Morning Reads for Tuesday, September 5

As a child growing up, once a month on a Saturday my mother would drive her mother down to pick up my step great grandmother in Wauwatosa. She lived near the Greek church Frank Lloyd Wright designed. Then we would travel down through the side streets going east towards Milwaukee until we came to the veteran’s park. I didn’t understand when I was very young why they called it a park since I didn’t see any toys to climb, but it had rolling green lawns with dozens of cream brick buildings all with different shades of fading grey and green roofs. We would pull around to the side of the main building (now called the Old Main) and I would do my job of running ahead to make sure the entry doors stayed open while my two grandmothers and their canes passed into the side lobby while my mom parked her long Impala. The floor had dark pink and grey stone tile that I traced the vines with my shoe while we waited for her to get back. We then took this old elevator that a man pulled the doors open and closed for us. We then went down this dull yellow tiled hall into this large room with huge drafty windows overlooking the lawns and a cemetery of endless rows of white head stones. We visited a man in a wheel chair with an eye patch. He always told me to call him Pirate Joe. I was not allowed to call any of my relatives without their proper title so I called him Uncle Pirate. He was my grandmother’s last living uncle, my step great-grandmother’s brother-in law, and the youngest of my great grandfather’s siblings. He had been in the army from 1915 until 1940. He gave me coffee flavored candy for each picture I drew him while I laid next to wheels of his chair. I liked to draw the buildings in the park. His friends would stop by and shake his hand and ask if I was his first mate. Then before we left, Uncle Pirate had me running around the room handing out the cookies my grandmother always brought to all his pals.
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The Milwaukee VA center is an architectural treasure, and a landmark to the city and area. It is also a treasured piece of history to what we as a country owe our military veterans. My great, great Uncle Pirate is buried in the cemetery next to the center he spent the last 14 years of his life before he passed away of what was most likely Alzheimer’s in 1981 when I was almost a teenager. Beside the army and the family farm he lived on before and after his time as a soldier, it was the only home he ever had. Thank you Terri for the great article from the NYT. https://savingplaces.org/places/milwaukee-va-soldiers-home#.Wa6zdWeWyUk