Category: history

Post-War Letters to Flo

She Kept in Touch with Third Division Friends

My Mother and Audie Murphy Chapter 126

During and after the war Flo continued to correspond with friends in the Third Infantry Division and she saved some of their letters in her album. Some of these reference her love affair with Col. Chris Chaney. The last letter she saved from him was written in April, 1945. It seems they broke up near the end of the war. It’s likely Flo reunited with some of these men at the frequent reunions of the division.

Mailed from NY, NY

Jan 20, 1945

France

Dear Florence,

I suppose I should have written to you before but since I have to have all my letters written for me I have been reluctant to do so. I lost one eye completely and have only half vision in the other. Somewhat like the old saying “Blind in one eye and cant see out of the other one.” The docs tell me that I can see about as much as I ever will so I am doomed for retirement.

Your friend Glen

Part of a letter from a French-speaking friend

Lt. Gus Phillips

Feb 15, 1945

Dear Flo,

My left arm is paralyzed but should be ok in a week or so. They are going to take the pieces out of my left eyebrow in a few days so I will be as good as new. How has the Col (Chaney) been doing since I left? Guess I have lost out completely.

To be truthful, Flo, this is much better than when I was with the outfit. I am afraid it is spoiling me. Really it’s nice to have no worries and to eat and sleep.

Take care of yourself.

Love, Gus

Lionel C. McGarr

Colonel, Infantry

U.S. Army

August 2, 1946

Flo darling!

…. I know how you feel about getting settled. I am going through the same deal. I found one thing I liked when the war came along and now it is pretty hard to be a “peace time” soldier—don’t even like being a family man too much. Must be the “mileage” we put on over there.

I am Executive Officer at Ft. Myer now but will leave to go to the National War College Washington DC. It is the army’s top school and I guess I should feel flattered. It will be a ten month course starting in September.

The Regimental History was finished. It is a swell look and a “damn” well written history. It can never be as good as that “crazy” regiment actually was, Flo. You and I know that. Certainly is grand to write to you ‘cause I know that you understand. I look back over the 31 months of action and am “damn” proud of these kids—proud and humble. They were tops.

(About proposed deactivation of the division and citations) Why in hell (the commanders) don’t fight for us like we fought for them I don’t know. They always demanded everything and gave nothing in return. They still have their stars though. Our whole country seems to be the same.

They just want to forget the men we killed. I cannot forget them and I don’t want to forget them. In fact it is hard to sleep at night at times because of them. I feel that we all, those of us who understand, must keep up the fight to get for our country the things those kids died for. They forget soon—too soon!

(Jens) Jansen was here the other day. He is waiting for (Janet) Potts to get here and they are to be married—imagine!!

Love, Mac

September 12, 1946

Dearest Flo,

Received your swell answer to my last letter and your picture. The snap was swell. Jansen and Janet were married the 24thof last month at the Fort Myer chapel and I gave the bride away. They left shortly after for the West. I hear, later, that this is her third wedding. Golla! What a woman—if true! She looked swell and so did Floyd (Jens).

…. We had a letter from Chaney and he expected to be assigned to Atlanta Georgia. Don’t know what he is to do yet. Yes, Flo I knew—just sensed it—that you and he were crazy about each other. Maybe now you do wonder if he was worth it—and maybe now he isn’t. He was then I am sure and I am a bit disappointed in you that you did not let love have its way there. Happiness comes so seldom and in such small lots that I, being a realist as you say, think one should take advantage of it when it comes. Lord! knows you had plenty of heartbreak and no one, not that it matters, could have begrudged you that much happiness. One of our best pictures in the book is of your pals n’ you taken in Strasbourg.

I am now going to school and plenty busy. Being a school boy again is fun but hard to get used to again. Bye now—and don’t be too good—if it hurts.

Love, Mac

Postcard from Heidelberg from a soldier named Jack

P. B. Larimore

Memphis, Tenn.

Sept. 9, 1947

Dear Flo,

….I don’t know how any of we line company officers and doggies could ever forget you “Doughnut Gals.” There must be a very special and wonderful place reserved in every Marne Man’s heart for all of you.

I think I remember you all the night in Nancy when you all served doughnuts to my company. Do you remember that big white house we had for the company and the chow line out back?

Oh yes, Agolsheim, did you know that was the second big attack in which I had acted in the capacity of C.O.? Golly! But after things finally quieted down, I enjoyed that little town. That was the first time we ever had any fun on the Rhine River. About that big white goose—we did cook it, we did eat it, and it was good! Do wish Col. Chaney had let you stay long enough to have some. Do you remember that little courtyard in front of my C.P.? About 15 minutes after you left, three 120 MM mortar shells landed in the center of that courtyard. Lucky no one was hurt but those shells sure shot hell out of our rations. I shudder to think what would have happened had those shells come in while you were still there. C’est la Guerre!

Oh yes, I saw Col. Chaney in Atlanta about three or four months ago, still the same swell guy, but some of the things he told me about how and what condition I was in when they finally got me to the aid station did scare me a little.

I am retired now, much to my utter disgust, because it seems the army does not want one-legged officers now. So, since my hopes for an army career are shot, I am going to University of Virginia to take training to enter the State Department.

Sincerely, Larry

Murphy: HUAC Is Un-American

He Stands Up Against Attacks on Hollywood

My Mother and Audie Murphy chapter 125

Audie Murphy’s relationship with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) reveals a complex intersection of patriotism, celebrity, and the political paranoia of the Cold War. Murphy’s resistance to the climate of fear created by HUAC highlights a principled stand against the infringement of civil liberties and the weaponization of patriotism.

The House Un-American Activities Committee was a congressional committee formed in 1938 to investigate subversive activities within the United States. While its initial focus was on Nazi and fascist influence, its focus shifted sharply after WWII toward the perceived threat of communism. By the late 1940s and 1950s, HUAC had become a tool for political persecution, utilizing public hearings to “out” suspected communists. The committee operated on a system of coercion; witnesses were often pressured to “name names”—to identify colleagues, friends, or family members with socialist or communist leanings—in exchange for their own professional survival. Those who refused to cooperate were often cited for contempt of Congress or, more commonly in Hollywood, were placed on “blacklists,” effectively ending their careers.

From the book Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist by Thomas Doherty

Audie Murphy’s involvement with the anti-HUAC sentiment was less about an ideological alignment with the left and more about a visceral reaction to the committee’s tactics. Murphy, who had faced the horrors of war and seen the true meaning of sacrifice, found the committee’s methods of intimidation and betrayal abhorrent. For Murphy, the demand that citizens betray one another to prove their loyalty was fundamentally un-American. He viewed the HUAC hearings not as a defense of democracy, but as an attack on the very freedom of association and thought that he had fought to protect in Europe. 

Murphy’s stance was particularly potent because he was “untouchable” by the committee. As a national hero with a chest full of medals, including the Medal of Honor, he could not be easily painted as a “Red” or a subversive. This gave him a unique platform to criticize the committee without the immediate fear of professional ruin that haunted his peers.

Murphy was not alone in his opposition, though the risks for others were far higher. The most famous instance of resistance occurred in 1947 with the “Hollywood Ten,” a group of screenwriters and directors who refused to answer HUAC’s questions on First Amendment grounds. They were imprisoned for contempt, and their names became synonymous with the blacklist. Other stars took different paths of resistance. Paul Robeson, a world-renowned singer and actor, became a primary target of the committee due to his outspoken socialist views and his refusal to renounce them, leading to a systemic erasure of his career in the United States. 

Audie Murphy testifies

The First Amendment Committee made a radio program to defend the First Amendment and critique HUAC–Hollywood fights back. Forty-five stars, directors, screenwriters and four U.S. senators spoke.

Audie Murphy said: 

“You know during the war every guy in uniform dreamed of the day when he could stop squeezing triggers and come home. You get so fed up on fighting that you never want to do it again. There’s one kind of fighting that has to go on always. You can’t ever take a furlough from this fight to preserve human liberty. I think the methods used by the Thomas Rankin committee are a challenge to those liberties and I think we should use every fair and constitutional means to fight those methods.” (HUAC was also called the Thomas Rankin committee).

In the broader context of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, Audie Murphy’s opposition to HUAC serves as a reminder that the defense of civil liberties is not the exclusive domain of any one political party. Murphy’s resistance was rooted in a soldier’s code of honor and a citizen’s demand for privacy. By challenging the committee, he demonstrated that true patriotism consists not of blind obedience or the betrayal of others, but of the courage to protect the constitutional rights of all individuals, regardless of their political affiliations.

Murphy, in particular, embodied the principle that American heroes are defined not only by military valor but by the willingness to defend constitutional liberties. His opposition to HUAC showed that the most decorated soldier of World War II understood that the war’s true purpose—defending American freedom—required vigilance against threats to liberty even from within America’s own government.

Committee for the First Amendment Relaunched

Recently over 550 celebrities relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment. The current group is headlined by actor and activist Jane Fonda — whose father, actor Henry Fonda, was one of the early members.

Jane Fonda rallys fellow actors. Photo: msn.com

Their intent is to stand up in a defense of our constitutional rights: “The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry.”

In a letter inviting her peers to join the re-established group, Fonda writes: “I’m 87 years old. I’ve seen war, repression, protest, and backlash. I’ve been celebrated, and I’ve been branded an enemy of the state. But I can tell you this: this is the most frightening moment of my life. When I feel scared, I look to history. I wish there were a secret playbook with all the answers — but there never has been. The only thing that has ever worked — time and time again — is solidarity: binding together, finding bravery in numbers too big to ignore, and standing up for one another.”

Chapter 126: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/10/17/post-war-letters-to-flo/

The Legacy of the Nuremberg Trials

Contributions to International Law

My Mother and Audie Murphy Chapter 124

This is the 80th Anniversary of the Trials’ End

On October 1, 1946, the Nuremberg Trials concluded after nearly a year of unprecedented legal proceedings, marking a watershed moment in the history of international law. Eight decades later, this landmark tribunal stands as the cornerstone upon which modern international justice has been built. The trials represented humanity’s first comprehensive attempt to hold individuals accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity—establishing principles and precedents that would ultimately lead to the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a fundamentally transformed approach to global accountability.

The Context and Necessity of Nuremberg

Following World War II’s devastation, the victorious Allied powers faced an unprecedented challenge: how to address the systematic atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany. The Holocaust had claimed six million Jewish lives, alongside millions of others. War crimes, slave labor, and crimes against humanity had been committed on a staggering scale. Traditional warfare had rendered conventional military tribunals insufficient for addressing these crimes. The Allies recognized that justice required an entirely new legal framework—one that transcended national boundaries and established that individuals, regardless of their official position or nationality, could be held accountable for mass atrocities.

Aerial view of the Palace of Justice in 1945 where the trials took place, with the prison attached behind it. Photo: Wiki commons

The four major Allied powers—the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and France—convened in Nuremberg, Germany, to conduct trials of 24 high-ranking Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. The trials lasted nearly a year, from November 1945 to October 1, 1946. Of the 22 primary defendants, 12 were sentenced to death by hanging, three received life imprisonment, and four received shorter prison terms, while three were acquitted. 

Revolutionary Legal Principles

The Nuremberg Trials established several revolutionary legal principles that reshaped international law. First, they affirmed that individuals could be prosecuted for crimes against humanity even when those acts were technically “legal” under their own government’s laws. This principle directly challenged the notion of absolute state sovereignty and asserted that certain human rights transcend national jurisdiction.

Second, the trials established that “following orders” was not a valid defense for committing atrocities. The trials also introduced the concept of “crimes against peace”—the planning and waging of aggressive war—as a prosecutable offense under international law.

Third, the trials demonstrated that rigorous legal procedures, transparent evidence presentation, and the right to defense could coexist with accountability for mass atrocities. 

The Path to the International Criminal Court

The principles established at Nuremberg reverberated through subsequent decades of international legal development. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), adopted just two years after the trials concluded, embodied many Nuremberg principles in its assertion of universal human rights. The Genocide Convention (1948) similarly codified international liability for mass atrocities.

However, the Cold War froze the development of permanent international criminal institutions for nearly fifty years. It was not until the 1990s that the world revisited Nuremberg’s legacy. The atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda prompted the United Nations Security Council to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)—modern successors to Nuremberg’s model.

These tribunals paved the way for the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002, which represented the realization of Nuremberg’s foundational promise: a permanent international institution dedicated to prosecuting individuals for the gravest crimes of international concern. 

Americans Mostly Just Wanted to Move On

The gravity of the Nuremberg proceedings captured the public imagination, spawning films and documentaries that sought to dramatize the struggle between law and tyranny. One of the most notable cultural connections was Marlene Dietrich. She volunteered her time and resources to support the war effort and later used her global platform to champion the memory of the victims, ensuring the horrors documented at Nuremberg were not forgotten by the postwar generation. She performed in the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg.

While my mother, Florence Wick, didn’t include information about the trials in her WWII album, she paid close attention to them and the outcome. The idea of “organized justice” appealed to her, but she felt the trials did not go far enough and should have targeted more German perpetrators. She would be outraged that the U.S. refuses to participate in the ICC and that Trump proposes to sanction the court, calling it “rogue” and “evil.”

In the US, despite the historical importance of the trials, there was a powerful countervailing current of “war fatigue.” By 1946, millions of GIs were returning home, and the American economy was shifting back to peacetime production. While most Americans cared that the leaders were punished, there was a palpable eagerness to close the chapter on the war and look toward the future.

Chapter 125: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/10/06/murphy-huac-is-un-american/

Celebrating the Autumn Equinox

Santa Rosa’s Own Harvest Festival at Bayer Farm

Some of the harvest of the 93 individual garden plots at Bayer Farm

My Regular Pagan Holiday Post

As the northern hemisphere tilts away from the sun this September, the autumn equinox arrives to signal a timeless transition. For centuries, cultures across the north have marked this shift with harvest festivals, and in Santa Rosa, this tradition finds a vibrant, modern home in the Festival de la Cosecha. Celebrating its 19th year, the festival is more than just a seasonal gathering; it is a living testament to the persistence of local environmentalists and land-planning activists who fought to ensure that nature and community could thrive amidst urban growth.

Mon Petit Chou

The heart of the celebration is Bayer Farm, a five-acre city park that stands as a victory of equitable urban planning. For a century, the surrounding Roseland neighborhood existed as an unincorporated pocket, an island of mostly Latinx working-class residents surrounded by the city. Historical records suggest that Santa Rosa’s ruling elite and political machine hesitated to annex the area, fearing that incorporating Roseland would introduce a wave of new voters who might shift the municipal balance of power. Consequently, the residents of Roseland were denied the basic infrastructure—sewers, fire protection, and parks—that the rest of the city enjoyed.

Making salsa

The creation of Bayer Farm broke this cycle of neglect. Born from a unique partnership between the City of Santa Rosa, LandPaths, and the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District (Ag + Open Space), the farm embodies a vision of healing and equitable access to nature. It provides a sanctuary of greenery and cultural celebration right in the heart of a neighborhood that was long overlooked.

The entrance to the farm

The existence of this sanctuary is rooted in a legacy of activism. In 1990, citizens voted to establish Ag + Open Space to combat unchecked urban sprawl and protect the region’s rural identity. Through a strategic blend of grants, conservation easements, and a quarter-cent sales tax, the District works with landowners to keep the land undeveloped. This effort has permanently protected over 127,000 acres of forests, oak woodlands, working ranches, and critical waterways. By shifting the region away from a path of development and toward a model of sustainable coexistence, these activists created the very landscapes that we local residents now hike and cherish daily.

Crushing grapes the old fashioned way

Complementing this preservation is the work of LandPaths, an organization that has spent 30 years fostering a love of the land. By managing Bayer Farm and leading creative outings in both English and Spanish, LandPaths ensures that nature’s inspiration is accessible to everyone, regardless of their background. Through nature camps and community-led stewardship, they turn the act of conservation into a shared community experience.

Pomo dancers performing in the meadow

On September 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Festival de la Cosecha brings this history to life. The air fills with the sounds of the Sonoma County Pomo Dancers and Danza Xantotl, while visitors engage in herbal medicine workshops, cooking demonstrations, and spirited salsa competitions. Between browsing community booths and picking out pumpkins and fresh vegetables, guests gather to recognize the land and the stewards—past and present—who fought to save it. In the laughter and abundance of the festival, Santa Rosa celebrates not just the harvest of the earth, but the harvest of a long-term commitment to justice, ecology, and community.

Bayer Farm is located on the ancestral homeland of the Southern Pomo people.

The Men She Left Behind

Flo stays in touch with soldiers in occupied Germany

My Mother and Audie Murphy Chapter 122

In the spring of 1946, Flo had made it back home, but she remained connected to her friends in occupied Germany. One of them was a family friend from her hometown of Yakima, Major Dan Wickersham. In her album she posted a biographical sketch of him along with some pictures of others who stayed in the occupied zone. 

According to the sketch, “Major Wickersham has been with the Third Division longer than any other officer now present, and he has some definite ideas about how the peace should be kept.

“The public cry of ‘send my boy home to me’ is so depleting the Occupation Forces that we will soon be hard pressed to carry out all the projects required to adequately secure and maintain the Army of Occupation,” the major says.

“A victory that cost so much must be adequately protected. However, I have complete confidence that the Occupation will be successful and with new replacements that will begin to come from the States in December, effective strength will be assured.

“The future? Well, I love the Army and have given it six of the best years of my life, but at times my wife and that apple orchard in Yakima, Washington, look mighty good to me.”

The American Occupation Force remained in Germany for a decade, until 1955. I don’t know when Maj. Wickersham was able to return to Yakima. In the meantime, Flo commiserated (and fished) with his wife, also named Florence.

The Flos–Wick and Wickersham

The first anniversary of the Southern France invasion was August 15, 1946.

My brother Don found this clipping from the Nevada State Journal, 1956. Dan Wickersham’s granddaughter told me he died in a fishing accident on the Columbia River in 1964.

Comrades in the Occupied Zone sent pictures

Col. John A. Heintges (Flo’s 1945 Xmas date who later became a general) and Lt. Col. Ralph Flynn, 7th Infantry Regiment (L), Lt. Leland Nelson, whose parents Flo visited in Walla Walla WA (R)

Regimental staff, 30th Infantry

Col. Lionel G. McGarr, Reg. commander 30th Infantry at a funeral in Paris

2nd Lt. E.P. Homola

Chapter 123: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/09/21/flo-awarded-the-bronze-star/

Why Did the Cagneys Dump Murphy?

Bravery on the Battlefield Doesn’t Make an Actor

My Mother and Audie Murphy Chapter 121

In July 1946, James Cagney spotted the face of war hero Audie Murphy on the cover of Life magazine. To Cagney and his brother William, who ran their own production company, the twenty-year-old was a striking find—a “cute” kid with the kind of look that sells tickets. They signed him, brought him to Hollywood, and installed him in James’s guest house.

The arrangement was fraught from the start. One stormy night, Cagney went to check on Murphy, who was battling chronic nightmares. In a flash of combat-reflex, Murphy pulled a loaded Luger on Cagney. James managed to talk him down, but the encounter served as a visceral reminder that Murphy had brought the war home with him.

James Cagney. Photo: Creative Commons Public Domain

Despite the Cagneys’ efforts to school him in acting and dancing, Murphy never landed a role in their films. By 1947, he was released from his contract, reportedly following a disagreement with William Cagney.

Speculation regarding their fallout persists. Some argue Murphy simply lacked the craft; indeed, Murphy once admitted, “I’m working under a great handicap… no talent.” For Cagney, a devotee of the actor’s art, this was the crux of the issue. He maintained a sacred line between heroism and performance. “The man’s a hero,” Cagney once remarked, “but being brave on the battlefield doesn’t make you a master of the stage or screen.”

Cagney believed true acting required a soul-deep emotional truth that medals could not buy. He viewed the industry’s trend of casting “manufactured stars” as a betrayal of the profession. In private, he was blunter, noting that Murphy’s delivery sounded rehearsed and lacked authenticity. This wasn’t born of animosity—Cagney deeply respected Murphy’s service, admitting he could never match the soldier’s courage in Europe—but of a principled fury. He loathed that Hollywood was trading artistry for easy profit, using fame as a substitute for talent.

This divide represented two different Americas: one celebrating the patriotic icon, the other defending the sanctity of art. Their unspoken friction became a commentary on a timeless Hollywood dilemma: is stardom earned through craft or bestowed through fame?

While they maintained a distant acquaintance after the contract ended, Cagney recognized that Murphy had never truly left the war behind; he simply treated every role as a new battlefield. Behind the angelic face lived a ticking time bomb. Some theorists suggest the Cagneys eventually let him go simply out of fear—a theory that requires little explanation. Ultimately, Cagney likely intended to protect and mentor Murphy, but found the task of bridging the gap between a soldier’s trauma and an actor’s truth to be overwhelming.

Chapter 122: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/09/10/still-in-the-occupied-zone/

Audie Murphy After the War

A Timeline of His Post-War Life

My Mother and Audie Murphy Chapter 119

He was a war hero—THE most decorated hero of World War Two—and that was his epithet, even as he became a Hollywood movie star with more than 40 movies to his credit.

What no one, and especially the US military, wanted to talk about was the degradation of his life because of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and, I would argue, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Audie Murphy survived the war but not his invisible injuries.

To understand Audie Murphy’s post-war life, I’ve created a timeline that will help me explore the details in future posts.

Audie Murphy Post-War Timeline

My mother Flo’s famous picture of Audie when he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in the field May 12, 1945

Chapter 120: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/09/01/back-home-depression-takes-over/

A Day to Thank the Earth

My Regular Pagan Holiday Post

In Andean cultures, the feminine figure was valued as a living expression of Pachamama’s attributes. AI generated image

August 1 in the northern hemisphere is celebrated as Lammas, the first harvest day. In South America it is Pachamama Day, the start of the growing season.

I first encountered the idea more than fifty years ago, but I didn’t recognize its importance until much later.

While reading Charles Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, I kept noticing one name in the footnotes: Alfred Crosby. The name stopped me. Crosby had taught history at my alma mater, Washington State University, and I had been his student.

At the time I knew him simply as a professor. I had no idea I was sitting in the classroom of a historian who would change the way the world understood history.

In 1972 Crosby published The Columbian Exchange, introducing a revolutionary way of thinking about European conquest. History, he argued, was not driven only by kings, generals, and battles. Plants, animals, microbes, and ecosystems were just as important. His work essentially created the field of environmental history.

The Columbian Exchange describes the enormous movement of crops, livestock, diseases, technologies, and cultures between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia after Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Potatoes, tomatoes, and corn transformed Europe, Africa, and Asia. Horses and cattle transformed the Americas. But the deadliest travelers were invisible.

In Ecological Imperialism, Crosby argued that European conquest depended as much on biology as on military power. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and other diseases swept through Indigenous populations that had no immunity. Entire societies were devastated before they could organize resistance. Europeans inherited landscapes emptied by epidemics as much as they conquered them by force.

Charles Mann takes the story even further. He argues that the Americas were home to far larger populations than historians once believed—perhaps tens of millions more. The continent Europeans imagined as a wilderness had actually been carefully managed for centuries by Indigenous peoples. Forests, fields, rivers, and grasslands all bore the imprint of human stewardship.

The tragedy becomes even greater in that light. Not only were millions of people lost; countless traditions, languages, and ways of understanding the natural world nearly disappeared with them.

Nearly—but not entirely.

Some traditions survived.

Every August 1, Indigenous communities across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina celebrate Pachamama Raymi, or Festival of Mother Earth, one of the oldest pre-Hispanic ceremonies still practiced in South America. Pachamama, from the Quechua words pacha (world, space, or time) and mama (mother), is often translated as Mother Earth. But she is more than the ground beneath our feet. She represents the living world that nourishes all life. Pachamama is the fertility goddess in Inca mythology, responsible for planting, harvesting, creating mountains and earthquakes, as well as the very existence of life on Earth.

The celebration coincides with the start of the agricultural season in the southern hemisphere and centers on a simple but profound idea: reciprocity.

The Earth feeds us. We must feed the Earth.

On August 1, farmers allow their fields to rest. Families prepare offerings of cooked foods, corn, potatoes, fruits, coca leaves, medicinal herbs, chicha, seeds, and flowers. A small hole is dug in the ground—symbolically Pachamama’s mouth—and the gifts are placed into the earth. The offering is not payment but gratitude, an acknowledgment that human life depends on the generosity of the land.

It is, in essence, Thanksgiving.

Long before Europeans arrived in the Americas, Andean peoples had developed a tradition that recognized what modern environmental science is only beginning to emphasize: humans are not separate from nature. We exist because of it.

The ritual feels remarkably relevant today. We celebrate technological progress while exhausting soils, warming the climate, polluting rivers, and treating the Earth as an endless warehouse of resources. Pachamama Day offers another way of thinking—not about ownership, but relationship; not about extraction, but reciprocity.

I find myself wishing we had something similar in our Western culture.

Our Thanksgiving has become centered on football, shopping, and overeating, with little reflection on the land that produces our food or on the Indigenous peoples who first cultivated many of the crops on our tables. Imagine setting aside a single day each year not to consume more, but to acknowledge our dependence on healthy soil, clean water, pollinating insects, and the astonishing web of life that makes our existence possible.

Perhaps that is why Crosby’s work and Pachamama Day seem connected to me.

Crosby taught that history cannot be understood without ecology. The Andean peoples never separated the two in the first place.

One explains how civilizations rose and fell. The other reminds us how to live.

As August 1 approaches, I think about the professor whose lectures made a great impression on me, the civilizations whose knowledge survived against overwhelming odds, and the simple wisdom embodied in a handful of food returned to the soil.

The Earth has always sustained us.

Perhaps it’s time we remembered to say thank you.

On the Ship, Sailing into NY Harbor

Chapter 116 My Mother and Audie Murphy

Seeing Liberty: What Does the Statue Symbolize?

In Sweden, afternoon coffee is a daily ritual, and my grandmother Gerda carried the tradition with her to America. We often joined her at her tiny house in Yakima and later at her apartment in a senior housing complex across from the Presbyterian church.

As Grandma arranged homemade butter cookies on her little table and poured coffee into delicate cups, she reminisced about sailing into New York Harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time in 1905. She had been herded toward the line marked Aliens. The statue, rising above the harbor, filled her with emotion. Forty-four years later, after returning from a visit to Sweden, she saw it again. This time she joined the line marked American Citizens.

Flo on the deck of the USAT George Washington crossing the Atlantic

For Gerda, the Statue of Liberty symbolized America’s welcome to immigrants.

“I could only think, This time I’m a citizen,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.

My mother, Flo, sailed into New York Harbor in 1946 as she returned from Europe after the war. For her, the statue carried different memories. It reminded her of enormous loss—her fiancé and many friends had been killed—but also of pride. She and her generation had fought fascism and prevailed.

“When I saw the Statue of Liberty, I thought about all the people who died in that war,” Flo said. “The Americans were fighting for democracy.”

Ship dinner menu for March 25, 1946

Her face crumpled. A tear rolled down her cheek. Soon both my mother and grandmother were crying. To me, it seemed almost hysterical.

Flo loved history and liked to imagine the future.

“Maybe by the turn of the twenty-first century,” she sniffled, “war will be history.”

Lounging on deck. It took the Geo Washington about ten days to sail from France to NYC

Both women were unabashed patriots. Flo flew the American flag every Fourth of July, though by the early 1970s she had also become deeply troubled by America’s conduct in Vietnam. Gerda proudly displayed both the American flag and the blue-and-yellow Swedish flag in her home. She liked to say that she had voted in every election open to women since becoming a citizen.

I was not a flag waver. I was a flag burner—metaphorically. I never actually set fire to a flag, but my brother and I once cut up an American flag to sew a shirt. It was illegal then; today it might pass as a right-wing fashion statement. To me the flag represented a country whose foreign policy included overthrowing democratically elected governments, assassinating foreign leaders, and installing compliant dictators.

A musician entertains the crowd of GIs on deck

I had never seen my grandmother cry before, but I had often seen my mother cry, usually over war. During the Vietnam War she would call me in tears, saying her generation had failed to end war and now the responsibility belonged to mine. She carried the suffering of the world on her shoulders.

I vowed never to be like her. I wouldn’t cry. Crying was weakness—or so the culture taught me. Men didn’t cry, and men held the power. I wanted to be like them.

That afternoon, what struck me as sentimental nostalgia repelled me. I had never sailed into New York Harbor and never would. When I looked at the Statue of Liberty, I didn’t see freedom. I saw the thousands of Southeast Asians killed in a war my country was waging, the millions of tons of bombs dropped on civilians, villages burned, children scarred by napalm.

A finger points to the sign on shore reading “Welcome Home. Well Done.”

Years later, I began to wonder whether my mother’s extraordinary empathy exacted a physical toll. She was repeatedly hospitalized with severe asthma attacks. The disease eventually killed her at seventy.

Later still, I came to believe that Flo had probably returned from the war with what we now recognize as PTSD. The government had little interest in acknowledging psychological trauma, even among combat veterans, much less civilian war workers like my mother.

In NY harbor the Transportation Corps sign reads “Welcome Home.”

Like so many Boomers, I had grown up with a parent emotionally wounded by war.

At the time, though, I understood none of that.

All I felt was embarrassment at her tears.

The Statue of Liberty had meant hope to my grandmother, sacrifice to my mother, and hypocrisy to me. It took me a while to understand that all three meanings could be true at once.

Now, when I see the statue and read the Emma Lazarus poem, I’m the one who’s crying. I still cry for the people we kill in endless needless wars, for the immigrats we imprison, murder and deport, and I cry for our democracy and all that we have lost.

Photo by Tom Coe on Unsplash
The famous inscription mounted inside the statue

To start at the beginning of this story: https://mollymartin.blog/2024/11/04/my-mother-and-audie-murphy/

Chapter 117: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/08/02/catching-some-culture-in-nyc/

Going Home After 2 Years in Europe

Flo Boards the USAT George Washington at port of Le Havre

Chapter 115 My Mother and Audie Murphy

Flo and her cohort of Red Cross workers and G.I.s boarded the USAT George Washington at the port of Le Havre, France for the trip to New York. The ship was commissioned by the US Navy for troop transport in both the first and second world wars. 

Orders. Flo was hoping to accompany her friend Janet Tyson on the ship home but it appears they missed each other. Flo wanted to visit relatives in Sweden first.
Waiting to board the ship home
At the port of Le Havre where most US ships departed from
Lifeboat on the USAT George Washington
“Nissen huts at Le Havre”
Many flags. Photos by Flo Wick

An ocean liner built in 1908 for the Bremen-based North German Lloyd, at that time the George Washington was the largest German-built steamship and the third-largest ship in the world. Built to emphasize comfort over speed, she was sumptuously appointed in her first-class passenger areas and could carry a total of 2,900 passengers. Intended for Bremen to New York passenger service, the ship was named after the first president of the United States as a way to make the ship more appealing to immigrants, who then made up the majority of transatlantic passengers and believed formalities on arrival would be easier on a ship with an American name. After a fire, the ship was sold for scrap in 1951.

USAT George Washington. Photo: NavSource

Chapter 116: https://mollymartin.blog/2026/07/12/on-the-ship-and-sailing-into-ny-harbor/