Let me begin this post by saying I was raised in a very patriotic home. My father served in the U.S. Army for twenty-three years. He served in the Korean War and on three tours in Vietnam. He was shot in the leg on his last tour and retired from the Army. I recall being on the Fitzsimmons Army Hospital Base, now closed, located in Aurora, Colorado, at the time of day they play taps and lower the flag. Dad stopped the car, got out, and stood at attention until it was over. That was a powerful thing for me to see as a young child. So much so that it has been a clear memory for me to this day. I watched him get up out of a wheelchair to stand at attention in his elder years at a Fourth of July parade when the flag passed us. I put my hand on his elbow to steady him. While I don’t recall why he was in the wheelchair at the time (later, he was not), I will always remember him insisting he get up to stand. I gave a talk at church once for July Fourth and remember crying as I read the inscription on the Statue of Liberty for my talk. So this trip was a bit emotional for me.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Sylvester Stallone does not bring me to tears – LOL. But that was our first stop. A nice guy offered to take a couple of photos of us:
He also insisted we put our arms up. And was the stranger on the right out of breath after running up the stairs? LOL:
An up close photo:
There are many historical statues in Philly. This one was of Mad Anthony Wayne, a General I had mentioned in my post about Valley Forge:
While walking in Philly, we passed this cool statue of Benjamin Franklin. Notice the keys all over the statue:
The keys up close:
This plaque explains how the statue came about, and it’s pretty cool:
One of the cool things we did while driving around before we entered Philly was to go through this awesome wooden bridge. These photos are all through the windshield, so less than stellar shots. Sorry:
Here is a photo as we approached, and I got really excited! I’ve never been through one:
Once inside, it looked like this:
We also visited the Betsy Ross House. A side note, Betsy was my maternal grandmother’s first name. As you know, Betsy Ross was the woman who sewed the original United States flag. Her name could not be recorded at the time, as she could have been hanged for treason by the British, so it was not until much later that her name could be revealed.
Inside is a tour of the house and “Betsy” in the lower level, where she had her upholstery business in the back of the house. She answered any questions you had:
This was the main room of the house she lived in, where she rented a room from another widow. It would have been a common room used by all living in the small house:
This would have been how one of the rooms looked:
And this would be how Betsy’s room would have likely looked, with the flag draped over a chair and the floor as she sewed it:
I took another photo of the flag:
The lower basement had some realistic items to help you understand how people went about their tasks, things we do with ease every day, like laundry:
No easy task. The widow Betsy rented from worked as a washerwoman. Heavily soiled linens were soaked overnight – sometimes in water with lye or with…urine. Gross, but urine has ammonia in it, and that’s a bleaching agent. They’d have to haul water from a well, collect firewood, and boil that water for both washing and rinsing. They then scrubbed, beat, and stirred the linens in the boiling water to wash them using soap made with lye. Lye is very corrosive. I can’t imagine having to put my hands in that daily. A bluing agent was added to the water to whiten the linens. When finished, you hung it to dry. You weren’t done yet, though. You had to iron it all with two metal irons heated over a fire or on a stove. It was a two-day process.
This would be what the kitchen looked like, also in the basement area:
Outside, they had this cute fountain that I know my child, an animal lover but particularly a cat lover, would adore:
Close-ups of the cats on the fountain:
And on top:
We also accidentally went into New Jersey while trying to return home – LOL. Here’s the Ben Franklin Bridge that took us into Jersey. Oops:
This post is long, so I’ll finish our trip to Philly in the next one.
Next Up: A Visit to Philadelphia – Birthplace of Our Constitution And Declaration of Independence
On Hummingbirds Wings 