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(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Pittsfield at the Pike County All Wars Museum , which has only been here a short time.

It started planning old years ago but they opened this spring and you'll know this location because you'll see this Gama Goat from the Vietnam War out here in the parking lot.

They tell me there are very few of these left they weren't very effective in battle.

But they're just a few of these left and this is on loan permanently from the Illinois Military Museum.

And there's a lot more to see inside as well.

Come on in.

Chandra Foster, the All Wars Museum in Pike County it's an old idea, but it's a new thing.

- Yes(chuckles) - And you and members of the Historical Society have been working on this idea, you've been cogitating this for a while, haven't you?

- Yes several years in fact.

- Several years, yeah.

And then this building that we're in was the Veterans of Foreign Wars place.

This is where they met?

- Yes - And they disbanded.

So this building became available, is that right?

- Yes, and the Historical Society decided that they wanted to purchase it.

And it kind of just sat around for a little bit.

And then Lloyd Lawber who's a Vietnam vet and some other vets started kind of thinking mulling it around and thought probably they did have a purpose for this building after all.

That's kind of how the ball got rolling.

- Yeah and of course the Pike County has had family members who have had a lot of this in their possession for years.

And they probably looked forward to having a place where they could work be shown.

- Yes, we've got... - Rather than hidden away.

So many families who say, I don't have a use for this or I knew it was my uncles and I wanted to go somewhere to a good home, so we're that good home for a lot of people.

And many instead of trying to loan actually just ended up donating it to us.

- That's wonderful.

As we stand here, the All Wars Museum has only been open for a couple of months, but you're actually have, already have ideas about expanding this because there's a building on the property that you would like to have house the more recent war material.

like desert storm and in the Middle East stuff.

- Yes, we do have quite a bit of that coming in as well however originally our space was only so large.

And then the school district put the building up for sale and the Historical Society was able to purchase it through a grant from the hotel motel tax here in town and now it's ours as well.

- It wasn't in this condition though, was it?

it took a lot of work - A lot of work.

We took it down to the studs.

We had some major floor repair to do as well.

And so we've kind of literally built it from the ground up.

It felt like (chuckles) - Here's what I find interesting.

You all, you didn't hire a contractor to do this.

You had people who were interested enough who had skills rebuilding skills, contracting skills, that kind of thing.

And they did it volunteer - Yes Huge, we couldn't have done it without all the volunteers especially early on with the rotary club, adding not just materials, but labor as well.

And then sometimes we found out when we did have to hire out like for painting the ceiling, the vet wanted to donate.

So, I mean, so a lot of services that we thought that we were going to have to end up paying for ended up being donated because they started to see what our kind of vision was and they wanted to contribute to it.

- Yeah and just so people know you're you teach history?

- Yes.

- You're you're intermediate school teacher is that right?

- Yes at the Junior High.

- Junior High teacher and you teach history you have a master's degree in education, right?

So you're a good person to be curating this let's go down the way to your first stop which is a Civil War, okay?

- Civil War Most of our artifacts in the Civil War tent were acquired from the Historical Society.

One of them being the jacket here by a Pike County resident, based on what we could find with the Historical Society records all the rest are reenactment quality pieces.

But as our records show, it seems like he was a vet and he would wear this in parades here... - Men this thing has had some rough times.

You can tell - Yeah you can see(chuckles) It's been chopped off and it's been modified - I think it's been shot a couple of times too.

I mean, I'm not going to touch much because I know how fragile it is, but my goodness look at that - Some of the repairs - That's priceless right?

- We are very happy too.

- Now the 99th Infantry tell me about that because what we've got here is we've got a list over here.

The 99th was a very active and a big infantry, wasn't it?

- Yes, because the 99th was primarily taken up by all Pike County Soldiers.

In total, we had 3,132 soldiers who decided to sign up for the union.

And some of them did go to other companies across Illinois but the 99th primarily was going to and be serving near Vicksburg or the Southern campaign.

- So they mustered in with US Grant when he came through this part of the country and he was headed to the Mississippi river.

- Yes, they embarked on the Mississippi at Florence.

So again, they like mustered up in Pike County and they left from Pike County directly to the war.

- Got it and you actually have a couple of diaries here from some of the soldiers Pike County.

- Yes, Charles Shaw kept very good records of his time in the service.

And we're so glad that we have them in as great as condition as we do.

Unfortunately being paper and pencil, You can't display them as easily as you would like.

- That's why you've done what you've done over here because what you've done and you've scanned them.

And that way you don't have to open them and close them open them and close them.

And people want to, they can if they can read his handwriting, - Yes (chuckles) - they can get a flavor of what it was like that night in camp.

- Yes.

The Historical Society originally scanned them.

So we're hoping that we can one day include those on our website so that anyone who's interested or any civil war scholars could use that material for maybe something else.

- Yeah, there's too much in here to talk about all of it.

But this medical equipment is really interesting.

And these come from a local doctor, a Pike County doctor not necessarily involved in the war, but this was Civil War era, - Civil War era.

- And what you mentioned here is interesting because I didn't know anything about this bloodletting tool that you described but would you describe it to me in about how it fold back into the box - Yes So yeah this actually the middle part actually folds up several times.

So, and it's fits nice and neatly in this box but unfortunately they didn't have medical grade cleaners like we do today.

- Oh that's glary.

- And so you can actually see the bloodstain inside.

(chuckles) - Oh that's glary.

So some of our guys that had wanted nothing to do with the box.

(chuckles) - Look at at this tools.

Look at this tourniquet look at this screw on the top - It's very medieval looking and in many cases to realize... - Amputation knives it must have been hell to have to be treated that way.

But that's the best they could do.

That's all they had.

Oh my goodness.

- Yeah, so there are students who come and always get that kind of a kick out of the gruesome part of war.

- Okay, Spanish, American war.

Now I wouldn't have thought that there were so many Pike County men involved in this are these all Pike County men?

- All Pike County Company A.

- Company A from the Spanish American War - And mustard up here in Pittsfield.

So under their banner, you can see "The Company A" If you look, well, I don't know if the camera can make it out, - Probably not.

- But it does.

I mean, it clearly says Pittsfield if you're lucky enough to be able to make it out.

- It's a blow up of that actual picture over in the corner you might be able to make it out a little bit easier.

- Of this one here.

Yeah.

You can see it better here, yeah.

And we've just found a picture of this particular group leaving Pittsfield and they were photographed on the square.

So we're looking forward to getting our hands on that and being able to add that to that Pike County aspect of the Spanish American War.

And we also included their muster roll as well which we gained from the Historical Society.

- So you're in the process now are trying to match up what you know about this - Yes (chuckles) - And match up what you know about the picture that's really hard to do isn't it?

- Yes.

- especially from 1898 for heaven sake.

- Not everybody was photographed a lot.

- No, okay.

Very good, well we're going to proceed with World War I.

Thank you for visiting with us.

- Okay, I appreciate it.

- Lloyd Lawber we're looking at you some years ago right now.

You're the president of this All Wars Museum.

That's your Vietnam service picture, right?

- Yes - That's when you were in Vietnam?

- Yes sir.

- How, you know what?

We don't talk to Vietnam veterans enough.

How did that experience shape your life?

(stammers)was it a point in your life that really determined what the rest of your life was going to be?

- Yes, when I stepped on a landmine in Vietnam - Did you really?

- Yes, sir.

- Oh my God, okay.

- April 21st, 1969 by 11:30 in the morning that's when my life changed forever.

And about two years in the hospital.

- Oh my goodness.

- And I served my country and I was drafted in October 68.

And I'm glad I served my country.

- You were to save your foot or your leg?

- Yes I do I saved both my legs and I've met the doctors and the nurses that took care of me was 10 years ago.

- Right.

- In Saigon.

- Yeah, You had good ones.

- Yes I did - It sounds like that should have been one - One of them was in Springfield, Illinois.

- Is that right?

- Yes, sir.

- (laughs) Okay right over your right shoulder we're looking at, this was a trimmer you back in 1969.

- Oh my goodness.

Yes, like I said earlier, closets, shrinkage, dreaded.

Everybody gets it.

(Mark laughing) what would I say(both laughing) - While before we leave this spot I know we're not in a very good angle but you do have you're not the only one up here.

These are pictures of many people and everybody's from Pike County, right?

- Yes sir.

who have served at various times during various wars and conflicts.

- We honor all veterans but we're especially Pike County veterans because Pike County has had a tremendous play in the defense of this country from civil war day - we just saw the Civil War and the Spanish American War and it's remarkable.

How many Pike County boys went off to all these Wars?

- Yeah.

3,132 Pike County served in the Civil War.

- 3000 just from Pike County?

- Just from Pike County remark - Remarkable That's a documented fact.

Take me to World War I.

- Yes sir.

- Whenever possible would you like to do at this museum is you like to showcase the local Pike County Soldiers?

And that's what you've done is this one up here Is that a Pike County Regiment up there?

- I'm not sure it's a Pike County Regiment.

Although there is a Pike County soldier in that picture and the picture with the red dot on it his name was Elmer Stickman.

He lived here Pittsfield.

- Right there?

- Yes, sir.

- Okay.

- He live in the Pittsfield at West of town and this is his uniform and artifacts from him.

That very hat on top is the hat he had in that picture there - Is that right?

- Yes, sir.

And 95% are probably more than that of the artifacts in our displays come from Pike County Soldiers.

- And their families, I guess have this they've kept it all through the years.

- Yes.

- And they for whatever reason think let's let other people see this let's let this be seen.

- A lot of people it's in a basement and a garage in an attic.

Well, bring it in here they can loan it or donate it.

We put it on display we take care of it.

And in that way their memories and people the new home they will remember their veterans.

- (chuckles) I love this.

This helmet here, this German helmet was found by one of your Pike County Soldiers here in the field.

And it's got an address on it.

And this is a funny store.

What happened?

How did this get here?

- That was taken off of a German soldier and wrote on it the address back in the United States of America a new County Illinois and dropped in the mail just like that and arrived home.

(Mark laughing) That's exactly what happened.

- Put address on the helmet and send it.

- And send it through the mail.

That is a remarkable, - Yes sir.

- It's remarkable enough to have the helmet, but then to have the address on there that's a... and you get all kinds of stuff.

Don't you like?

Because this for instance came in to you as a Civil War artifact right?

- A family brought it in - But you checked it out.

- and said their great, great great-grandfather whoever it was, was in the Civil War and had this canteen but we did some research on the internet(Mark laughing) like we have to do all this stuff.

And we found out it's a World War I German Canteen.

And we had to call the family and she says, "Oh, why?

Okay."

(laughing)Yeah.

- Yeah.

Well I thought I heard the story a little different, right?

- We want to be as accurate as we can.

And sometimes we miss it, but we try to be as accurate.

- Well no, I mean, you did your homework on that one.

- Yes this is an actual war one gas mask.

mustard gas was the major thing used in World War I and - Oh man, horrible offense - The artillery shells, the trench art were from wounded soldiers .

- Mark explain what trench art is.

- Trench art a wounded soldiers that had all this time laid up in the hospitals they made these vases and I don't know how they've bent that.

I haven't done enough research to find how, but they're bent in their hand.

- Those are shells.

- The shell showcases of the project puzzle where there's 75 millimeter cannon shells.

- How did they crimp them?

But they did a really good job.

I mean, cause you can tell it's sculpted.

It's really beautifully done.

- It's sculpted yes and there's some wars name on there.

They're hammered into the shell.

- They are actually remarkable.

I guess they brought it home The center one is actually a shell.

That's what they started.

- Right right.

Now this is an interesting example, too.

This came from a local family.

This is everything that this soldier probably had with him in the field, right?

- This is true, yes.

- That is remarkable.

- So again, all these artifacts that are local people and they're donated or loans and they can have them back if they want, we keep a record of everybody that that brings something in.

One thing that this coat, I didn't tell you this earlier, Mark that this coat has bloodstains on it.

We don't know where those came from, but we the cleaner could not get them out.

It could have had borrowed fight.

It could have been whatever but that's sometimes happens as original artifacts.

That's how the ligands were what they wrapped her legs with.

So they wouldn't skin them up when they were crawling through trenches and briars.

and whatever - I imagine there was a lot of blood shed not necessarily been shot, but I mean just like you say, those hedges and everything you have to crawl through my center.

Well, this is a neat exhibit.

Thanks for showing it to us.

- Yeah.

Oh, you're more than welcome.

We try to feature everything in here from Pike County veterans as much as we can and the artifacts.

And we're very particular on what we display.

We have, I can you say, Chandra is our curator.

And she does a fantastic job, very creative, but we tried to identify everybody that comes in here and there's like a picture up there The Pike County men in World War II taken in front of the courthouse.

And nice part about that picture they got numbers and everybody is named in that picture.

We know who they are.

- That's unusual.

- That's unusual Yes we get these pictures.

These are yard pictures here they call them cause they're like a yard long.

A lot of times, those aren't identified and we've got gobs of them, but we don't know who they are.

And we'd like to know who the people are.

- Chandra when we're looking at Viet, excuse me, World War II veterans now.

And the interesting thing about this portrait and the others are going to see here painted by a fellow who now lives in Quincy who was a Vietnam veteran.

Determined late in life that he could be an artist and is a very fine one.

And these are all members of his family who served in World War II.

He's done a lot of work for you, hasn't he?

- Yes, he has.

These were one of our earliest pieces to the museum before when we were still a shell and he had sent these to us to use.

And we were chomping at the bit trying to get wall ready to put these up.

And he's actually, even though he lives in Quincy now he's a Pike County Native.

- Is that right, okay?

- Mm hm.

- And of course these are Pike County relatives - All of his Pike County relatives.

- And we're going to see more of his artwork above there when we go to the Vietnam wall section, - Yes you will but okay World war II, boy, as we stand here D-Day the anniversary of D-Day has just occurred.

And we're looking at what these young men faced when they got to finally got to the beaches of France and what a horrific situation that would have been being shelled like crazy while you're trying to walk your way in a rough sea.

Hauling everything you're going to need with you over the months that you're going to be there.

Goodness gracious what an experience.

But as you know, without that experience we would not have won that war.

Of course, yes.

And we have a depiction of that in one of our dioramas that one of our Vietnam volunteers Jeff Snyder does all of our dioramas for us.

- He's talented.

- He is but this is not to scale because the the diorama would have to be 12 feet long (Mark laughing) in order to have it to scale.

So I told him we didn't have quite that amount of room.

So he made it work for us.

- Yeah well the ships had to look big enough to see - Exactly.

- and of course on scale that wouldn't work for the beach and the battlement and everything.

But it's interesting that when you see how these how these men were just packed into these carriers.

- Yes the Higgins boats, which again without them D-Day probably wouldn't have been been possible or the death toll would have been much larger.

- And all of this material that we see here were donated or given by local families of veterans.

- Yes and some of it just recently, and as Lloyd talked about, and again, we get a lot of people.

I don't know what this is I know what's a relative, (Mark laughing) I know he's from Pike County, do you want it?

And so we got our phone at our grand opening in April and so she didn't know when so we were able to kind of track that down.

And so it kind of a newest addition.

We hadn't had a phone call yet - Somebody brought back a Japanese flag, which you have.

- Yes.

Well, I've got a lot of the material from the Pacific, especially.

- Over here, general Howard addressing the troops - And then our jackets from Casey Barber, he was a pilot.

- This one up here?

- That's an Eisenhower jacket.

No, his is the long winter coat, yes.

- That's in really good condition.

- Yes they took very good care.

And that was a pilot's coat really?

- Yes.

- Huh.

I wouldn't have suspected that.

I don't think he wore when he flew (laughing) - No behind him behind the wheel.

Okay, well thank you very much, interesting.

Lloyd, we've worked our way up to the Vietnam war and this is of course the war in which you were injured and almost almost lost a foot or two, I guess, huh?

but we're able to make it back and into good health again.

And we're looking at some of the artwork here by Dan Wagoner the Pittsfield native who is living in Quincy.

He's done all of these people that we're looking at here lost their lives in Vietnam.

And below there their portraits are the rubbings from the Vietnam wall in Washington, DC that were done at a recent visit.

So it's a wonderful tribute that you have created for these men.

- Thank you.

- And Mr. Myers here that we're looking at here this is his uniform as well which is a wonderful addition to the exhibit - His mother brought that in not too long ago.

And we put his picture down here beside his uniform.

Think he gave his life.

- Just below that we look at another diorama here and I assume this was produced by your local friend.

He has just terrific.

- He is.

What's his name again?

Yes that's Jeff Snyder.

He's from Plainville Illinois, but he comes down here and volunteers and he's a Vietnam veteran.

And a lot of this stuff is his stuff, his pictures and dioramas that he was involved with in Vietnam.

He has a combat engineers is what he was.

- You have kept, I think this is a life magazine, is it not?

- Yes, sir.

- I'm going to be real careful with this because I know that it's fragile but this is an issue in June 27th of 1969 the faces of the American Dead and Vietnam.

And this, you tell me this is one week of those killed in Vietnam.

And there were what, 250 of them?

- There's around 250 pictures in there.

- One week?

- One week in Vietnam.

And don't forget there's 58,232 that were killed in action in Vietnam.

There's probably more than that.

They just couldn't find the remains.

They're still finding them, but this is very emotional for a lot of people, including myself.

I was drafted in 1968 and my roommate I had in trade school in St. Louis after high school.

We were both drafted at the same time.

This is his picture right here.

Thomas Nebel From Iowa, we were roommates for two years.

We both got wounded about the same time.

He was a different company in Vietnam.

He got shot in the stomach and I had lower leg injuries and he did not make it.

Last year there was a big dedication by the then the mayor or the governor of Iowa Branstad who just moved on to China, Bester and keel to Iowa from him and all the other soldiers from that County that lost the life in the service.

But Tom was treated by a nurse from Springfield, the same nurse that treated me in Saigon at the Third Field Hospital.

And she remembered Tom But you stay in touch with her don't you?

- I stay in touch with her from the Springfield.

- She's a retired nurse.

She worked at Memorial medical center all those years.

- Yes she's an RN.

- You stay in touch with her.

- Yes And she met her husband there in Vietnam, too.

he was a corpsman with the army at that hospital.

But things like that are really unique.

This is soil from Caisson, the battle of Caisson.

- No kidding jar of dirt Caisson?

- Jar of dirt that's reddish type soil.

That's the way the actual soil from that area look like.

- You've got our light Facsimile of a rice Patty going on back behind here.

- This is like mud from the rice Patty.

(laughing) - This is interesting.

These MRAs were these called MRAs.

- No, they were called sea rations.

- Sea rations were leftover for you guys from World War II... - World War II they got rid of them from, we had, this is actually part of the sea ration packet right here, the salt, pepper, the cream, toilet paper, waterproof matches, a can opener to open the can a P-38 they called it.

A package of cigarettes.

Then you had three pound cake and whatever else send on the bar, meatball with beans that was a pretty popular one that people, we carried three or four loads in our backpack.

And he did the cans with the piece of explosive called C4 explosive.

It burned but you had the cell for the concussion but you could burn at the heat sea rations.

That's what we used to heat the meals.

All right.

Holcim in sandals.

And he might've been Vietnam probably knows what these were.

Oops, excuse me.

The Vietnamese.

- Looks lie tyre treads - They were tyre treads over discarded military tires.

And you could actually buy those or the Vietnamese would wear off but little things like that are kind of unique.

- There's another diorama up here that was created by your friend.

- It was our friend Jeff Synder.

- there is a picture too this is just Snyder when he was in Vietnam.

Huh?

Okay.

That's that's just Snyder there, okay?

- And he was a combat engineer this was actually a diorama of a rock cut.

There was a cliff on this side and up above and up here in the brush was a Vietcong soldiers ambush.

And these drawing phone grenades down on these trucks.

And actually hit Mr. Snyder was in this truck right here and the undercarriage was blown out.

So they kind of got landlord they couldn't move they had to call in a Loach a gunship to kind of get the Vietnamese out of the brush.

That's actually a diorama of Beilock Pass a little bit North of Saigon.

- This rifle that's right below here it's a carbine, I guess.

- Yes - What's the story behind that.

- Okay, that was a Russian made carbine that was used that they supplied to the North Vietnamese they used against us.

It was a sniper's rifle and a Folger from Greg's veil.

It's North of here.

I brought that home as a souvenir and he actually brought it through the LA Airport, just liked that he carried it through the LA Airport.

He had to have that certificate.

- Times have changed.

- Times have changed.

(laughing) - Yes, sir.

Certificate to get it through there.

- Different world now but he had to have the certificate with him, but he actually carried that through the airport.

Just like that.

- That's remarkable - This people with a certain Vietnam will probably know what with this.

We call it a short stick.

If you were short, maybe didn't have much time left in country.

Well, the Vietnamese capitalize on that, made little sticks fell into the gin called the short stick.

- Short timer, - Short timer there you go.

Lloyd we're short on time.

So I'm going to ask you to invite the community in here you see this.

This is a remarkable, remarkable museum.

And thank you for letting us come in to take a look at it.

- Thank you.

- You and Chandra.

- Thank you.

- Okay.

The Pike County Pittsfield, All Wars Museum is open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from noon to four from April to November.

So you've got all spring, summer and fall to take a look at this.

And it is free.

They do accept donations, but it's free to the public.

With another Illinois Story Pittsfield, I'm Mark McDonald's.

Thanks for watch.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency.

And by the support of viewers like you Thank you.

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