Let’s Consider : Quest continues to visit presidential libraries
Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
We had not previously visited Atlanta, although it surely offers enough reasons to visit. Among other things, it is a city with all kinds of history and we went to see some.
Our initial reason for planning to visit Atlanta was our desire to see one more presidential library. We had visited five of the 12. The presidential libraries are actually museums, showing the story of the president’s life and especially his presidency. The “ library” part consists of presidential papers and documents and is available for researchers to study., not open to the public.
It was an accidental “ hobby” we fell into after visiting the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., while returning from a Colorado vacation many years ago. That was the start of our quest.
Later we visited the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. It was close enough to visit without spending a fortune to get there, and we had admired Truman as a straight-forward Midwesterner — president when we were children. Later, we visited a second time and toured the Truman home, too.
The Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa, was only an hour-plus from our Iowa home, so we visited it after our youngest went there on a school field trip and told us about it. Our families had not admired Pres. Hoover, but we found, at the library, some of his background which could be admired. Hoover, the 31 st president, was the first president to be born west of the Mississippi (in Iowa ) and the first to have a presidential library established.
As we traveled through Texas one year, we stopped in Austin to see the Johnson Library at the University. A side trip took us to the site near Johnson City, where Pres. Johnson had grown up and where he is buried. (Many of the presidents are buried near their libraries. ) The live oak trees at the family cemetery there were unforgettably beautiful. I think the home where President and Mrs. Johnson lived, there in the Hill Country, is now available for tours, since both have died.
Well, now it seemed that we had visited enough of the presidential libraries that we ought to keep going. So, when we visited our son in California a few years ago, he was gracious to drive us down to Simi Valley so that we could visit the Reagan Library and recall why and how much we had admired President Reagan.
Now the Carter Library awaited us, and we made our plans to drive to Atlanta.
We had voted for Pres. Carter, but were quite disappointed in his presidency. Still, we find all the presidential libraries to be worth a visit, and his was no different. There are always interesting and pretty things to see. Like family photos, jewelry, wedding clothing, maybe a vehicle from the president’s past. At each of the presidential libraries, I enjoy seeing some of the gifts given to presidents and their wives by other heads of state. And the replica of any president’s oval office is a highlight. I would very much have liked to visit President Carter’s hometown of Plains, Ga., but it was too far away to fit into our schedule on this trip. Maybe another day...
We had not realized the near proximity of Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site to the Carter Library, but found it to be close by — only a short drive. As we later walked around the King area — in the museum, at the burial site, on the street where the Kings lived, and at the old Ebenezer Baptist Church where his father pastored — we learned about that period when the Civil Rights movement was happening there and at other sites in the South. It was a good reminder of that era — which we had lived through in the North, at that time in our young adulthood establishing a business and a family, watching some of the events on black-and-white TV, but hardly thinking deeply about them. It was a good exercise to get a look at the history of those times, and appreciate Dr. King’s part in them.
We are now at the halfway mark toward our “ goal” to see all the existing presidential libraries. We will need to travel to the Ford, Kennedy, Nixon and Roosevelt Libraries to fill in our roster. Or we might just depend on C-Span to repeat their series on the presidential libraries.
We plan to see the George H. W. Bush Library at College Station, Texas one day soon when we visit our son’s family in Galveston.
And we will visit the Clinton Library in Little Rock, too. But, you know how we human beings are — it’s so close, right here in our home state, that we just have not yet stopped there !
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