in commemoration of the anniversary of the battle, Curator Bill (the guy in the middle), Intern Joe, and I set up a new exhibit featuring some of our coolest Shiloh artifacts at the museum. Our boss Stew wanted to take a picture of us with the display. The hat on the left belonged to an Illinois soldier who was injured at Shiloh and then died one month later from complications with his wounds. Shiloh was a very costly battle, and I am grateful to all of the soldiers who gave their lives. I always tell the kids who come visit the museum that the United States emerged from the Civil War as a stronger, more unified country. I'm glad for days like today when we can be especially mindful of the sacrifices made by people in the past.

Abe Lincoln Chair

This was one of my favorite weekends of the year: General Conference!! Every six months, all of our Church leaders speak about various topics over a two-day period from Salt Lake City, and it is broadcast all over the world on TV and the Internet. It is always uplifting and enlightening to hear their words. I also enjoyed an outing with my friends Laura and Kris and their kids yesterday evening while our husbands were at the Priesthood session of Conference. We met up at the park and had dinner and played all evening. It made me not feel quite so homesick (I always get homesick during General Conference--especially missing the fun girls' nights out with my mom and sisters). I am grateful for the technology that allows us to listen to General Conference, no matter where we live!

Greg and I have an interesting new piece of furniture--an antique toilet! But it is not just any old antique toilet. This one was possibly used by Abraham Lincoln! It goes well with my Abraham Lincoln hair--now I have an Abraham Lincoln chair :) This antique toilet was stored in the attic of the funeral home where Greg works in Athens, and when he and his boss were working up there the other day, his boss told Greg that he could have the chair if he wanted it. Who are we to turn down an antique toilet with an Abraham Lincoln connection? As the story goes, the chair used to be in the old Athens post office/general store constructed by Colonel Matthew Rogers in 1832 (this building, now the "Long Nine" Museum, is located just down the street from the funeral home). Abraham Lincoln used to borrow books from Colonel Rogers, and he would sometimes stop at the building to pick up mail when he was the post master in New Salem. Later in the 1830s, Lincoln may have met in the post office/general store building with eight other men to decide how they could get the state capital moved from Vandalia to Springfield. This group became known as the "Long Nine" because they were all over six feet tall. Supposedly their meeting lasted for hours and hours--so you would assume that sometime during their meeting Lincoln would have had to use the bathroom!--but I can't find any documentation that this meeting ever really took place. But I do know that Lincoln was for sure at that building on August 3, 1837 for a banquet to celebrate his and the other Long Nines' efforts in getting the capital moved to Springfield. So the potty chair came from that old post office/general store building and might have been used by Abraham Lincoln. It's a good conversation piece anyway, right? It was in pretty rough shape when Greg and I brought it home, but I gave it a very thorough (although gentle) cleaning. It's pretty cool with all of the hand painted touches. It is just missing the chamber pot, which would go inside the box on the bottom of the chair. But maybe we can find one at an antique store sometime. So if you come over to our house, you can now sit where Lincoln might have sat!

Funny Video

On Yahoo this morning, there was this funny video that you can watch by clicking here. (It wouldn't let me embed the video in my blog.) They are kind of making fun of Mitt, but they make fun of Newt and Obama too, so it's okay :) At the very beginning of the video, you can see me handing a pen to Mitt so he can sign my baseball!

Mormon Mitt

Today I received a message on Facebook from a lady in our ward saying that she saw this video of me on the State Journal-Register website. Now I know who the guy who filmed me talking about being a "fellow Mormon" to Mitt Romney works for! I totally had a brain freeze (it was pretty early in the morning) when I was being filmed, so I sound kind of silly. Those "I'm a Mormon" ads that the Church is doing must be working--those are now the first words that come to my mind when I'm in a stressful situation :) Also, a friend of mine called this morning to say that they caught a glimpse of me on "Good Morning America." :)

Mitt is Legit

Today was a great day! Yesterday afternoon I found out that Mitt Romney was going to be coming to Springfield (the Illinois primary is tomorrow). I had heard that he was down by St. Louis and was going to be up in Chicago, but then they announced at the last minute that he was going to be at Charlie Parker's Diner here in Springfield for breakfast today at 7:00 a.m. Unfortunately Greg had some work obligations this morning, so he wasn't able to go along, but I woke up really early and got to Charlie Parker's at 6:00 a.m. When I got there the parking lot was full, and I didn't have high hopes for actually getting to see Mitt up close, but I found a little parking spot for my little car, and tagged along at the end of the line that was filing into the restaurant. (Charlie Parker's is a cool little diner in a Quonset hut, but it is not very big.) Next thing I knew, I was inside! I was one of the very last people they let into the restaurant! They said that they were limiting it to 70 people, and I later found out that people had started lining up at 4:00 this morning, so I was pretty lucky. When I got inside, I looked around and saw an empty seat at a table in the front of the room. I asked if anyone was sitting there, and the three other ladies at the table said no. So, I sat down, and then they brought out the breakfast menus.

I ordered the blueberry stuffed French toast. It was DELICIOUS!! It worked out well because we had over an hour before Mitt was to show up, so we got to just eat breakfast and get to know each other there at our little table. At about 6:45, some secret service guys came and asked us to scoot our table over next to another one because Governor Romney was going to be standing RIGHT NEXT to our table!!! I was so excited!!! Then the head secret service guy gave us some rules: no standing up during Mitt's speech, no sudden movements, no reaching into our purses or pockets, no waiting in line at the bathroom, and no acting crazy.

Then at 7:20 a.m., Mitt arrived!! It was so exciting to see him in person. I've loved him ever since he saved the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.








Right behind Mitt was Congressman Aaron Schock. Greg and I like this picture because Schock looks shocked! He's a cool guy. He's only 30 years old, so he's the youngest member of Congress right now.







And of course Ann Romney was there too! Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to meet her today, but she seems like such a cool lady. You never really hear about her battles with MS and breast cancer, but she has overcome a lot of challenges in her life. She spoke to the crowd about raising five boys and about how her husband can make America a place to be proud of again.



Then Mitt spoke for about 15 minutes. He mostly talked about the economy and his plans for sending things in the right direction. He had a couple of funny quotes. He said, "The pancakes here are almost as big as my margin of victory last night in Puerto Rico!" Haha. And then my favorite was: "Remember, tomorrow you need to vote early and VOTE OFTEN--we are in Illinois after all!" Ha, Mitt knows how things roll in this state :) I was so lucky to be right by where he was speaking!

After his speech he went around the restaurant meeting everyone and taking pictures with pancakes. I like this picture of him with the Rout 66 sign.

And then I got to shake his hand TWICE! When he first started walking around he came and shook my hand and signed a baseball for me (Greg and I figured a baseball would be appropriate since his name is MITT, and we like to collect people's signatures on baseballs)! I didn't have a chance to get a picture with him that time, but then when he came back around, I got to have my picture taken with him. As one lady was taking the picture, another lady at my table yelled out, "She's from Utah!" Mitt said, "Oh! Utah?" I said, "Yes, thank you for saving the Olympics." He said, "Yeah, that was exciting." This picture cracks me up because the secret service guy on the right does NOT look happy. He was just taking his job seriously, which is good. I was also interviewed by some media people, but I don't know who/what media outlet they were with. We just briefly talked about why I like Mitt, the Olympics, being a Mormon, and stuff like that. I enjoyed sending Mom and Greg pictures and text messages during the entire event, and Mom was able to follow along with everything that was happening using the Illinois State Journal Register webpage live updates. In fact, she is the one who told me what time people started getting there this morning!

Speaking of the media, this was the picture they had on the homepage of the State Journal Register after Mitt's visit! If you look to the left of Mitt, there I am looking (luckily) very attentive. My proximity to Mitt turned out to pay off because this afternoon Dad saw me on the local news in Utah, and one of my friends said they saw me on CNN! Greg and I watched the local news here at 9:00, and I showed up several times :)

So it was certainly an exciting day! After visiting with the crowd, Mitt was interviewed by the media for a while, then he took off to head north. I believe he went to Peoria and then on to Chicago for tomorrow's primary. I am so excited to vote tomorrow! This will probably be the only time that my vote in Illinois actually counts for something (since the Democrats always win here). So I'll enjoy it while I can! Go Mitt!!