Ma' Curry a Versailles Icon

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She was born in Switzerland County April 20 1893. Her maiden name was Armstrong. We moved to Versailles from Correct when I was 5. 83 years ago. She was widowed at the age not quite 32 with 6 kids. Halstead was 14 (the oldest) I was 2 months (the youngest) Clara Belle,Isabelle,Bob,Dorothy were the other 4. D Q Wilbur had a meat market in the building where Mom started her ice cream parlor when I was 12..1937. When he passed she rented that bldg.  She married Vernon Secrest (a WW1 Veteran) in 1941 and that's when she started the restaurant. Up until that time she sold mostly ice cream. She loved you kid's...she was a people person for sure. It was a sad day for her when the new school was built and you kids couldn't come anymore. She was also very unhappy when the Walter Smith family gave that whole corner to Masons and Jack Raney's wife bought the old

Methodist church and donated that to the Masons to build their Lodge. She lived for awhile where Jerry Wilson lives and later moved to the Project. She lived there until she passed Jan 2 1978. Her strong Faith carried her through some tough times. One of my fondest memories is her kneeling by her bed giving thanks to HIM.
By: Jo Westmeyer

Yes them were the days, the school bell would ring for the noon hour and out the door we would run on our way to Ma's. We always run our hand across Mrs. Jackson's hedge on the way. Entering the door we would meet all of our school friends. The most ordered was a fish sandwich with tarter sauce, we would yell fish with and a RC. If you could not barrow from a friend Ma would let you charge it but you had to pay up when it ran a dollar. I remember one guy that would barrow a nickle or a dime from several others to buy the lunch. He seldom payed you back. RC cola was in a cooler filled with cold water. At one time RC had free ones if there was a red RC logo under the cork in the bottle cap. One kid could pick out every free one in the cooler, till this day I never figured out how he did it. Ma bared him from the cooler after she caught on to him. Ma always had some very nice waitresses working the noon meal. They were very nice to us routey kids, I don't know how they put up with us. After lunch if you had a nickle or dime you could get a pack of baseball cards that may contain a Red Legs player, or a hand dipped ice creem cone. She always had the best icecreem in town. Most all the school kids eat there at one time or other, and Ma knew most of their names. Great people like Ma' Curry made growing up in Versailles wonderful ........ Jack

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Happy Birthday

May 26th
JOHN WAYNE (1907-1979)
JAMES ARNESS (1923-2011)
HANK WILLIAMS JR. 63

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Memorial Day Photos

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May 18, 1980 Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens is most notorious for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. PDT, the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. Fifty-seven people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways, and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed. A massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, caused an eruption, reducing the elevation of the mountain's summit from 9,677 ft (2,950 m) to 8,365 ft (2,550 m) and replacing it with a 1 mile (1.6 km) wide horseshoe-shaped crater. The debris avalanche was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.9 km3) in volume. The Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano and allow for its aftermath to be scientifically studied.
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Earth Sky tonight page

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Bela Lugosi

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Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), better known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor, who is best known for playing the character Dracula in the 1931 film and for his roles in various other Universal monster and horror films.
He had been playing small parts on the stage in his native Hungary before making his first film in 1917, but had to leave the country after the failed Hungarian Revolution, and arrived in America as a seaman on a merchant ship.
In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, where he was talent-spotted as a character actor for the new Hollywood talkies, appearing in the first Dracula film with sound.
Through the 1930s, he occupied an important niche in popular horror films, with their East European setting, but his Hungarian accent limited his repertoire, and he tried unsuccessfully to avoid typecasting. Meanwhile, he was often paired with Boris Karloff, who was able to demand top billing. To his frustration, Lugosi was increasingly restricted to minor parts, for the sake of his name on the posters. Among his pairings with Karloff, only in The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939) did he perform major roles again, although even in The Raven Karloff received top billing despite Lugosi performing the lead role.
By this time, Lugosi had been receiving regular medication for sciatic neuritis, and he had become addicted to morphine and methadone. This drug dependence was noted by producers, and the offers eventually dwindled down to a few parts in Ed Wood's low-budget movies.
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Shackleton and the crew stranded

1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five companions completed one of history's greatest small-boat journeys when they arrived at South Georgia after an 800-nautical-mile journey in a lifeboat.

The History has come to consider the James Caird's voyage as one of the greatest small-boat journeys ever accomplished.

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voyage of the James Caird was a small-boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean, a distance of 800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi). Undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions, its objective was to obtain rescue for the main body of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–17, trapped on Elephant Island after the loss of its ship Endurance.
In October 1915 the expedition's ship, the Endurance, had been crushed and sunk by pack ice in the Weddell Sea, leaving Shackleton and the crew stranded on an unreliable ice surface thousands of miles from safety. During the following months the party drifted northward until April 1916, when the floe on which they were camped broke up. They then made their way in the ship's lifeboats to the remote and inaccessible Elephant Island, where Shackleton quickly decided that the most effective means of obtaining relief for his beleaguered party would be to sail one of the lifeboats to South Georgia.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A final toast for the Doolittle Raiders

In Fort Walton Beach, Florida, the surviving Doolittle Raiders will gather publicly for the last time.
Now only four survive.

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May 6, 1931 Hindenburg crash

The Hindenburg's arrival on May 6 was delayed for several hours to avoid a line of thunderstorms passing over Lakehurst, but around 7:00 pm the airship was cleared for its final approach to the Naval Air Station, which it made at an altitude of 650 ft (200 m) with Captain Max Pruss at the helm. Four minutes after ground handlers grabbed hold of a pair of landing lines dropped from the nose of the ship at 7:21 pm, the Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames and dropped to the ground in just 37 seconds.
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One more May 5th

Without exception - here it is again.
http://wb9otx.blogspot.com/2010/05/sinko-de-mayo-may-5th.html

Milan ’54 Hoosiers Museum

Milan’s 1954 basketball team and their supporters will be gathering in Milan, Indiana Saturday, June 8 for the Grand Opening of the new Milan ’54 Hoosiers Museum.
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