Category: Remembering Veterans

Moody group makes quilts for veterans

Story by Elaine Miller
Photos by Richard Rybka

Every time Barbara Willingham makes a quilt for a military veteran, she remembers the time her son called her from Iraq at 2 a.m.  She could hear explosions in the background. “Mom, I gotta go, we’ve been bombed,” he told her. Then he hung up, and she didn’t hear from him again for two fear-filled weeks.

“He came back, and I have my son, but not every mom does,” she says. “Every quilt I make I’m grateful I’m not going to the cemetery.”

Barbara is part of the Moody Crazy Quilters, a group of women that makes quilts for veterans, foster children, nursing home residents and hospice groups, to name a few. It’s their way of giving back to veterans and offering comfort to others who may be hurting physically or mentally.

“I like to make children’s quilts because kids wanna hold something, especially if they’re in the hospital,” says member Carolyn Snider. “I also enjoy making quilts for veterans. Our freedom is not free, and this is a way to give back to them.”

The group meets at Moody City Hall the first Monday of each month, except for holidays. It started in 2009 as a library function at Moody’s Doris Stanley Memorial Library, but soon outgrew its meeting space. They have about eight steady members, including one who moved to Marietta, Georgia, but still comes back for monthly meetings.

Most members also belong to a similar group called Loving Hands that meets at Bethel Baptist Church.

They try to identify a couple of veterans each year to quilt for, such as the two found by group coordinator Jill Dailey’s husband, an Army vet himself. The group also made a patriotic quilt for Moody Mayor Joe Lee, another Army veteran, as a thank-you for his military service and for the meeting space the city provides.

“We label our quilts, ‘Gift from Moody Crazy Quilters,’ and on our patriotic quilts we add, ‘Thank you for your service,’ ” says Jill. “We also put the year we made them on the labels.”

Once a recipient is chosen, each woman usually makes a quilt block at home, choosing her own fabric, colors and design. Then the group puts their blocks together to make one Sampler Quilt, as they are called.

“Each month people turn in their blocks, and we’ll put them in a pile and lay them out and decide what to do with them,” Jill says. “We make 12-inch blocks, using four across and five down, plus binding, and sometimes a wide sashing between rows.”

The group donates at least three patriotic quilts to veterans every year, along with several more to hospice organizations for their patients. Children’s of Alabama is another organization that benefits from the group’s quilting efforts.

“Lots of our fabric is donated  by various people, but a lot comes from our own stashes,” says Carolyn, who joined the group in December 2021 after retiring.

Most are lap quilts. Those made for nursing homes have a small, fleece-lined pocket to keep hands warm. On the outside of the hand pocket is a smaller one for a phone, glasses or tissues. “Most of us don’t make standard-size quilts, but Barbara sometimes gets carried away,” Jill says.

Nearly all of these women have been quilting for years, some since they were children. “My mother taught me to quilt,” says Laura Kinney who, at 86, may be the oldest member of the group. “Ours weren’t pretty, either. They were just called ‘covers’ back then.”

She recalls the days before she retired, when she often would often get home from work at 8:30 p.m. and sew on a quilt. “I would sometimes tell my husband, ‘My hands hurt, you need to do the cookin’ tonight,’” she says. She has made a quilt for each of her children, and has a stack of 10 that measure 50 inches x 70 inches each, five blocks across by seven blocks down, ready to present to her great nieces and great nephews. She also has a quilt that she hangs on a wall at home to display her husband’s Coast Guard patches.

Some of the women own long-arm machines, others just domestic sewing machines. At least one has a Cutie Frame, a tabletop quilting frame used in conjunction with a sewing machine to do the quilting.

“Making quilts for veterans ispayback for me,” says Barbara, who volunteers at the Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in Pell City. “Not every mother can say her son went to Iraq and came back. I know how hard it is. My son, Toussaint Edghill, is a disabled vet, and I do this to honor him.”

Gaye Austin’s husband and son are veterans, and she wants to show her appreciation to them and to all veterans “for giving us our freedom and the protection we have today,” she says.

“We want to thank the veterans for their service, and we enjoy quilting so much,” says Jill. “It’s a win-win.”

Volunteers honor vets with muscle, sweat, tears and roses

Story by Paul South
Photos by Carol Pappas
Submitted Photos

At the blighted Blue Star Memorial marker on Veterans Memorial Parkway, weeds were  winning the war just a few months ago.

Flowers wilted in dry ground. Shrubs browned. In Dana Ellison’s blunt assessment, the landmark leading to the Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home that was supposed to honor our military, “looked like crap.”

In short order, a small detachment of volunteers – Ellison, Ellen Tanner, Cayce Johnson and Josh Franklin, along with reinforcements from St. Clair County, Pell City and Wattsville Water  – went on the offensive in the oppressive late May heat to restore the marker’s site to its former glory.

After five hours of volunteer sweat that just beat a major storm, the blight and weeds were in retreat.

The flower bed was condensed, pulled up and edgers relaid. Shrubs and flowers – red roses and white gardenias – were planted. A blue star also adorns the hallowed ground. The low maintenance shrubbery came from Hazelwood’s Nursery in Pell City, and a red, white and blue bow now festoons the marker. 

Small versions of the Stars and Stripes stood at attention, each flag encircling the marker like a patriotic clock.

“If you were to look at the monument from an aerial shot, we laid out the gardenias on either side where it almost designs a star counting the post in the middle,” Ellison said. And to be clear, not one penny of public money was used for the project.
 The volunteers provided the materials.

Wattsville supplied water, and Pell City provided a hydrant to slake the thirst of the ground, flowers and shrubs.

Until the waterline was placed, Pell City’s fire department stepped in to keep the garden watered.

Ellison and her comrades took the monument to heart. She fertilizes, prunes, weeds and waters the site several times a week.

“I have made that my lifelong project, goal, passion to keep that veterans’ garden looking as good as it can.”

The marker’s restored message to motorists?

“Respect,” Tanner said.

Respect for veterans and their families.

Respect for country.

Respect for God’s ground.

The marker, placed in 2013 as a Leadership St. Clair project, hadn’t always been honored.

“All of the blocks had shifted,” Johnson said. “The roses were dead. It was in poor shape. It was not very honorable to the men and women who served our great nation to keep us free.

“I think that as a community and as a citizen of this town and as citizens, we can do better in honoring them,” Johnson says. “And especially since that’s the main road leading down to the veterans’ home, that’s important that they know that a community appreciates them and supports them.”

Tanner spearheaded the original Blue Star project when she was part of the 2013 Class of Leadership St. Clair. Attendees learn about the county and craft a project that leaves a positive legacy. Working with the National Garden Clubs, the class made it happen.

But neglect and time ravaged the area until three women and one man stepped into the breach. The reason was simple, Tanner says. “You cannot honor our veterans enough,” she says. “They are such a precious treasure to this country, and we need to hold them up and honor them as much as we can.”

The Blue Star Highway: A Brief History

Blue Star Highways in the United States pay tribute to all men and women – past, present and future – serving in American armed forces. The National Council of State Garden Clubs, now known as National Garden Clubs, Inc., created the Blue Star program near the end of World War II. Flowers have always been at the heart of the effort. In 1944, the New Jersey Council of Garden Clubs planted 8,000 Dogwood trees to honor those serving in that war.

The markers are only placed on dedicated highways.

The tears of a military wife, mother and daughter-in-law

Johnson is deeply invested in the military. One son is in the Air Force – Airman 1^st Class Parker Holmes. Another son, Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Holmes, is at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Her husband, Billy, served as a Marine sergeant, and her father-in-law, Don, is a Vietnam vet.

She understands the sacrifice of vets and their families. And tears readily flow when she thinks of the monument as it was before the restoration effort and as she thinks of combat vets who sometimes struggle to return to civilian life. Until the May restoration, like those soldiers, sailors and marines, the marker was forgotten.

“As veterans, they come home, and they have to assimilate back into society and a lot of times, they’re not able to, because of the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve been through,” Johnson said. “When I look at (the monument), first and foremost it reminded me of our military men and women who come back home, and they’re just forgotten. They don’t feel they have a purpose.”

Before the restoration, the wilted flowers, the tall grass and scattered stones cut deep. “When I looked at that, and  I saw those roses and that blue star there and all of the grass, it just made me feel like we  just forget them.”

And after the project?

“Once it was all pretty with the roses and the flowers, and St. Clair County Commission Chairman Stan Batemon came with our pine straw to put down, it was just beautiful,” Johnson says. “It’s rejuvenated.”

In a larger sense, the teamwork of the small cadre of volunteers, the public and private sectors, offers a glimmer of optimism and hope for the country during a polarized period.

She thinks of her best friend of three decades, Ellison, who sees Johnson’s serving sons as her nephews. “It does bring back a little bit of hope for our humanity. There are people who still care, who are still very patriotic and love our country and what it stands for.”

Johnson remembers when her sons were small boys. They’d go to the veterans’ home and fill bird feeders. As in those days, she said, the Blue Star project was “an honor. It’s a very, very small ‘thank you’ for what they’ve done for me,” Johnson says. “I always say I kept (my sons) safe when they were little and defended them. And now it’s an honor that they defend me.”

The county, teamwork and respect

For Ellison, it all comes down to one thing. “It was just teamwork, wanting to do a good thing.”

The project not only says something about the volunteers, but about Pell City and St. Clair County.

“When there’s a need,” Ellison says, “people come together to get a job done … It was just a matter of helping fellow man and wanting to do for and respect those people, men and women who served our country.”

She adds, “It was a matter of respect for them. We just wanted to return that respect any way that we could.”

Tanner agrees.

“People in St. Clair County truly care about veterans. I don’t mean this to be a North-South thing. But in the South, we honor and hold dear our veterans, family, God and country.”

And when locals and visitors pass the Pell City Blue Star Memorial marker – or any of them across the country – Tanner hopes a feeling washes over them of thankfulness, appreciation and honor for veterans in general. “We hope it will stir that feeling of thankfulness for their service.”

Museum of Pell City to premier veteran oral history series in November

Since opening in March, Museum of Pell City has hosted over 1,000 visitors from as close as library patrons from downstairs to as far away as Norway and Austria. Now, the museum’s volunteer team is working on its second thousand.

Capturing the essence of life and history in a city that has passed the century mark is not an easy task, but this 4,000 square foot museum suite blends thousands of photographs, artifacts, artwork, narratives and video to tell the story of days long past through present day.

Its next venture, one that had its beginnings right alongside the planning for the museum itself, is the official unveiling of its oral history series, War and Remembrance, just in time for Veterans Day. The museum board is taking it a step further by celebrating veterans all November long with programs and exhibit displays.

The War and Remembrance series is ongoing through a partnership with the Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home with filming and interviewing starting even before the museum opened its doors. Veterans of three wars, representing World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War, are a part of this initial collection to be shown in the museum’s special Living History Studio housed inside the museum.

The studio, equipment and related projects were made possible through a $25,000 grant from the Greater Pell City Rotary Community Foundation and as part of a $45,000 grant from the Alabama Power Foundation. The veteran series is being funded by a nearly $9,000 grant from Alabama Humanities Alliance.

“From the very beginning, we felt like oral history had to be the centerpiece of our efforts to preserve history,” said President Carol Pappas. “What better way to capture those pivotal moments in history or simply the remembrances of everyday life that helped shape the city we know today? We cannot thank our grantors enough for their generosity in providing a foundation we can build on for years to come.”

Deanna Lawley, 1^st vice president of the museum and coordinator of the Living History program, stressed the importance of preserving these voices of history. “Pell City clearly has a before and after community feel related to the 60s and the creation of Logan Martin Lake along with the connection to I-20. Residents who were in their teens at this time are now senior citizens. Their stories need to be saved and savored.”

The initial veteran series premiering in November includes interviews from veterans of World War II’s D-Day and Iwo Jima; conflicts of the Korean War; the Bay of Pigs invasion and Vietnam. See and hear accounts of those historic moments in war told by those who were there – “real people, real stories, real history,” Pappas said.

The series soon will be available in various forms on the museum’s You Tube channel website along with complete, word searchable transcripts of full interviews that may be accessed.

Inside the museum’s For Their Service section, see the flag that flew over a Navy ship on its way to Nagasaki and learn about the sailor aboard – a former district attorney in St. Clair County.

Read about Admiral Dennis Brooks, commander of the joint armed forces in the Persian Gulf during the Reagan administration and see his fighter pilot jacket on display.

And peruse the digital exhibit of letters home from a World War II combatant, giving visitors a look inside the lives of two young people from the battlefront to the home front. There will be more as planning continues.

“Our community and our county have a long history of military service, and this is a small tribute to them and all veterans that will be ongoing, added to and expanded as we continue this series,” Pappas said. To demonstrate Pell City’s impact on the military, visitors can learn more about Capt. Gardner Greene and the battalion formed in the city as a forerunner to the famed Rainbow Division.

As a special event on Nov. 2 at noon, the museum and library will partner in bringing Dr. Marty Olliff to the museum for the presentation, The Great War in the Heart of Dixie: Alabama in World War I. Olliff is a Professor of History at Troy University and the director of the Wiregrass Archives at the Dothan Campus.

He has served on the governing boards of: Alabama Historical Commission, Alabama Governor’s Mansion Commission, Alabama Humanities Foundation (now Alliance), Dothan Landmarks Foundation and Wiregrass Museum of Art. He also served as chairman of president of the Alabama Historical Association, Historic Chattahoochee Commission, Alabama Historians and the Society of Alabama Archivists.

He is the published author of two books: The Great War in the Heart of Dixie: Alabama in World War I and Getting Out of the Mud: Alabama’s Good Roads Movement and Highway Administration, 1898-1928.

Olliff’s presentation during a light luncheon will be the first special program the museum will host, and special guests to be honored that day are veterans from the veterans home.

Other programs are being planned on a regular basis on wide-ranging topics as part of the museum’s community outreach.

All museum exhibits, exhibitions and special programming are free to the public.

D-Day vet remembers that day, many more, at age 97

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka

Robert L. Curl was just a boy, like so many others, when he enlisted in the Navy. It was the summer of 1943, just a day after graduating from Minor High School in Adamsville. He had to take his dad with him to sign his enlistment papers because he was only 17. “My dad told me he wished he could go with me,” remembers Curl. “He was the best man I’ve ever known.”

The next three and a half years would take him all over the world as a member of the special amphibious unit, “Scouts and Raiders.” A precursor to the modern-day SEAL teams, these special forces were expected to identify landing beaches for troops during World War II and to lead forces to those landing zones.

Curl was a radarman aboard a Landing Cruise Control (LLC) headed to Normandy leading up to D-Day. It was his job on LCC-10 to find Omaha Beach and lead the first two waves of soldiers ashore. “That morning I was scared to death,” he recalls, “But I told myself I’m going to do my best. They had me wear an impregnable suit with a special armband that would change color to let us know if the Germans were using poison gas.”

They had already practiced the invasion during a top-secret mission called Operation Tiger, performed less than two months before. To prepare the Allied Forces as much as possible, this full-scale rehearsal for D-Day took place on the south coast of England. “It’s a good thing we did it,” said Curl. “There was a problem with what they called the Mae West lifejacket. During Operation Tiger, these were new, and the soldiers didn’t wear them right. So many people died in the waters because of that. They learned from it and taught people how to use them right.”

At 97 years old, Curl is sharp as a tack and recalls stories with vivid detail. Despite the wartime and personal tragedy he has experienced, he is one of the most positive and genuinely happy people you could ever meet.

He spent more than 70 years with the love of his life, whom he met just before the war. When he talks about his Nell (Spring) Curl, his face beams.

He met her the first Sunday after his Methodist minister father moved them to a new town. “When we got to church that day, I saw the most beautiful girl in the world doing the devotion,” Curl tells. “I leaned over to the guy next to me and told him I was going to marry that girl.”

He had to wait until the end of the war, but in 1946, he married his sweetheart. He shows me a piece of Victory Mail (V-Mail) that he sent to her during Operation Tiger dated “April 1944 – from somewhere in England.” Though she passed away in 2015, he still talks to her every evening before bed.

Curl still drives and often goes on road trips with his two sons, Rick and David. He tells of his first car, long since traded. “Ever heard of a Crosley,” he asks. “I had a ’46 Crosley and it had a whopping 46-horsepower engine the size of a carton of cigarettes,” he adds, laughing.

Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home a model for the country to follow

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka

As the country honors its veterans this Veterans Day, Pell City is celebrating the 10^th anniversary of its innovative Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home. This year’s celebration includes a party with special guests, along with a road trip to participate in the 75^th Birmingham Veterans Day Parade.

Twelve years ago, construction began on a state-of-the-art facility for veterans on 26 acres of land in Pell City donated by the St. Clair County Economic Development Council. After two years of construction, the $50-million home opened its doors. Named for Col. Robert L. Howard, a highly decorated United States Army Special Forces officer from Opelika, it was one of a handful like it across the nation.

What’s different about Pell City’s veterans home is both the design and management. It was built using the “Green House Model,” a design concept that features residential houses built in small neighborhood-style configurations. This contrasts the more typical multi-bed, multi-hall, single-building style of nursing home.

In the case of the Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home, the 240,000-square-foot facility has three neighborhoods, each with three 14-bedroom houses. The houses also have their owncommon spaces, including living rooms, dining rooms, staffed kitchens and porches. A single roof connects all three neighborhoods, so residents and staff do not have to go out in the weather to get from one place to another.

Gone, too, are the bustling nurses’ stations. Instead, smaller “home offices” contain the computers and information nursing staff need to assist the residents of a particular house. Specialized nursing equipment is tucked neatly away in storage rooms.

The structures are designed to feel like single-family homes, with services in the neighborhood like you might find in a typical town. Residents can go to the main building, called the “Town Center,” for services including dining options; physical, occupational or speech therapy; and even a haircut. Residents can use the onsite medical director as their family doctor, while still going off property to see specialists.

An unexpected benefit of the smaller-home style of skilled nursing care became evident at the onset of the pandemic. “Having private rooms and smaller units definitely helped keep COVID from spreading,” said director Hiliary Hardwick.

The Green House Model advantage is not just about facilities, though. The staff offer residents choices in most aspects of the daily schedule. Whether the choice is what time to get up, what to eat, or when to eat, the choices at Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home honor the veteran’s dignity and quality of life.

Over the past decade, delegations from several different states have come to town to see how this model facility works. Most recently, the veterans home hosted groups from Mississippi, Idaho and Oklahoma looking to experience the real-life application of the Green House Model prior to planning for their own veterans homes.

The Pell City veteran residents are happy to have been among the first in the country to take advantage of the new style of home.“I want to thank the people of Pell City and all of Alabama for building this place,” says WWII veteran Robert Curl.  Showing the day’s menu choices, he adds, “Look at what we get to eat! I tell everyone I live in a country club. It’s a really great place.”

Talladega native and veteran Kenneth Scoggins agrees. He moved in just four months after it opened and has served as president of the residents’ council for the last seven years. “It’s great, very clean and none of those smells you smell at other places,” he says. “I told someone (when I moved in) that I must have died and gone to nursing home heaven. We do things all the time, even go to ball games and out to eat.”

“We do have a lot to do around here,” agrees Hardwick. “There are always activities offered. We have Bible studies, pet therapy visits, musical guests, and special speakers.  James Spann, author and weatherman from ABC 33/40, was recently here with us.”

The facility does have a waiting list of nine months to a year, but Hardwick encourages anyone who qualifies to fill out an application. Qualifications include having served a minimum of 90 days of active duty, with at least one of those days having been during a period of war; having been honorably discharged and having been evaluated for medical needs.

Hardwick was a nurse at Trinity Hospital before leaving to help open the Pell City veterans facility. It’s a move she is very happy to have made. Her enthusiasm for her work is evident when she talks about the residents she spends time with each day. “I love being here where I get to interact with and help people who lived and breathed the history I’ve only read about in history books,” she says.

The 254 residents look forward to all holidays, Hardwick says, but none as much as they do Christmas. “At Christmas time, it looks like you’ve gone to Gatlinburg, we have so many trees decorated,” she explains. “We have an angel tree that we do for the veterans. People can take an angel off the tree and buy a couple of things a veteran wanted. Then at their Christmas party, they have gifts to open.”

Hardwick encourages anyone to get in touch with her if you would like to participate in the angel tree, help with the home’s benevolence fund or even donate bingo prizes. They also have in-person volunteer opportunities for those who might like to spend some time visiting a veteran.

Editor’s Note: To apply to the Col. Robert L. Howard Veterans Home, contact them at www.va.alabama.gov. For volunteer opportunities, contact Hiliary Hardwick at 205-338-6487.