Kansas City Here I Come

I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
I'm going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
They got a crazy way of loving there and I'm gonna get me one

I'm gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
I'm gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
With my Kansas City baby and a bottle of Kansas City wine

Kansas City (Leiber and Stoller)

Truman National Historic Site – Junior Ranger – Check

I'd been there with Tony many years ago. The site did not deal with Truman's presidency very much, it was more about his and Bess's life in Independence which he loved. 

The main draw for me in Kansas City this time was the National WWI Museum and Memorial. This place was stupendous. WWI, 'The War To End All Wars', has started to slip from most Americans' memory. The Great War originated in Europe and lasted from 1914 to 1918. There was a horrific number of casualties with over nine million combatants and seven million civilians dying. 

These two statues on the ends are called Memory And Future.  Memory faces east toward the battlefields of WWI, shielding its eyes from the horrors of war while Future faces west, shielding its eyes from an unknown future

I don't know why I found this museum so fascinating. It was probably because the displays were nicely laid out or maybe it was because of the interactivity of some of the displays. They touched on multiple different subjects – armaments, history leading up to the war, women in the war, how civilians lived during the war, just to name a few things. They even had listening booths where you could go in and hear the music of the era(Over There, etc.), or parts of books (All Quiet on the Western Front, etc.).

One of the movie theaters where they talked about how the United States got into the war. 

Different parts of the exhibit would light up during different times in the movie.

Posters were part of a huge campaign to bolster patriotism and funnel support for the war.  

A poster directed at President Wilson pointing out that women were not able to vote until after the war was over. 

The war ended November 11, 1918.  Women did not get the vote until the 19th Amendment was passed on Aug 26, 1920.

Sad Fact.

I fortunately/unfortunately was there with a large group of young men from some sort of military group. Fortunate because they were on a guided tour so I could listen to the spiel, unfortunately because we were sort of moving through the museum at the same speed and when we got to some sort of interactive display or a movie, it was a bit crowded. I so hate it when I have to push and shove my way up to the front. Just kidding, they were all extremely polite and let the old lady go through without a hitch.

A special exhibit that they had was a giant mural that was painted by the famed society painter John Singer Sargent called 'Gassed'.  I am so used to his portraitures of the rich and famous that it was quite an eye opener to see this painting.  You could see some resemblance to his use of light between the two genres.

Gassed

I did get to eat out and have lunch at their café which was called Over There. The café wanted to give patrons the idea of what it was like to be served in a WWI canteen.  I'm telling you, if you had to base your impressions on what WWI was like based on this café - let's just say I would join up in a heartbeat.  I had some lovely fish tacos with Jicama and Cilantro. Don't get to eat out much so this was a real treat. 

Let us not forget the visit to Leila's Hair Museum.  Tony and I had visited many many years ago, back when it was attached to a beauty parlor.  Now Leila (said Lay-I-La) has purchased a building and there are four rooms dedicated to the Victorian Hair Art.  

A lot of the time these art pieces were done to commemorate somebody who had passed. They would cut the hair of the deceased and make a funeral wreath out of their hair.  Most of the time though, the hair art was a form of genealogy.  They would clip hair as each family member was born and then as the family grew, they would keep adding to the wreath.  There was a lot of symbolism in the works.  For example if a family member died, they would add a black bead to the center of that individual's hair. 

I thought this one was pretty

Back in the day, cloth was in short supply.  The person who had the most cloth was usually the town undertaker.  The women would send their finished pieces to the undertaker who would do the mounting in the shadow box.  That is probably why so many of the backgrounds looked like coffin liners.

You could buy kits of these baby pictures and then you would add your child's hair onto the picture

There was also a wall of famous peoples' hair.  We were not allowed to take pictures of this wall.  There were tiny little pieces of hair from Elvis, John Lennon, Marilyn Monroe, Daniel Webster, Jenny Lind and several others.  She also displayed provenances of the hair to show that these were 'the real thing'.  

Speaking of famous people, look who visited the Hair Museum last month.  I move in rare circles.