Not So Wordless Wednesday- Patton Park, Hamilton, Massachusetts

Patton Park, Hamilton, Massachusetts

About eight years ago my daughter had a high school assignment to interview older relatives about their memories of Pearl Harbor and World War II. This was not long after September 11th, 2001- so she could relate to my uncle telling about how he was in high school, listening to a football game on the radio, when he heard the news about Pearl Harbor. He must have been about her age at that time. We went down to Massachusetts so she could record the interviews with my aunt, uncle and Mom for the assignment.

That same day I drove her to Hamilton, Massachusetts. My mother grew up there, and I remember visiting my grandparents in Hamilton. In the center of town is Patton Park. General George Smith Patton lived in Hamilton, and Mom used to babysit his grandchildren. He had donated one of his famous Sherman tanks to the town as a war memorial. When I was little we used to be able to climb inside, but it's since been welded shut. As you can see, kids still enjoy climbing on it.

Note: I still have the audio tapes of her interviews. This is good because my uncle has since passed away. My aunt, uncle and Mom spoke for over an hour about the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor and the home front during World War II. By the end of the war, my uncle was serving as a Paratrooper in Europe.


Click here to see a blog post with a transcript of the tape mentioned above.

------------------
Copyright 2010, Heather Wilkinson Rojo