Danbury Library Blog

Lincoln Funeral Train

John O'Donnell — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:25:51 +0000

As part of the celebration of the sesquicentennial celebration of the Civil War there is an ongoing effort to reconstruct the Lincoln Funeral Train from 1865 and have it ready to retrace the original route of the train in 2015 to commemorate this special anniversary. The original train carried the body of Lincoln as well as that of his son Willie from Washington, D.C. to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois.

Stonk

John O'Donnell — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000

Recently while reading a World War Two book, The Path to Victory by Douglas Porch, I came across a word which I was unfamiliar with. The word is stonk which means a concentrated artillery bombardment. It is said to be formed from elements of the artillery term Standard Regimental Concentration. Bruce Cutler who was a poet who served in the Naples campaign in 1944 wrote a poem about it:

your stonk is your American way of winning the war

your stonk is when you take your whole production, Rock Island

Arsenal ’42 or whatever arsenal

in South Carolina, South Dakota, no difference

you throw it at the krauts from six to eight a.m.

maybe add a naval stonk to your stonk being the really big suckers that take out the little towns on the mountainsides…

Spirit of Public Service

John O'Donnell — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:22:16 +0000

We know that the patriots in the Revolutionary war were highly motivated and imbued with a dedicated sense of public service. One great family example of this spirit is shown in the career of Jonathan Trumbull. He served as Governor of the colony of Connecticut from 1769 until 1776. Then he was Governor of the state of Connecticut from 1776 until 1784. His children likewise served the country and state as well. Jonathan Junior was the second Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1791 to 1793 and the Governor of Connecticut from 1797 to 1809. George Washington always referred to Trumbull as “the first of the patriots.”

Ebooks

John O'Donnell — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:23:19 +0000

Danbury Library is proud to announce that we have ebooks available for all residents of Danbury with a valid library card. Ebooks can be downloaded to your personal computer, smart phone, e-reader and tablet. Please check out our 3M Cloud Library ebook collection today. If you have any questions please call Assistant Director Scott Jarzombek at (203) 797-4512 or email him at sjarzombek@danburylibrary.org.

Happy Birthday Johann!

John O'Donnell — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:55:44 +0000

Today is the 328th birthday of one of the greatest musicians of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach was a composer of some of the sublimest music of all time as well as an organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist. His music has the power the enthrall the listener. Eric Siblin, music critic of the Montreal Gazette, attended a recital of Bach’s Cello Suites and fell in love with this music. He wrote a book about the search for this piece of music: The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece.