04-05-2025
Layland Museum honoring World War II vets
Two ongoing — not to mention free — exhibits at the Layland Museum commemorate the 80th anniversary of World War II's end as well as the war's effect on the Johnson County home front.
'The focus is to show what was going on here during the war for Cleburne and Johnson County residents in addition to what was happening to people from here who went overseas and to pull those two things together,' Layland Director Stephanie Montero said.
The first exhibit: 'From the Home Front to the Battlefield' continues through May 31.
The second, 'Wartime Photographs by Lamar Sloane,' opens today and runs through July 26.
Pieces from Layland's collection join donated items to make up the first exhibit. The roles of local African-Americans in the war effort, female workers, Keene Seventh-day Adventist who participated in the Medical Cadet Corps, Cleburne's German POW camp and more fill the exhibit. The diverse and many ways, in other words, in which county residents contributed to the war effort both here and abroad.
'My parents lived through World War II and my father fought in it,' Montero said. 'So, for my generation, it was more recent history.
'One of the things we're hoping to accomplish is to bring the war home in a sense by showing what was happening here at that time and, for younger people, to make those times a little more real and filled out than just ancient history they might have read about in a textbook. Hoping they'll become more interested and maybe even ask their parents who can tell them about their parents and grandparents and great uncles and aunts and so forth who lived through those times.'
Layland staff worked with Southwestern Adventist University history professors Steve Jones and Chloe Northrup as well as several of their students in the planning and organizing of the exhibit.
'The classes met here all last semester with different students researching and focusing on different areas of the war,' Montero said.
A wall of photographs of local residents who served in the war donated by current residents has also proved popular, Montero said, adding that residents may still donate photos and stories.
Jerry Bradbury, father of Cleburne resident and business owner Melissa Bennett, is among those pictured.
Brabury was a pharmacy assistant and merchant Marine. He was on a boat that performed a rescue.
'They rescued some people whose boat had been kamikazed including one woman who was pregnant,' Montero said. 'She went into labor. Well, Bradbury wasn't a doctor but he had to do the best he could to help her deliver, which she did. His story made the newspapers all over the country.'
Closer to home, an old gramophone and recreation of a typical 1940s kitchen lend a feel for the times as do items related to Cleburne musician Harvey Anderson.
'He was a big band director from here and very popular,' Montero said. 'Doc Severinsen and other big names of the time played with and were good friends of his. In fact, my parents used to go to dances Harvey Anderson played.'
Another section of the exhibit highlights Johnson County's own Rosie the Riveters.
'A lot of women from here either drove or moved to Fort Worth temporarily during the war to work at Consolidated, which later became General Dynamics and then Lockheed, to help build planes back then,' Montero said.
The Cleburne Conference Center now sits on land Cleburne's German POW camp once occupied. About 425,000 German POWs were held at 700 such camps throughout the country with about 50,000 of them waiting out the war in one of Texas' 70 camps. Former Johnson County Judge Roger Harmon's father, Larry Harmon, served as a guard at the Cleburne camp.
'You kind of wonder why they went to all the effort to ship them to America and set up all those camps,' Montero said. 'Maybe they figured if they held them in Europe they might escape and go back to fighting. But here, if they escaped, there wouldn't really be anywhere for them to go or any way to get back home.'
Grandview resident Sandra Neeley donated numerous items from her father, Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Lowell L. Harris, a member of the 494th Fighter/Bomber Squadron who served in the European theater during the war.
'He was a propeller specialists and worked on airplanes,' Neeley said.
Harris joked that her father nearly missed the war because the Army kept sending him to different schools stateside. Once there, however, he worked out of airfields in England.
The only time he got shot at was when an airplane zeroed in on him and his crew and they had to run for cover.
'He was also flown in behind the lines to an airfield after D-Day so they could go back to repairing the planes,' Neeley said. 'He stayed a while after the war and there's a picture of him in Nuremburg Stadium where Hitler and his cronies used to make speeches and carry on.'
Neeley said her father otherwise spent all of his life in Johnson County outside his war tenure and about three years in Lamesa.
'He was born in Cuba, which is now Sand Flat and his birth certificate says Cuba,' Neeley said. 'My grandfather was Dr. Larkin Harris and he moved his family of 11 kids to Cleburne since Cuba only had a small elementary school.'
Harris worked as a bookkeeper after the war and later for the post office, the current Cleburne City Hall building, until his retirement.
'He told me some stories about the war,' Neeley said. 'Unfortunately, I was too young at the time to really understand. Otherwise, he didn't talk about it much. I think most of he and his generation just sort of did their duty, came home, went to work, got married and got on with it.'
From clothing, to cards and letters to a still intact breakfast ration box to Nazi armbands and other items Harris found in a boxcar, Neeley contributed numerous items to the exhibit.
'I think daddy would be humbled and maybe overwhelmed by the attention this is getting,' Neeley said.
Neeley said she hopes the exhibit reignites interest in the older generation and spurs the same among the younger generation.
'Being married to a Vietnam veteran who has two Purple Hearts, I'm glad to see that people have an interest in honoring our veterans again,' Neeley said. 'I hope that never goes away, because those people put their lives on the line for people back then and people yet to be born.'
Neeley praised the efforts of the Layland and SWAU team members responsible for the exhibit.
'It's one of the most informative and well done exhibits I've seen at Layland,' Neeley said. 'It covers so many people and things from that era, and that's what museums are for, bringing history back to life.'
photos on display
The second exhibit consists of photos Shubert Lamar Sloan took during his time in North Africa and Italy.
'His daughter, Landa Sloan Orrick brought in a bunch of these photos,' Montero said. 'She lives in Fort Worth now but was born and raised here.'
Sloan, a member of the 36th Texas Division, participated in the first amphibious landing in Europe and was present during the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino and was part of the group moving toward Germany as the war ended. The photos originate from a Hasselblad camera.
'Apparently he or someone else liberated the camera from a German soldier who would no longer be taking pictures to put it politely,' Montero said.
The two exhibits work together to offer a fuller picture and fresh take on World War II both here and there, Montero said.
'There's just some really great stories of that time so many of the people around here have,' Montero said. 'It's such an honor to be able to share those.'
