- [Narrator] Coming up on Nebraska Stories, lessons on the art of the swing, the painstaking process of identifying the remains of missing soliders, the National High School Rodeo Finals come to Nebraska, the diary of a courtship in the margins of a book, and a tiny pellet of poison.

(steady rock music) (upbeat music) (soft acoustic music) - [Narrator] Sometimes along the road of life, you get some advice along the way.

You certainly will, if you're traveling the steep winding road that leads to Mark Wetzel's home.

- [Mark] My dad, his favorite one was "No Hill for a Climber," so I put that one at the top of the hill.

And then I knew, "The smooth, straight path seldom leads anywhere," "Don't quit on the first bump on the road," I, thought, well, I'll just put these on my road.

Because I've got a bumpy road, I've got a hill, I've got a fork in the road, smooth path.

I'll just put these on the road.

- [Narrator] Mark has had his own share of hills to climb and bumpy roads to navigate.

The 72 year old coach works out of an indoor batting facility just steps from his home in Omaha.

He's known nationally for the work he's done over the past four decades, helping young baseball and softball players hit the ball.

- Good, good good good.

One year, a few years back, I had these nine All-Staters, baseball players in Nebraska, six of them were coming out here on a weekly basis.

That was a great year for us.

I'm throwing the bat on the inside of the ball.

(bat hits floor) Last year I had some people come from Oregon twice.

I get people come from Colorado, Oklahoma, a majority of them from right here in this area of Western Iowa, Omaha, Lincoln area.

Now get out of your comfort zone!

- [Narrator] Mark has a knack for helping his hitters see the ball better.

That despite the fact, he doesn't see very much of anything.

- Let the bat lay on the ball as long as it can.

Okay, buddy?

- [Narrator] Mark is legally blind.

He started losing his eyesight at the age of 11, and by age 14 had to quit playing baseball, the game he loved.

- Let's keep our back heel a little closer to the ground.

(somber piano) - So it got to the point where I went from the best, to average, to sitting the bench my last year.

(music continues) - [Narrator] Medically, his blindness is due to a rare juvenile onset of macular degeneration.

Something that doesn't affect most people until they're much older.

Mark has been living with it most of his life.

Couple more and we'll get Mr. Kozol in there for a few more.

- Well, most of my center vision has gone.

It really accelerated the last two or three years here.

Like right now, I can't see your face.

My mother, if she were to walk in here today, my wife, I don't know them by face.

I gotta hear them walk and talk.

Better, much better!

Much better.

- [Narrator] Yet, despite being legally blind, Mark is able to dissect the smallest movement in a player's swing, that can make the difference between a good hitter and a great one.

- You're going to come out of the dugout when you're ready to bat, right, buddy?

- Yeah.

- [Mark] I can't see their face, but I can see their outline, see with peripheral vision.

I can see their outline and their movements.

I can see the weight shift.

I can see if they let the bat lay on the ball naturally long enough.

I can see if their knees started behind their hands, stuff like that.

I think maybe it's a gift that I can see the whole body work as one, you know, my eyes are just, I can see your whole body.

what it's doing in one swing instead of noticing you've got freckles.

- [Narrator] Mark has worked with thousands of hitters through the years.

He even developed a friendship with one of the greatest hitters of all time, hall of famer, Tony Gwen.

That started with Mark telling him what he saw in his swing.

Mark's been featured on ESPN and interviewed by Paul Harvey.

Along the way, he became known in baseball simply as "The Blind Guy".

And I thought, right there, my name is now The Blind Guy, because you know what?

You'll never forget The Blind Guy.

"Oh, I go to some hitting coach out Calhoun, "what's his name?

John Smith or something?

Oh, yeah, oh."

Well, The Blind Guy!

Okay!

Nobody ever forgets the blind guy.

So, it's been a benefit.

Might as well be up front with it.

I don't want to fool you.

(laughs) (onlookers chanting and clapping) (metal bat hits ball) Good!

Do about three apiece.

- [Narrator] Mark says it may take him a while to develop trust with his hitters, but most quickly become believers.

Mark Pearson is one of them.

He took lessons from the coach as a kid, and now he's bringing his two daughters and son to him.

- The front foot's not going to move.

Take your back foot.

- I don't know how he sees things, but he's, he'll be over here, and he'll see something over there.

And I think he even hears things.

He can tell, by the way the ball is hit, on whether, you know, good contact, how they missed it, or where they missed it.

- [Narrator] For the players, they see results, not a blind hitting coach.

- I was, like, surprised when I heard, but I didn't, I didn't even notice.

Like, it felt the same as someone that can see fine.

- I didn't even know when I first got here.

We were driving home, my dad tells me, and I'm like, "I didn't know that."

Like I couldn't even tell.

- I want to make darn sure that her barrels come across her here, because she was under the ball right here.

- [Narrator] And that's just the way Mark likes it.

- [Mark] Alright.

Well, there's people that come in, and they're pretty skeptical.

Wait, wait a minute.

A blind guy teaching hitting?

And then they just watch the difference I can make in a few swings, and I talk to them and tell them what I see.

And, you know, what in the world?

Mentally, you've got to get out of your comfort zone and look a little higher.

Attaboy, head down.

- [Narrator] Mark plans to keep working with his hitters for as long as he can.

Like his signs on the wall, he's got plenty more advice for those who want to listen.

It could make them a better hitter, or just better at the game of life.

- It's pretty simple.

You're going to get knocked down about every other day, just plan on it.

Don't let it surprise you.

But just get back up.

You're going to strike out, just get back up, just keep swinging.

Great job.

You're going to have bad days, we all do, but just keep swinging.

Good job!

Next hitter.

- [Narrator] That, from a legally blind guy, who sees things pretty clearly.

- Good effort!

Beautiful!

Give me a couple more of them.

Beautiful.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Central city's, Gerald Clayton.

- He was very active in sports, he was well-liked, good kid.

- [Narrator] Atkinson's, Louis Tushla.

- He worked on the farm with his dad and his brothers and sisters, and did the chores.

- [Narrator] Just a couple young, rural Nebraska guys who joined the Navy in the late 1930s.

See the world, serve your country.

Both ended up on the USS Oklahoma, a battleship docked at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

(bomb blasts) The Oklahoma topped to the target list when the Japanese attacked.

The 28,000 ton ship capsized 12 minutes after the first of several torpedoes hit.

429 sailors and marines on board died that day, including Clayton and Tushla.

The ship briefly became their watery grave, but the wreckage blocked the harbor channel for other ships, so it was uprighted and salvaged.

The still mostly unidentified and unidentifiable remains were recovered.

Eventually moved to mass graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of The Pacific, "Unknowns".

Until 2015, when the remains were disinterred and brought here, the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency Lab at Offut Air Force Base.

One of two locations in the country where this department of defense agency works to identify the more than 80,000 US service members considered missing from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and other conflicts.

- It is the science arm of detective work.

We are an accredited forensic laboratory.

- [Narrator] Here's how it happens.

Out of respect, we're shooting this so you don't see the bones of the missing service members being identified inside this lab.

It starts far away from here with field research at a crash site in Europe or Asia, or like the USS Oklahoma recovery of remains from unmarked graves, to the lab where 50 staffers takeover, mostly forensic anthropologists, but dental experts, data scientists, historians, and others, almost all with advanced degrees.

Bones are spread out on tables similar to what you see with this teaching skeleton.

Some nearly intact, some just fragments.

- So right now what I'm taking is I'm laying out all the bones from a disinterment and then I'm looking to see if I can fit the pieces of the bone back together.

And in this case, there are no duplicated or overlapping bones, however, there are some differences in the skeleton that may suggest that this is actually more than one person.

For instance, the left leg is in general, much shorter than the right leg.

- [Narrator] Larkin Kennedy sorts through bits of what is likely a wool blanket a service member was covered with in their casket.

- In order to make sure that there's no small pieces of evidence or small teeth or anything like that that might be something we want associated with an individual, so we have to pick through all of that.

- [Narrator] There's more they learn from this starting point.

Signs of a broken ankle might identify where a crew member was on a plane or show a pre-war injury that could be tied to a medical record.

Deterioration at certain bones show age.

When possible, DNA compared to a living relative becomes a powerful tool.

In a histology lab, small samples of bone are examined to see if it's human or animal.

(water splashing) Sometimes the two are mixed together in the field.

This helps the search process help determine what bone to send for DNA testing.

And a material evidence lab, where items found at a site or in a casket are examined.

Things like shoes, buttons, zippers, coins.

Some cases are easier.

For example, a small plane crash scene with intact skeletons and extra evidence.

The USS Oklahoma was different.

Work began with bones of 388 unidentified sailors and marines mixed up in more than 60 caskets.

Carrie LeGarde was on the case from the start.

- There were almost 13,000 bones that were inventoried as part of this process.

And when the project started, it was the primary thing being done in this laboratory.

And so every table had Oklahoma skeletal remains.

- Welcome to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency ceremony.

- [Narrator] After more than five years, the Offut lab is on track to identify more than 90% of the men who died on the USS Oklahoma.

- I would like to take this time to welcome the family members of the USS Oklahoma sailors and marines who are present with us today.

-They're the families of, fireman first-class Louis James Tushla, and store keeper second class, Gerald Lee Clayton.

(audience clapping) - [Narrator] As identification happens, remains of these mostly young men returned to hometown cemeteries or back to Hawaii for burial, with a marker, a name, and those scientists detectives who made it happen, watching.

(indistinct) - It's like a closure.

It's like we're representing our family who waited so long for word of him, and it's like a closure now.

- I have a son in the military, and he's been to Iraq and Afghanistan.

If something terrible were to happen, you will want their remains brought back home.

And I appreciate everything that's been done to get to this point, it's almost 80 years.

So that's unbelievable.

- It's our nation's greatest promise to those who serve and their families to say, you put your life on the line by stepping into those boots, and we are here for you and we will come and find you no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it is, and we will bring you home.

(upbeat music) (steady blues music) (upbeat rock music) (gentle upbeat music) (gentle piano music) CATHEY McDERMOTT: There is close to how many books that you received from the Abbott family?

(gentle music) NARRATOR: Sometimes a book is more than just a book.

(gentle music) CATHEY: I think it's interesting to try and imagine how that book crossed the distance.

(gentle orchestral music) NARRATOR: It could also be the guide for a pioneering Nebraska family that was well ahead of its time.

CATHEY: It's made it this far.

(gentle music) NARRATOR: Let's go back to 1870 in Grand Island, Nebraska, where lawyer and Civil War veteran Othman Abbott was courting Elizabeth Griffin, a high school principal in Iowa.

An important piece of their long-distance love story was a book he gave her, "The Subjection of Women" by John Stuart Mill.

CATHEY: So it was a very controversial book.

It was published in 1870 in New York, and that was around the time of people like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt, you know, and these people who were in the United States were working towards advancing legal rights for women.

NARRATOR: Othman and Elizabeth passed the book back and forth, using its margins to write notes to each other.

It became a unique part of their courtship, a place to exchange important ideas.

They eventually got married and had four children, including Edith and Grace Abbott, who later became leaders in social work and education.

Othman was Nebraska's first lieutenant governor.

The whole family supported equal rights for all.

CATHEY: They were very much in favor of equity and justice for black people, and when they came to Nebraska, the new territory in Nebraska, they were equally committed to working towards voting rights and justice for women and children.

NARRATOR: The decades passed, and the old book faded into Abbott family history.

It wasn't until Cathey began researching the Abbott sisters that she noticed repeated mentions of the book and the important role it played in the family, and the fight for equal rights in Nebraska.

CATHEY: I thought to myself, you know, of all of the books that they own, why is it that they kept talking about this one book, and I thought to myself it must have had special significance and importance to the whole family.

NARRATOR: But where was it?

Cathey had no idea if it even still existed after all those years.

(gentle music) She contacted Kari Stofer, a curator at the Stuhr Museum in Grand Island, where the Abbotts were from.

She had already searched the shelves of the research library there, but thought she'd give it one more try.

KARI STOFER: We made an appointment, she came down, and the first place we started was at the beginning with the card catalog.

NARRATOR: There it was.

KARI: It was right here between these two books.

NARRATOR: A 150 year old book hiding in plain sight all these years in the Stuhr Museum's archives.

KARI: John Stuart Mills, "The Subjugation of Women."

NARRATOR: Still full of marginal notes back and forth between Othman and Elizabeth Abbott.

CATHEY: Right away we started finding some very interesting remarks, although very faint.

The pencil marks were very faint, but-- KARI: Mm-hm.

But it was obviously a discussion between O.A.

and Elizabeth just like all of the articles that Cathey had found mentioned.

NARRATOR: It quickly became clear where daughters Grace and Edith got their passion for equal rights.

It was all right there in the book, written into the margins and passed on to them from their parents.

CATHEY: He says, "I will grant all equal pay, equal education, "equal franchise, and equal duties."

(gentle piano music) NARRATOR: The book isn't in great shape, but is still a treasure that will be studied by others interested in the Abbotts and their work for equal rights in Nebraska.

CATHEY: But he knew that it was going to be so controversial.

NARRATOR: Students at the University of Nebraska Kearney have digitized the book's pages.

NATHAN TYE: It's really a wonderful experience.

I teach about the Abbott sisters, in my own research, I work with the Abbott sisters, and so to kind of see something that is important to their early development, that's important to their later careers, and also their parents, specifically, and kind of the role of women's rights in the state, it is very much an honor to work with this.

NARRATOR: It's a book with marginal notes from a bygone romance that lives on decades after it served as a guide for a Nebraska family that led the way decades before women had the right to vote in Nebraska.

CATHEY: To know that this book was so important in establishing the foundation of the marriage between Lizzy and Othman, and that they made a concerted effort to raise all of their children, their sons and their daughters, to have equal opportunities for education and experiences in life.

(gentle music) NARRATOR: The Abbotts are buried in a family plot in Grand Island, a final resting place for a father, mother, daughters, and sons who used a book to build the foundation of their marriage and teach their children the importance of equal rights for everyone.

CATHEY: I think Nebraskans can be proud that the influence of the Abbott family is still felt today.

(upbeat music) (light orchestral music) NARRATOR: It's the autumn of 1915 on the Omaha Indian Reservation in Nebraska.

A small package arrives at a stately house in the center of town.

What's inside that package will bring together the lives of two remarkable women: the very first Native American doctor and a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.

The package comes from across the ocean, from the famous Madame Curie.

(light piano music) Like other women in her native Poland, Marie Curie had been barred from higher education.

So she went to Paris to the Sorbonne to study chemistry, math, and physics.

There, she discovered a strange new substance and won the Nobel Prize, twice.

The package is addressed to a woman who also broke through formidable barriers to get an education.

Susan La Flesche was born on the American frontier in 1865, just two years before Marie Curie.

The daughter of a powerful Omaha chief, Susan graduated first in her class from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania and returned home to fight for the very survival of her tribe.

Wherever she went, she healed bodies and lifted spirits.

By 1915, Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte is a 50-year-old widow and mother, as well as the respected doctor for hundreds of patients, Indian and white.

But the work has taken a toll.

(clock ticking) In mid-September, she lies in the upstairs bedroom of her Walthill, Nebraska, home, dying of cancer triggered by persistent ear infections.

(slow piano music) Weeks before, Dr. Susan's sister and brother-in-law had written a letter to Marie Curie in France.

They knew she had discovered a radioactive element called radium.

Curie believed radium could diminish pain and possibly cure cancer.

Would she answer their request?

(clock ticking) And now, just in time, here it is: a package from Paris.

Inside the package, a lead-lined box.

Inside the box, a tiny pellet of radium.

Upstairs in Dr. Susan's bedroom, the agency doctor places the pellet in her ear, but it accidentally slips into the ear canal and it takes hours to get it out.

Susan dies soon after, but she would've died anyway.

Her body lay in state in the ho use she had designed herself, by the fireplace with the carving, "East, west, home is best," and she meant it.

One of her last triumphs was to build a hospital right up the street from her ho use on the Omaha Reservation, open to everyone.

And what about Marie Curie?

She died in 1934 at age 66 from exposure to radium in her research and from a radium-laced pendant given to her in honor of her scientific discoveries, a pellet of poison she wore around her neck.

(steady rock music) -[Announcer] Watch more "Nebraska Stories" on our website, Facebook, and YouTube.

"Nebraska Stories" is funded in part by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation.

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