Latest news with #UnionArmy
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Cemetery makes final preparations for Memorial Day
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Memorial Day is a day where we can remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. The week leading up to the holiday can be a busy time for cemeteries, especially for staff at Mount Pleasant in Sioux Falls, who had to clean up a mess left behind by heavy winds last week. Keepers of the cemeteries in South Dakota It was a calm and sunny morning at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Leola Sievers was there, and our fallen U.S. military members were weighing heavy on her heart. 'It's so peaceful here for us today. What would it be like if they didn't fight for our country? What would it be like today?' Sievers said. As people like Sievers were paying their respects, cemetery manager Matt Gage and his son, Archer, were still cleaning up after heavy winds last week scattered branches over the grounds. 'We pushed through, and we got the place mowed. We're finishing branches this morning still, but we're open, and families have been here all weekend,' Matt Gage said. It was a furious cleanup. 'It was insane. We had about a half dozen volunteers come in from the community and agree to help us help with mowing, help with picking up sticks, help with putting out flags yesterday morning, helping plant flowers,' Matt Gage said. Memorial Day also has a special meaning to Matt Gage. Mount Pleasant is his four-time great grandfather's final resting place. He served for the Union Army in the Civil War as a veterinarian. 'It's the reason that I choose to work here: family and friends. Mount pleasant is full of family and friends, and I think it's an important place to maintain and preserve,' Matt Gage said. It's just one of the many stories you can find at Mount Pleasant and one more reason why the Gages try to honor those we lost. 'It's just really important to me because I can see the sacrifices they had to make to basically keep us safe,' Archer Gage said. Gage says he also hired a mowing company that put in more hours than contracted to help get the cemetery ready for the weekend. LIST: Memorial Day events in South Dakota Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Veterans interred in Pine Hill Cemetery brought to life May 18
WESTFIELD — On Sunday, May 18, volunteers and actors brought veterans ranging from the Civil War to WWII interred in Pine Hill Cemetery to life in 'Grave Conversations: Pine Hill Cemetery Veterans Speak.' Pine Hill Cemetery Superintendent Kali Fantaskis said the event was a great success. 'The Friends of Pine Hill Cemetery are incredibly grateful to all the wonderful members of our community that purchased tickets and donated towards the continued restoration of the Parks Memorial Chapel! It was a beautiful day. We thank our fantastic actors, guides, and volunteers, without each and every one of them this tour would not have been possible,' Fantakis said. Among the veterans featured were Edwin R. Lay, who served honorably for the Union Army during the Civil War and was a charitable philanthropist and distinguished member of the community, who was portrayed by Eric McDowell. Lay's charity extended to the Lyon post of the Grand Army of the Republic and the G.A.R. plot at Pine Hill Cemetery, with his donation of an impressive monument to honor the veterans laid to rest there. Also featured was Maryann Ochs Douglas, who was portrayed by Theresa Allie. Douglas served as a Link Trainer instructor, training Naval pilots to fly in the revolutionary aerial flight simulator. The script detailing the lives of the eight veterans was written by Westfield State University student Courtney Berthiaume, a junior at the university majoring in English with a concentration in writing. 'She composed the compelling stories of our eight featured veterans with great care and attention to detail. We were very lucky to work with such an exceptional young writer,' Fantakis said. All tour proceeds support the continued restoration of the historic Henry Lyman Parks Memorial Chapel located inside the cemetery's main gate. The event was presented by the Friends of Pine Hill Cemetery, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of Pine Hill Cemetery. The group is devoted to fundraising, historical research, education through community events, and the overall betterment of the cemetery. Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
This lemon icebox pie is a refreshing summer sweet treat for potlucks, picnics
In warm Southern climates, nothing was more refreshing than a cool lemon pie in the fridge. It was that classic pie you'd make ahead with eggs, sweetened condensed milk and lemons, chill, and take to church. Originally a 1930s French Creole recipe out of New Orleans, it was the pie once there was refrigeration. That pie would travel to Denver, which is where Adrian Miller's mother baked it for her church gatherings. Johnetta Solomon Miller was born and in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and raised on lemon icebox pie. And so after she moved west and joined Denver's Campbell Chapel African Methodist Episcopal (which he has jokingly said stands for ''always meet and eat''), she made this sweet confection of tangy lemon filling on top of crushed vanilla wafers for church potlucks and other gatherings. It closely resembled the recipe on the back of the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk can. Lemon icebox pie was nothing without canned milk. And canned milk saved many a small town cook in the South because it could rest on the pantry shelf and not need refrigeration. In fact, it was born because Gail Borden, a newspaperman and surveyor, was returning from a trip to England in 1851 when he saw children dying on his ship after they were fed milk from diseased cows on board. Borden had moved south to Liberty, Mississippi, and later, Texas, for health reasons and a warmer climate. His wife and children died of yellow fever in 1844 and 1845, and afterwards, Gail Borden focused on making food safer to eat. As it turned out, the sugar in Borden's mixture helped soak up the water in the milk and inhibited the growth of bacteria. The concoction was a yellowish, sweet, thick milk and at first it didn't sell. But the U.S. government purchased it as rations for the Union Army during the Civil War, and after the war, production took off. In some places in the South, without central air conditioning — the 1950s and '60s for sure, but I recall a hot Atlanta apartment in the 1970s! — people didn't turn on their ovens to bake. I remember when aluminum ice cube trays that came with refrigerators often did double-duty and were filled with frozen icebox pies. Johnetta Miller and a lot of good Southern cooks have known the refreshing quality of a summer lemon icebox pie. Hope you enjoy this recipe from my book, "Baking in the American South." Makes: 8 servings Prep and Cook: 30 to 35 minutes Bake: 20 to 27 minutes for crust and meringue Chill: At least 4 hours For the Vanilla Wafer Crust: 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter 58 Vanilla Wafer or thin ginger cookies or 12 whole graham crackers (1 1/2 cups crumbs) For the filling: 4 large eggs 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk 4 to 5 medium lemons 1/2 cup sugar Place a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make the crust: Place the butter in a small saucepan over low heat to melt. Break the cookies or crackers into the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until crumbs, 10 to 15 seconds. (You can also smash the crumbs using a large Ziploc bag and rolling pin and mix the crust in a large bowl.) Pour the melted butter into the processor and pulse 6 to 8 times so the ingredients pull together. Press the crust mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie pan, or a 1 1/2-quart casserole. Make the filling: Separate the eggs, placing the whites in a large bowl for the meringue and the yolks in a large bowl. Pour the condensed milk into the bowl with the yolks and whisk to combine well or beat with an electric mixer on low speed until well combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Wash the lemons and pat dry. Grate the zest of 1 lemon into the bowl with the yolks. Cut all the lemons in half and juice them to yield 1/2 cup lemon juice. Pour this into the bowl with the yolks, and whisk well to combine, or mix on low speed 1 minute until well incorporated. Pour into the crust, and place in the oven to bake until set, about 15 minutes. Leave the oven on. To make the meringue: Beat the egg whites at high speed with an electric mixer until foamy, 1 to 2 minutes. Continue beating, gradually adding the sugar until it forms stiff and glossy peaks, about 2 minutes more. Spoon the meringue over the top, and create swirls with a spoon or spatula. Place in the oven to brown, about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove to let cool to room temperature, 1 to 2 hours, before slicing. Chill uncovered for up to three days. ANNE BYRN is the New York Times bestselling food writer and author of Baking in the American South. She lives in Nashville, was the former food editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writes the weekly newsletter Between the Layers on Substack, and is a frequent contributor to the Bitter Southerner and Southern Living. If you have questions for Anne, send them to anne@ This article originally appeared on Southern Kitchen: Easy, creamy lemon icebox pie recipe for potlucks, picnics, summer
Wall Street Journal
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘The Damned' Review: Stasis in the Civil War
War is boring as hell in 'The Damned,' an austere western drama set far from the battlefields on the 1862 frontier. It seeks not to tell a story but to capture a set of feelings. None of them are pleasant. Beginning with a less-than-subtle image of wolves tearing apart a carcass, Italian writer-director Roberto Minervini all but announces his intent to add an entry to the already voluminous antiwar cinema. Evocatively naturalistic, his film painstakingly captures the largely uneventful existence of a small troop of Union Army volunteers somewhere out in the borderlands of the West. We don't learn the name of the state or territory where the film takes place, just as we are not told the names of any of the men. Instead, we observe their daily rituals—drinking bad coffee, playing ball games, standing guard around the perimeter. Among their most vital activities is peering at a ridge to see if any minute detail ever changes, which might as well be a metaphor for this type of film.
New York Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘The Damned' Review: Unfortunate Sons
The skies are overcast and the tone is contemplative in 'The Damned,' as a small company of Union Army soldiers sets out in 1862 to explore the dangerously unmapped territories of the American West. What emerges, though, is more akin to a mood poem than a war movie. In keeping with the socially conscious sensibilities of its director, the Italian-born Roberto Minervini (whose previous work has sometimes probed the forgotten souls of rural Texas and urban Louisiana), 'The Damned' is shaped as a wistful and laconic study of the minutiae of survival. Though billed as his first fiction film, it wobbles tantalizingly on a permeable line between narrative and documentary. Unscripted events and largely unnamed characters emerge organically from the director's offscreen prompts and the men's immersion in the life of the camp where much of the movie takes place. This means that, for long stretches, we're watching the soldiers pitch tents, play cards, do laundry and complain about the deepening winter and declining rations. Embedded alongside the men, we eavesdrop on conversations that range from instructive to confessional, hopeful to cautiously philosophical. They have come from all over, with beliefs as varied as their reasons for enlisting. A golden-haired 16-year-old admits to having shot only rabbits and squirrels before following his father and older brother into the Army. When the three pray together, secure in their faith that the only happiness lies in the afterlife, his innocence is heartbreaking. If God is here at all, he's in the details: the pot of coffee bubbling on a laboriously built fire; the dusting of snow on a pitch-black beard; the veins of gold in a lump of quartz. 'This land has it all,' one man marvels, seeing beyond the conflict to the promise of the soil and the wildlife around them. At times, these moments are acutely lyrical, as when we watch a soldier lovingly clean his horse's head (of mud or blood, we don't know), then press his forehead against the animal in silent communion. Politics is almost entirely absent, along with its accompanying animosities. When a Virginian, who joined up in defiance of his slave-owning neighbors, quietly announces that 'putting people in chains is wrong,' there is no argument from those comrades who are simply there for the paycheck. By contrast, the ease of the film's early rhythms and the intimacy of Carlos Alfonso Corral's images have an almost lulling effect, the sense of tranquillity so strong that when the shooting starts, the shock is real. For a time, all is chaos, the men frantically running, apparently without direction or strategy. Are they heading toward or away from the invisible shooters? We assume they're being ambushed by Confederate snipers, or perhaps even the silent cowboys who circled them one day, but the director doesn't clarify. Pointlessness is his point, as is terror, exemplified by the trembling soldier who desperately hunkers his body against a hillock, the competence and confidence he displayed in earlier scenes already melted away. Shot in Montana in 2022, using mainly nonprofessional actors (including local firefighters and members of the National Guard), 'The Damned' relies on improvised dialogue and a resolute refusal to manufacture tension or good guy-bad guy distinctions. The style is impressionistic and minimalist: Sometimes the only illumination is a flaming torch, the only color Union blue, the only soundtrack the howling of wolves. Cold and hunger and a general aimlessness give the men — and us — time to reflect on the horror of a mission that requires them to kill their fellow countrymen. And when one man remarks that many of his beliefs had later turned out to be false, even the family of Baptists has no answer. In the movie's final section, a hushed mournfulness prevails as the dead are buried and the company searches for a route through the mountains. Minervini, who moved to New York just months before the Sept. 11 attacks, isn't interested in lecturing us on pacifism. Yet as we once again experience a painfully divided nation, we're also occupying a cinematic space between the past of 'The Damned' and the near-future schism of Alex Garland's 'Civil War' (2024). In that space, we can clearly see how far we have come and how little we have learned.
