FRAYDA SALKIN AND FRED RASMUSSEN - HISTORY LIVES! Robert E. Lee's Last Letter
from McDonough School to Lexington, Va.


Maryland has two historians who bring the "little known" that are often more revealing than the nonstop headlines yat infuse websites and daily papers every day . But the "little known" can be most interesting; that is the case concerning an article by Fred Rasmussen who, with Jacques Kelly, are the Baltimore Sunpapers' best historians. The other person with love of history is Frayda Salkin, for many years, Archivist of McDonogh School.

I have enjoyed friendship with both Frayda and Fred, but until a very recent Rasmussen by-line, "Lee's Last Letter Makes a Return to Lexington", I never knew these two interesting people knew one another. But, it was Robert E. Lee who brought them together! The immediate question: How could past and present unite in such an unexpected way?

Fred has a remarkable way of discovering the special "tidbits" of history --and he did just that, with Frayda last week in a remarkable article: "Lee's Last Letter Makes a Return to Washington". In the memorabilia of papers/chapters/photographs in the McDonogh School Archives, was the last letter ever written by Gen. Robert E. Lee. How was it found at McDonogh School -- founded nearly 150 years ago by the bequest of America's largest landowner -- John McDonogh.
Born in poverty circumstances in Baltimore, McDonogh became one of America's largest landowners in the the early 1800's. His generosity founded the public school system in New Orleans and created McDonogh School in Maryland, orginally a school for orphan boys -- now , a highly respected co-educational prep school where many students still attend on scholarship.

I have known McDonogh School -- first as a student whose father taught there and ran the school's agriculture programs: riding horses; also, cattle who were the suppliers of milk for the then 700 students who wore uniforms as a symbol of discipline and no distinction between wealth differences among the families of those students. I have gotten to know Frayda in the unearthing of many school papers records -- my father's and mine (both grades & demerits!) -- to have them become part of McDonogh's archives.

One of the early founders of McDonogh School who put the McDonogh bequest was Samuel Tagart, second president of the school's board of trustees. On the rise in the U.S. Army, Robert E. Lee came to Baltimore in on assignment to coordinate the construction of Fort Carroll,just east of today's Key Bridge. After Congress cut off the work for the fort, Lee moved north the West Point to become its Superintendent. Then, the passing of 17 years and the Civil War --- and the rest is history. But not all is known, until Frayda decided to make history live, by a single letter -- for many years residing in the McDonogh Archives. How did Lee's handwritten letter end up there?

It was Samuel Tagart who introduced Lee to Baltimore's power circle,then called "society" -- and they became close friends as Lee, his wife Ann Randolph Custis Lee, and 7 children lived at 908 Madison Avenue in the late 1840's.

137 years later and just 1 week ago, on April 23, General Lee "travelled" with Fradya Smalkin, in the form of the last letter ever written by Lee --- and it was to Samuel Tagart. Dated September 28, 1870, that letter -- written from Lexington -- told Tagart that the then President of the new Washington College (later , Washington & Lee University), was feeling better after medical treatment in Baltimore and the friendship of Tagart. Just 2 weeks later, on October 12, 1870, Robert E. Lee died.

The drama of this "last letter" of Robert E. Lee is underscored by the fact of its "last trip" in a locked fireproof box, as Frayda Salkin drove it from Baltimore to Lexington, Virginia. Fred Rasmussen gives us the image of a personable scholar-archivist who kept her eye vigilantly on the precious cargo in the trunk of her car, as the letter returned to its original destinaton.

Thank you, Frayda and McDonogh School for honoring history in this way; and thank you ,Fred Rasmussen, for continuing to give history "life" in your "Way Back When" and "Back Story" newspaper series. In an era when young people are being too often separated from history and heritage, this kind of story needs to live .

Labels: Fred Rasmussen, McDonough, Robert E Lee

  5:22 PM •  0 Comments •

From Prison to Jericho: A Baltimore adventure in Hope Did I ever imagine having a common experience with Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's White House aide who spent 7 months in a federal prison for a Watergate conviction ? The answer is a firm "no" -- until the reading of a recent Baltimore Examiner commentary by editorial page editor Marta Hummel. That commentary is the story of Colson and the "Prison Fellowship" nonprofit he established to provide a host of services to prison inmates -- including job training to prepare for new lives after release.

Why did Marta's interesting article cause a change of mind to see a connection between Colson and Wills? No, I have not served any time behind bars! But, two years ago, volunteer work as a trustee of a nonprofit social service agency opened my vision to the world of prisoner rehabilitation.

Episcopal Community Services of Maryland helps at-risk youth to move their lives beyond drug addiction and poverty to pre-school education and after-school academic enrichment. 2006 marked the year I received a call from 2 energetic professionals at ECSM: Jean Cushman ,Executive Director,and Sara Gallagher, staff associate who holds Towson University and University of Chicago degrees in urban policy. Their request: to help secure a 2-year, $ 650,000 Dept. of Labor grant to help released prisoners prepare for employment and keep a job. Hard work and teamwork began at that moment .

Training former prisoners to get jobs and leave the world of drugs -- before and, sometimes, during prison. Is that really possible ?

Yes ! --- ECSM received the grant , as several of us -- volunteers and staff -- prepared a proposal and "networked" the granting agency to enable "Jericho" to begin its work. That work is assistance to ex-prisoners with training to interview for jobs , receives substance abuse counseling , education, transportation and other ways to take control of a new life.

A 2-week training session is held, Monday through Friday , 8:30 Am to 3 PM . The ex-prisoners/ now students work with professional staff on all aspects of re-entering the workforce and address the question: "What job are your ready for ?" With the help of Jericho staff, students "graduate" to knock down the barriers to employment"

ECSM has partners to provides the first employment experience: American Works of Maryland and Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake to move training classes' graduates to find a job. Former prisoners are enrolled in Jericho for a full year, as the they look for both promotions and better paying jobs.

As an observer of Jericho's job training classes, I see the same hope that Chuck Colson must see in the work of " Prison Fellowship" These classes are powerful, as staff and volunteers encourage and train their ex-prisoner students to hustle for job interviews and do those interviews "just right". In east Baltimore's Collington Square area, the "walls of Jericho" are opening for those whose past lives had to change for the better. There is hope for cities like Baltimore that face daily challenges of crime and the drug culture.

Thanks to the commitment of Episcopal Community Services, the response Labor Department's employment division in a competitive proposal process , and Marta Hummel's thoughtful analysis in The Baltimore Examiner. You gave me the inspiration for this "good news" story of prisoner help in Baltimore .

Labels: Baltimore, Chuck Colson, prison

  9:23 AM •  1 Comments •

A Ripple Effect From Virginia Tech? Lessons from Father Joseph Sellinger, Milton Eisenhower and McDonough School April 16, 2007: a day on which the only expected news was the deadline for filing our 2006 Federal income taxes. But, in the small town of Blacksburg ,Virginia, the Virginia Tech college campus and its 36,000 students were thrown into a nightmare of murder by a deranged student. The public was subjected to a media onslaught that invaded the "Hokie" campus and created a national icon of sorts out of Cho Seung-Hui -- including a excessive coverage of thoroughly mixed up letter he sent to NBC in the 2 hours between murdering 2 students at 7AM and 30 more at 9:30 AM.

Enough time has passed to put some perspective on this human and institutional tragedy . Several themes emerge, three of them on this morning's Op-Ed page of The Baltimore Sunpapers:

--- Susan Reimer, columnist: "The killings at Virginia Tech serve as a vivid break between family and the other world --- the world of experiences family does not share and cannot understand." .... "Someday soon -- sooner than we wish, our children will be sinking their emotional roots into new soil: among friends and co-workers . Among their own kind."

--- Paul Steinberg, psychiatrist and former director of counseling at Georgetown University about responsible intervention: "in our culture of self-reliance, the essential responsibility of getting help when distressed, lies within ourselves.... Alcoholics Anonymous may state it best: "I am not responsible for my illness,but am responsible for getting help"

Dr. Steinberg lives with reality: With high school or college, " the crucial element in any intervention is the tremendous coordination required among faculty,student affairs staff and counseling service ... Tragically when students show us troubled inner lives, we are left with the slings & arrows --- and bullets --- of absolutely ourtrageous misfortune."

--- Finally, in a typically politically reactive comment "unloaded" on the PBS talk show host Charlie Rose, former House majority leader Tom Delay: "We need to remove the ban on guns on the Virginia Tech campus, and allow people to defend themselves."

With the exception of Delay's simplified solution, best suited for an NRA convention, the Reimer and Steinberg commentaries point out the complexities of education and interaction between help and discipline for students.

Two experiences come home to me -- one from the 1960's and the other, more recent:

1. Gifts from two university presidents in Baltimore:

As a student at Penn State -- and subsequently, as a staff member at Johns Hopkins, I remember and participated in a special "open door" policy by Milton Eisenhower, President of those two universities. Whenever the front porch light of the President's House was on, in the evening, students could simply drop in and visit/talk and listen to others -- some nights, as many as 30 or 40 were there. A similar "student connection" was part of the leadership style of Father Joe Sellinger of Loyola College. These two individuals listened/ learned as well as providing guidance and experience to young people who came to those two universities to receive an education.

These two leaders did their work in the challenging 1960's era of student protests , even violence during the Vietnam/ "protest" years of the 20th century.

2. Volunteer teaching -- a personal experience at my alma mater, McDonogh School:

Last week, following an invitation from a talented history teacher, Bridget Collins , to "team teach" with her for 3 classes studying the 1930's Depression and World War II. Actually, Bridget sat in the back row with group of McDonogh School juniors --- and I realized I was "on my own"!

These students -- different from my days of guys in uniforms -- were young men, women, white and African American. Thanks to them and their teacher, I felt really "alive" in the give-&-take of discussion about isolationism prior to World War II / the shock of Pearl Harbor / the emotion of the D Day landings at Normandy / the challenges facing wartime leaders Churchill and Roosevelt . These young people seem very "grounded" ! They, and teacher Bridget Collins are case studies for the axiom that listening and learning -- as well as teaching -- is possible, by both teachers and "learners".

From all the challenges facing the students and the college faculty/administrators at Virginia Tech, I sense a "grounding" that will enable them to move through the recent nightmare. VT's President Charles Steger faces similar challenges and opportunities as those which confronted Dr. Eisenhower and Father Sellinger. But, in an era of "media onslaught" and high visibility to these challenges, the wisdom of Dr.Steinberg and Susan Reimer can and should be given attention. And, the typically reactive barrage of Tom Delay will hopefully be get a firm "delete"!

Similar challenges face us as business executives and government officials : to be reasonable and wise in mediating disputes, corporate and agency challenges -- and, after decisions are made: to follow through with results. That can be the "ripple effect from Virginia Tech".

Labels: Maryland, McDonough, Virginia Tech

  12:47 PM •  0 Comments •

TWO GHOSTS, FROM BALTIMORE & WESTMINISTER, ALGER HISS RETURNS Alger Hiss and Whitaker Chambers "have returned" -- not in the dramatic Gen. Douglas MacArthur statement as he waded ashore at the 1945 recapture of the Philippines -- but through a haunting journey of son Tony Hiss and stepson Timothy Hobson, now 65 and 80 years old.

In a recent narrative of the 1930's era, by Washington Post writer Lynne Duke, Hiss and Hobson track through the rooms of Alger Hiss' Georgetown rowhouse . It was in that home of Alger and wife Priscilla , where alleged acts of espionage were committed by the passing of stolen documents/secrets from the State Department where Hiss was a rising star. The recepient of those state secrets was Whitaker Chambers, then a spy for Stalin's Soviet Union.

It was in 1937 when a teen-age Tim Hobson was recovering from a childhood leg injury in the bedroom near where the documents' exchanges took place. 70 years later, in this year of 2007 and supported by his half-brother Tony Hiss, Hobson denies hearing any plots or secret discussions between Whitaker Chambers and Alger Hiss. Tony Hiss has written and spoken the same denials of evidence , as part of a conspiracy of stolen documents given to Russia.

The Maryland ghosts have returned from the 1948 highly public investigation of Chambers' charges, by the House Un-American Activities Committee --- or have they? For me, a part of that drama revolves around personal memory:

My parents attended Friends School and knew Alger Hiss and his brother Donald as classmates there. My father, a McDonogh School teacher and farm director, knew Chambers as small farm owner in Westminster where he enjoyed weekend escapes from senior editor responsibilities at Time Magazine's New York offices.
I knew Chambers' two kids -- John and Ellen -- as 4 H Club friends when we exhibited cattle at the annual Md. State Fair. In 1948, a traditionally quiet arrival at the fairgrounds was transformed to a public event, as they and their mother were mobbed by photographers in what had always been a routine unloading of Jersey calves from the Chambers farm truck.

These personal memories were one small part of a national drama where a senior government official, who sat at President Roosevelt's side during the 1945 Yalta conference, was suddenly accused of being a Communist spy by a former co-conspirator who had transferred his anger to the Soviet Union in the postwar anti-Communist era. After a Bolton Hill childhood,Johns Hopkins education and rise in New Deal government service, Alger Hiss found himself as a launching pad for the career of an unknown California Congressman Richard Nixon. It was Nixon who drove the House Un-American Activities Committee to determine that Hiss had lied: a decision that lead to perjury conviction by a New York court .

There will always be disagreements as to who lied, who told the truth . Those disagreements will continue as long as history is told . But , one fact is clear : these 2 Maryland ghosts -- Alger Hiss and Whitaker Chambers -- have and will continue to return.

Labels: Alger Hiss, Nixon, Whittaker Chambers

  6:10 AM •  0 Comments •

CELEBRITIES, POLITICIANS: HAD ENOUGH? This week's media articles hovered over us about celebrities -- of the movie and political variety -- "showing up" too much . Two categories have been identified and covered with names by Sunpapers reporter John Woestenkiek after a month's balloting from 215,000 readers in a survey -- "March Madness:Celebrity Version!":

"The Talking Head Division" in which Rev. Al Sharpton narrowly won out over Paris Hilton! These two outdistanced such "revered" figures as Britney Spears, the late Anna Nicole Smith, Ann Coulter, and presidential candidates Hillary Clinton/ Newt Gingrich ; political manipulators James Carville, Pat Buchanan; media writer/ voice Robert Novak.

"The Can't Seem to Stop Talking Division": Here, the intense competition is even more intense with Rosie O'Donnell who won by 62% over Tom Cruise. Donald Trump was a close runner up followed by such names as O.J. Simpson, and opinionated television commentators Bill O'Reilly and Nancy Grace.

Now, MARYLAND: Dear Readers, a challenge for you: come up with some local and statewide names from which you would may want some relief!

To get the process moving, a few suggestions: House Speaker Michael Busch, Senate President Mike Miller , the new "taxing" (?) overnor O"Malley, former State Senator / still wheeler dealer Tommy Bromwell -- and, from the Orioles as the baseball season begins: owner Peter Angelos who, hopefully , will soon be outshown by a re-habilitated team for the 2007 season!

Is notority a temporary status, or are there lasting impacts of longtime public involvement? One has to come up with two who have ultimately been on the positive side : the late Louis Goldstein, colorful personality and Comptroller for more than 30 years; and the equally colorful William Donald Schaefer, 4-term Mayor; Governor/Comptroller, 8 years in each job.

Any others? -- from the the worlds of government/politics, business, sports, entertainment.

Suggestions welcome: national and state; good/not so good/or "had enough"!

Labels: Clebrities, Maryland, Media, O'Malley

  12:54 PM •  0 Comments •