July/August, 2010

In this Issue:

 President's Message  Coming Events
 The Star-Spangled Banner  July/August Celebrations
 Membership Meeting Hiatus  Know the Clans
 Robert Burns  Caledonian Society Officers
 Patriotic Names  General Meeting Minutes
 Our Heritage: American & Scots  Important Dates in July
 The Statue of Liberty  Important Dates in August


President's Message
CALEDONIANS!
 
We are officially into the Summer Season in the Valley of the Sun, and that means the Caledonian Society is taking a couple of months off from our meetings. We will reassemble in September and hope the heat has let up just a little.

The Board members will be busy during this time working to get our 2011 Games plan started. We have to get the Park reserved for our dates this month (June) and work up our estimated budget.

We are looking to do some fundraising to help ease the terrible lose due to weather we suffered at the 2010 Games. If you have any ideas, I hope you will contact a board member and share your idea with us and help us to make it happen. We need everyone to step up to the plate and help us put our organization back together. “Many hands make lighter work”. It is our Society and our heritage so please come out and help us rebuild.

Our next Newsletter will be in September 2010. I sincerely hope each of you has a good summer.
 
Jean Latimer



The Star-Spangled Banner

Today, when we speak of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, we are usually speaking of the anthem we sing before a sporting event or some other type of gathering. But the real Star-Spangled Banner or sometime called the Great Garrison Flag is the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor during the naval portion of the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. The image of the flag during the battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem. The poem would later be set to an old tune and become the national anthem of the United States.

When Major George Armistead expressed a desire for a very large flag to fly over Fort McHenry, flag maker Mary Pickersgill was commissioned by the government to make a “flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance”. The flag measured approximately 30 feet by 42 feet. The flag had fifteen horizontal red and white stripes as well as 15 white stars. The two additional stars and stripes, approved by the U.S. Congress’s Second Flag Act of 1794, represent Vermont and Kentucky’s entrance into the Union.

The flag was flown over the fort when 5,000 British soldiers and a fleet of 19 ships attacked Baltimore on September 12, 1814. The bombardment and continuous shelling occurred for 25 hours under heavy rain. When the attack ended the battered flag still flew above the ramparts, and it was clear that Fort McHenry remained in American hands. This revelation was famously captured in poetry by Key, an American Lawmaker and then– amateur poet. Being held by the British on a true ship in the Patapsco River, Key observed the battle from afar. When he saw the Garrison Flag still flying at dawn the next morning, he composed a poem he originally titled Defiance of Ft. McHenry (or Defence of Fort McHenry). The poem would be put to the music of a common tune, and be re-titled The Star-Spangled Banner. Only a portion of that poem would later he adopted as the U.S. National Anthem.

The flag that flew during that episode in history became a significant artifact. It remained in the possession of Major Armistead for some time. The Armistead family occasionally gave away pieces of the flag to persons it considered deserving. The flag currently measures 30 feet by 34 feet. Today it is permanently housed in the National Museum of American History, one of the Smithsonian museums on the National Mall in Washington D.C.



Membership Meeting Hiatus
There will be NO Membership Meetings held in the months of July and August. Our next Membership Meeting will be on September 9.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!



Robert Burns
A Fitting Finish

Every January 25th millions of folk celebrate the birth of Scottish bard Robert Burns at Burns Suppers held worldwide, but only a few of these enthusiastic followers remember that July 21st is the anniversary of the day he died in Dumfries in 1796.

He was buried on Monday, July 25th, and a newspaper of the day giving an account of his funeral reported: “The Royal Dumfries Volunteers, of which he was a member, in uniform with black crepe on their left arms, carried the bier, moving in slow time to the ‘Death March In Saul’ played by a military band. The principal part of the inhabitants of the bard from remote parts followed in procession, the great bells of the churches tolling at intervals. Arriving at the churchyard gate the members of the funeral party formed two lines and leaned their heads on their fire-locks pointing to the ground. Through this space the corpse was carried. The whole ceremony formed a solemn, grand and respectful spectacle and accorded with the general regret for the loss of a man who’s like we shall scarce see again.”



Patriotic Names


Thirty places nationwide have liberty in their names. The most populous is Liberty, Missouri.

Eleven places have independence in their name. The most populous is Independence, Missouri.

Thirty-two places are named eagle. Eagle Pass, Texas has the most residents.

Five places adopted the name freedom. Freedom, California has the largest population.

There is one place named patriot. Patriot, Indiana has a population of 195.

And what could be more fitting than spending the Fourth of July in a place called America? There are five such places in the country with the most populous being American Fork, Utah.



Our Heritage: American and Scots
From The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots Invention of the Modern World by Arthur Herman


As we reflect on our American heritage and celebrate our independence this 4th of July let us also remember our Scots heritage that came before our American heritage.

Sir Walter Scott said, “I am a Scot and therefore had to fight my way into the world”. That fight led the Scots to change our world as no other people in modern times have done. From 1745 on, Scots proceeded to alter nearly every aspect of Western civilization for the better--from education, theology, and medicine, to law, economics, engineering and literature. David Hume reshaped modern thought; Adam Smith gave birth to economics, while Adam Ferguson laid the foundations for sociology. James Boswell became the most famous biographer in the English language. James Watt developed the steam engine. Thomas Telford and John Macadam revolutionized communication and transport and Scottish doctors and teachers turned modern medicine from an amalgam of prejudice and guesswork into a systematic scientific study whose primary focus was the welfare of the patient. Other nations would play a part in the making of the modern world, but it was the Scots who drew up the blueprints the rest would follow.

Without the Scots there would have been no American Revolution, no American constitution and no American frontier spirit or myth of the self-made man--an extension on American soil of Scottish Presbyterianism’s validation of individual self-worth. Without liberal politicians, the direct heirs to the Scottish Enlightenment, there probably would not have been a Reform Bill of 1832, just as without Scottish soldiers, missionaries and statesmen, the British Empire would simply have been an apparatus for exploitation instead of a blueprint for a future Commonwealth. It’s an amazing record.

From 1790 until the First World War, perhaps two million Scots left their homeland to make a life in the greater world. They were men and women who brought their energy, skills, and traditions to recast the planet. They transformed every place they touched, from America and Canada to Australia and South Africa, from the icy shores of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to the rain forests of Ceylon and New Guinea.

They included ordinary Scots as well as middle-class politicians and intellectuals. They worked as dockhands, merchants, farmers, soldiers, missionaries, doctors, nurses and teachers. They left a legacy that endures today: the idea that humanity can tackle its own difficulties and dilemmas and overcome them. It is the promise of modern life. But it also includes an obligation. For Scots, it was not enough just to fight their way into the world. They also found ways to reshape that world so that those who came after them would not have to fight so much.

The best Scottish virtues are embedded deep in American culture: a profound pride in his work, meticulous attention to detail; a no-nonsense efficiency and practical know-how combined with a sense of vision and broad cultural horizons. They are part of what Scotland has given to us as a society and a people.

The 19th century Scots taught the world that the past does not have to die or vanish; it can live on and help to nourish posterity. So as Americans this 4th of July we can be proud of our American heritage, but as Scots we can also be proud of those who made possible what we now enjoy.

 



The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty, officially titled “Liberty Enlightening the World” is a monument that was presented to the United States by the people of France in 1886 to celebrate its centennial. The copper-clad statue, dedicated on October 28, 1886 commemorates the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and was given by France to represent the friendship between the two countries established during the American Revolution.

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi sculpted the statue; Maurice Koechlin—chief engineer of Gustave Eiffel’s engineering company and designer of the Eiffel Tower—engineered the internal structure; and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc was responsible for the choice of copper in the statue’s construction. The statue is of a robed woman holding a torch, and is made of a sheeting of pure copper, hung on a framework of steel. The flame of the torch is coated in gold leaf (originally made of copper and later altered to hold glass panes). It stands atop a rectangular stonework pedestal. The statue is 151 ft tall, but with the pedestal and foundation, it is 305 ft tall.

Worldwide, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the United States and often was one of the first glimpses of the U.S. for millions of immigrants after ocean voyages from Europe.

Discussions in France over a suitable gift to the United States to mark the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence were headed by the politician and sympathetic writer of the history of the United States, Eduard Rene de Laboulaye. French sculptor Bartholdi was commissioned to design a sculpture with the year 1876 in mind for completion. The first model, on a small scale, was built in 1870.

While on a visit to Egypt that was to shift his artistic perspective from simply grand to colossal, Bartholdi was inspired by the project of the Suez Canal. He envisioned a giant lighthouse standing at the entrance of the canal and drew plans for it. It would be patterned after the Roman goddess Libertas with both a headband and a torch thrust dramatically upward into the skies. He presented his plans to the Egyptians but the project was never commissioned.

It was agreed that in a joint effort, the American people were to build the base and the French people were responsible for the statue and its assembly in the United States. Bartholdi had initially planned to have the statue completed and presented to the United States on July 4, 1876, but a late start and subsequent delays prevented it. However, by that time the right arm and torch were completed. This part of the statue was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where visitors were charge 50 cents to climb the ladder to the balcony. In 1877 a site, authorized in New York Harbor by an Act of Congress, was selected by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who settled on Bartholdi’s own choice, then known as Bedloe’s Island. On February 18, 1879, Bartholdi was granted a design patent by the United States on “a statue representing Liberty enlightening the world”.
 

The financing for the statue was completed in France in July 1882 and construction was completed in July 1884. The cornerstone of the pedestal being built on Bedloe’s Island was laid in August 1884, but the construction had to be stopped by lack of funds in January 1885. It was resumed in May 1885 after a renewed fund campaign by Joseph Pulitzer.
The statue arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885 on board a French frigate. Financing for the pedestal was completed in August 1885 and construction was finished in April 1886. The statue which had been stored in crates for eleven months was assembled on the finished pedestal in four months.
In 1903 Emma Lazarus’ poem The New Colossus was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the Statue of Liberty. Her poem refers back to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes statue which was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The New Colossus
 
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

There are 354 steps inside the statue and its pedestal with 25 windows in the crown. The tablet which the statue holds in her left hand is inscribed in Roman numerals: July IV MDCCLXXVI — July 4, 1776, the day of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

The green-blue coloration is caused by chemical reactions, which produced copper salts and created the current hue. Most copper in the outside elements, left to their own, will eventually turn this color in a process called patination.

To give an idea of the size of the statue here are a few measurements: Length of nose—4 ft 6 in; Thickness of waist—35ft; Length of hand—16 ft 5 in; Right arm length—42 ft; Width of mouth—3 ft.




Coming Events
July 17-18 Games - Flagstaff, AZ
July 31 Games - Enumclaw, WA
Aug-7-8 Games - Monterey, CA
Aug 14-15 Games - Highland Ranch (Denver)
Sep 4-5 Games - Pleasanton, CA
Sep 9 Games - Estes Park, CO
Oct 8-10 Games - Ventura, CA
Oct 14 Membership Meeting
   



July Celebrations

Jul 1 Tressa Holt-Berkowitz—Birthday
Jul 2 Robert C. Burns — Birthday
Jul 4 Bill & Sada O’Brien — Anniv.
Jul 7 Donna Wiesley — Birthday
Jul 7 James & Beverly Burns — Anniv..
Jul 7 Dennis Howerton—Birthday
Jul 10 Penny McKinley — Birthday
Jul 10 Johnny & Vivienne Trimble — Anniv.
Jul 10 Bobbie Landeck — Birthday
Jul 10 Sydney Reid—Birthday
Jul 10 Randy Naughton—Birthday
Jul 11 Terry LaVar—Birthday
Jul 12 Jill Gossett — Birthday
Jul 13 Joesph Beatty—Birthday
Jul 14 Ken Stewart — Birthday
Jul 14 Kathy Beatty — Birthday
Jul 15 Greta Thompson — Birthday
Jul 17 Greg Duprest — Birthday
Jul 17 King Clapperton — Birthday
Jul 19 Patsy Stewart — Birthday
Jul 19 Kathy LeVar—Birthday
Jul 20 Jerry Lou Patterson — Birthday
Jul 21 Jean Whyman — Birthday
Jul 21 Foster Burton — Birthday
Jul 22 Glenn Bell & Paige Macmillan — Anniv.
Jul 23 Karen Ahearne — Birthday
Jul 23 Mike Wonyetye—Birthday
Jul 23 David & Elizabeth McNabb—Anniv.
Jul 24 Suzanne Lynd—Birthday
Jul 25 Barbara Cory—Birthday
Jul 25 William & Patricia Redpath—Anniv.
Jul 26 Charles & Nelsa Mullen — Anniv
Jul 27 Jennifer MacFarlane—Birthday
Jul 29 Robert Bayne—Birthday
Jul 30 Dee McClimans — Birthday
Jul 31 Mary Carroll—Birthday


August Celebrations

Aug 1 Paul & Tine Deloughery—Anniv.
Aug 1 Leonard Wood—Birthday
Aug 2 Madeline Foreman—Birthday
Aug 3 Katheryn Dollar—Birthday
Aug 3 Ruth Anderson—Birthday
Aug 4 Amy Connolly—Birthday
Aug 7 Nathalie Van Gundy—Birthday
Aug 8 Roger Thayer—Birthday
Aug 9 Doreen Burroughs—Birthday
Aug 10 Ian MacFarlane—Birthday
Aug 10 Charles Mullen—Birthday
Aug 11 Sheila Kehl—Birthday
Aug 12 Kathy Howard—Birthday
Aug 12 Robert & Patricia Goyer—Anniv.
Aug 14 Carol Kuna—Birthday
Aug 14 Margaret & Gregory Romas—Anniv.
Aug 14 Robert Cowie—Birthday
Aug 14 Kevin Gossett—Birthday
Aug 14 Christine Cameron—Birthday
Aug 15 Toni Sarcinella—Birthday
Aug 16 Patrick McDonald—Birthday
Aug 17 Janet Wilson Hiatt—Birthday
Aug 18 Fred Ferguson—Birthday
Aug 18 Bob & Penny McKinley—Anniv.
Aug 20 Roger & Dorothy Thayer—Anniv.
Aug 21 Susan Hawkins—Birthday
Aug 24 John & Leila Glasgow—Anniv.
Aug 24 Lizzie MacFarlane—Birthday
Aug 24 Amy Corden--Birthday
Aug 25 Sada O’Brien—Birthday
Aug 26 Bob McKinley—Birthday
Aug 28 Margaret Hamilton—Birthday
Aug 29 Steve & Gail Wylie—Birthday


New Members

Casey McIntosh
42804 N. Courage Trail
Anthem, AZ 85086
Tel: 623-521-4086
email: azsportsfan@aol.com
Clan: Macintosh


Know the Clans
District Tartans — Ayrshire
From District Tartans By Gordon Teall & Philip D. Smith, Jr.

Ayrshire looks across the Firth of Clyde to the Island of Arran and the Mull of Kintyre. Ayrshire has often been the first part of Scotland seen by the international traveler, sailing up the Clyde by ship in times past or later on arrival at the International Airport at Prestwick. Few visitors tarry, much to their own loss, to see more of Ayrshire in detail. A long-established agricultural area of smaller towns, Ayrshire has given its name to a noted strain of dairy cattle. Robert Burns the most famous of Scotland’s sons was born and lived most of his life here. Burns was proud of his Ayrshire background and wrote of himself as ’Robin-- born in Kyle’ (a district in the area). Although he died in Dumfries, Burns is buried in Alloway.

Part of the early British-speaking Kingdom of Strathclyde, Aryshire was later partially Gaelic-speaking until the mid-eighteenth century. The shire’s rich history is linked to the fortunes of the Stewarts, Cumminghams, Hamiltons and Boyds. Today castles and ruins abound while the rugged coast and offshore islands are favorites of photographers. Seaside village resorts attract knowledgeable visitors and Kilmarnock and Irvine are its busy modern urban centers.

The Ayrshire tartan was designed by Dr. Philip Smith at the suggestion of the Clan Boyd and Clan Cunningham Societies as an alternative tartan for Ayrshire families and friends. It reflects the gold of the rising sun, the green of the land and brown of the coast, the blue of the sea and the red of the setting sun. The Ayrshire tartan is intended for those with connections in the districts of Kyle, Cunningham, and Inverclyde.





Caledonian Society Officers

President: Jean Latimer………..........602-867-6507
1st Vice Pres: Tyler Cramer……...….574-344-1314
Treasurer: Lisa Scott…………….....…..602-218-6645
Games Chair: Leslie Grant………....…602-509-1184
Recording Sec: Jean Whyman…......602-956-6424
Corresp. Sec: Kay Morneau….…......480-503-0341
Trustee: Alan Ramsdell……….…....….480-969-8400
Trustee: William Wallace…………......480-838-7055
Past President: Elizabeth Grant.......602-509-1146
Newsletter Editor: Jo Ramsdell….....480-969-8400


Society Meetings

REMEMBER

There will be NO Membership Meetings held in the months of July and August. Our next Membership Meeting will be on September 9.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!



The Caledonian Society of Arizona
General Meeting Minutes

June 10, 2010
 
The meeting was called to order at 6:50pm by President Jean Latimer. She asked Past President Harold Stewart to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was followed by a moment of silence to honor The Flowers of the Forest.

Casey McIntosh and his beautiful daughter Brittney joined us and Casey became our newest member. We look forward to seeing lots more of them in the future.

The President called for a motion to approve the minutes of the last meeting as printed in the Newsletter. Jacqueline Sinclair made the motion and Mark Pelletier gave the second. Minutes were approved.

Jean reported that the Memorial for Joe Leonard went well, with a nice crowd; our Kay Morneau attended. Jean also reminded us that 2014 will be our 50th Anniversary of the Games and that we need to work hard so we can have a really special event that year.

With no other business to address, the meeting was adjourned at 7:05pm and we turned to our Pot Luck which was great! After dinner Harold Steward announced that Mary Jo Ramsdell won the 50/50 Raffle and John Carden and Jean Latimer were the winners of the other raffle items.
 
Respectfully submitted by
Jean Whyman, Acting Recording Secretary
 





Important Dates in July
July 1 Canada Day
July 4 Independence Day (US)
   



Important Dates in August
Aug 1 Lammas (Scotland)
Aug 2 Summer Bank Holiday (Scotland)
Aug 15 Marymas (Scotland)