Reflections Overview #3

For those of you who know me well, you know I love college football, especially Clemson football.  Both my grandfather and father played football for Clemson, and my grandfather taught me all about it.  I was quite the quarterback and receiver back in the day.  In attending a private school, I was the only one who wasn’t playing football that knew anything about it; therefore, I was made the football statistician in high school and helped out while I was in college.  Once I graduated from college and started my teaching career, I was again asked to be the football statistician.  I did this for 20 years and decided to retire when the members of my church youth group graduated.

Needless to say, I have been waiting for the college football season to begin.  Let me add, I was glad that Fall Forum wasn’t scheduled for this past weekend!  When the first football game came on television Thursday night (South Carolina vs. North Carolina), I started watching and scanning DAR records.  ESPN’s College Game Day was at Clemson Saturday; therefore, we headed early to Clemson in order to take part in the festivities.  While at Game Day, Chris Fowler showed some historical pictures of Clemson’s Bowman Field (where Game Day was located).  I even learned something when he showed pictures of the basketball games being played on the grass of Bowman Field.  I knew the military parades and other things took place there, but not basketball games.

As the crowd grew larger and larger awaiting Lee Corso’s head gear prediction of the game’s winner, I thought about all of the young men who marched on this same field for military parades.  I wondered just where Grace Marshall, SCDAR State Regent 1936-1939, had stood as she and the DAR attending Founder's Day at Tamassee reviewed the troops as she and the DAR reviewed the troops who passed in review on that special October afternoon.  For those of you who have been to a state meeting and viewed the displays, you have probably heard this story and have seen the pictures that I found in my great- uncle's Clemson yearbook, "Taps."

 

 

 

I have been going to Clemson football games since I was a little girl and have seen first hand the rich tradition that continues still today.  From First Friday parade, to the delicious Clemson ice cream, to the infamous Clemson Blue Cheese, to the tailgating, to the pre-game band concert, to the band marching down the hill to the stadium, to the team rubbing Howard’s rock and running down the hill to the playing field, to Tigerama and the displays on Bowman Field for Homecoming, tradition runs very deep.  In 2010, Clemson once again honored its military heritage by adding the Memorial Scroll of Honor which perpetually honors the students from Clemson who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country from WWI to Afghanistan and Iraq including wars and campaigns.  It stands just a few feet away from the entrance to Memorial Stadium (which was named in 1942 for those students who made the ultimate sacrifice) at Howard’s Rock and The Hill. 

To enter the Memorial Scroll of Honor, you pass through two tigers which guard the scroll and wind your way to the barrow encircled by trees at its base.  As you walk around the barrow, you see a name engraved on a stone and then another and then another.  The scroll of honor contains 482 names to date of those Clemson students who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to their county. 

Every time I go to Clemson, I stop at the Scroll and place a flower from my garden on my father’s stone.  Little did I know that placing a flower on my father’s stone prior to each home game would become such a meaningful gesture for the Clemson Corps of Cadets, the alumni group responsible for the Scroll’s creation.   On my way into the stadium for each home game, I cross the street and enter the Memorial going to my father’s stone.  Even though members of the Corps are there to give assistance and answer questions, they haven’t been stationed at my father’s stone; therefore, they had no idea who was leaving the flower.  It was a mystery to them. 

It was the last home game of the season last year, and believe it or not, my garden produced a beautiful rose at a time in the season when it shouldn’t have.  I cut the rose and placed it in a flower tube with water and carefully transported it to Clemson.  I made my way to the scroll and found a group of people near his stone.  I made my way around them and gently placed the flower on his stone cleaning away the pebbles that had accidentally been kicked on it from the walkway.  As I stood to proceed back across the street to enter the stadium, I heard a voice saying, “So you’re the one.”  I wasn’t sure if the comment was meant for me. I turned to face the voice to hear again, “So you’re the one.”  He continued, “We have been wondering who was placing the flower each home game on this stone.”  The flower would just appear without fanfare.  It wouldn’t be there one minute, and yet there it would be there the next.  He went on to tell me that as the Corps brought high school students on a tour, there the (wilted) flower would be.  It spoke not only to the person giving the tour but to the students as well because it gave meaning to those names because someone cared enough to place a flower.    As we talked and stories were told, tears began flowing down his cheeks which of course started tears flowing down mine.  The character of Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own said, “You don’t cry in baseball!”  Well, if you don’t cry in baseball, you certainly don’t cry in football!  Yet, there we were creating a small puddle of tears. 

 

You see, Clemson gets it because it doesn’t forget its history.  It doesn’t forget its heritage and strives to help others remember.  As a matter of fact, one alumni coined the phrase concerning Clemson’s fallen, “We will never forget!  Never!” The Corps of Cadets, they recognized the fact that I got it.  I understood the importance of their efforts in honoring the Clemson students who gave the ultimate sacrifice with the creation of the Memorial Scroll of Honor.  I demonstrate that fact each time I place a flower on my father’s stone. 

So my question to you is, do you get it?  Do you understand the importance of the project Reflections of Our Treasured Past and for what it stands?  If you do, then how are you demonstrating that you get it?  What are you doing to preserve your chapter’s history?  It’s not only up to the chapter officers!  Every member of the chapter can help if she is willing.  We cannot wait to get started or delay in finishing.  For those of you who saw the minutes from 1896 on display at Fall Forum, you saw what time and the elements do to documents and what history is lost from the pages that have been affected.  What you may not think about is that time is against us because we never know when we will face tornados, hurricanes, floods, fires, etc.  Do you realize how many chapters lost everything from Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy as well as the epic tornado outbreaks in Alabama, Missouri, and Oklahoma?  Had they only taken the time to digitize their histories and records when all was well, their histories and records could have been restored to them.  Let’s not let our chapters be one of those.  Let’s have our chapters lead the way in digitizing our histories and preventing their destruction. 

Oh, by the way, don’t forget that the perfect time to scan is when you are watching football on television and not emotionally invested in the game!

So, what will you learn about in the upcoming posts?  In Conservation Corner, I remind you about the scan settings and explain why you should use them.  This information was presented in one of the sections of the webinar I did for the NSDAR in January 2012.  Check the NSDAR website if you would like to view the entire webinar or get the transcript from it.  Just remember that I have increased the dpi settings from that which is in the webinar.

In Chapter Clips, I decided that before sharing information about our chapters, I would start at the beginning of chapters in the NSDAR.  Can you guess in which state the first chapter organized in the NSDAR is located?  Was it organized in one of the original 13 colonies?  Read to find out.

In Society Snippets, I share with you a little more information about Georgia Moore de Fontaine and a phenomenal find giving a glimpse of what went into our own beginnings.

In National Nuggets, you will begin to learn the story of our National Society’s organization.   You may be surprised at why it was started and who aided in its organization and formative years.

 Tamassee Tidbits contains the continuation of the story of Tamassee’s beginnings and answers the question, “Why is the school located at Tamassee?”

I hope you enjoy this post and of course, learn something new with the upcoming ones.   Please be sure to share this with all of our members.  If an SCDAR member has a computer, I want them to know about the blog.  For more information about the Memorial Scroll of Honor, go to http://cualumni.clemson.edu/scrollofhonor.