FAST-PACED FALL FOR MAMF

Allen Dale Olson, Secretary/Public Affairs

From Lovington to Los Alamos — “Sacrifice & Service,” the exhibit that attracted 17,116 visitors during its stay in the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History between Memorial Day and Labor Day, spent two months in the Lea County History Museum will spend December in the Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos.

 

 

“Sacrifice & Service” is very much on our minds these days, as it will return home to Albuquerque right after the New Year’s holiday, and though we have arrangements to store it, we are hoping to find it a permanent home.

Meantime, we have started another exhibit and we’re calling it “Schooling with Uncle Sam,” the story of the Defense Department Dependents Schools and the students and teachers who have experienced them. We hope to have it completed by spring 2015. » Read more

Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family is on Exhibit in Los Alamos through January 2, 2015

On December 4, 2014, Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family opened at the Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It was the third venue for the exhibit, which debuted in Albuquerque on Memorial Day, traveled to the Lea County Museum in October and November, and will spend December in Los Alamos.

On December 1, the exhibit was delivered by Jim Harris, Lea County Museum Director, who drove the exhibit up from Lovington . On December 3, MAMF Director Circe, and board members Joan and Ole set up the exhibit, along with Mesa Public Library personnel.

It seemed a near impossible task to have everything ready for the December 4 opening, but it came together.

 

Between the MAMF team, Katy, the library director and and Keith, from Los Alamos County, the exhibit came together mid-morning on the 4th. The Albuquerque Journal sent a photographer to take some photos to accompany an article slated to run in mid-December. » Read more

A Salute to Our Heroes

Man and woman saluting

On November 15, 2014, the Museum of the American Military Family, the City of Albuquerque , ChoppHearse, the Albuquerque Balloon Museum, and dozens of other organizations and groups collaborated on a “Salute to Our Heroes”. It was an amazing event.

Salute to Heros Poster

 

 

 

The event started off with a motorcade and a flag line. Museum visitors joined cadets from several JROTC and ROTC units, the Young Marines and Bataan Military Academy. Distinguished guests from the National Guard, the City of Albuquerque and Service Organizations joined the procession into the Balloon Museum, where Director Sandor Cohen welcomed them, saying,

“WE ARE TRULY HONORED TO BE HERE TODAY AS PART OF A VERY SPECIAL OCCASION THAT PAYS TRIBUTE TO OUR BELOVED VETERANS – DEFENDERS OF OUR FREEDM – AND TO SUPPORT A VERY SPECIAL NEW MUSEUM IN THE ALBUQUERQUE AREA THAT NOT ONLY HONORS THE HEROES IN OUR MILITARY…BUT THAT ALSO TELLS THE STORY OF THEIR FAMILIES AND LOVED ONES, WHO EQUALLY EXEMPLIFY THAT SAME SENSE OF DUTY AND SACRIFICE AND LOVE OF COUNTRY THAT WE FIND IN THOSE WHO SERVE.”

 

As part of the program, there was a very moving flag folding ceremony followed by MAMF Director, Circe Olson Woessner accepting the flag,  and reminding the audience,

“…So when celebrating Veterans Day, we should remember all of our Veterans, by thanking them for their service, listening to their stories…welcoming them home, but we also need to remember the ones who have died without ever telling their stories, the ones who are living in poverty on the streets, the ones that have no family or are being honored by strangers. Today, we specially honor them and welcome them to our family. ” » Read more

MAMF ARTIST-In-RESIDENCE KEYNOTES , WINS AWARDS…

Caroline LeBlanc with prize-winning knitted shawl

By Allen Dale Olson

… Recently, Caroline LeBlanc, the Museum of the American Military Family MAMF Artist-in-Residence, told attendees at the  17th Annual New Mexico Veteran’s Art Show in Albuquerque, NM,  that organizations such as the Veterans Artists Project and the Museum of the American Military Family help Veterans transition from military to civilian life

She explained that the “arts are healing and that treatment programs for Veterans increasingly incorporate art, writing, and performance into therapeutic regimens.”

LeBlanc, who co-directed the Telling Project through six performances in Albuquerque and who directed the oral presentation “Four Voices,” used those as examples of how Veterans and military family members find that “everyone is enriched through creative expression.”

She encouraged attendees to send their stories to MAMF because we “need more meaningful exchanges between American civilian and military citizens about the realities of military service, particularly in time of war, and about what the defense of our American lifestyle truly costs.”

LeBlanc also received two awards in the show – one for pottery and one for knitting. She is an Army nurse Veteran and an Army wife who lived through the Vietnam War as well as her husband’s deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Prize winning pottery piece by Caroline LeBlanc

Prize winning pottery piece by Caroline LeBlanc

Join us in a Tribute to Military Veterans and their Families 11/15/14

Military Man saluting folded flag at Salute to Heroes Veterans Day Celebration 2014

You are cordially invited to a very special event  on Saturday November 15, 2014

11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

A Tribute to Military Veterans and their Families

at the

Anderson-Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum

9201 Balloon Museum Drive Albuquerque, New Mexico

Music-Footlocker Displays-Arts & Crafts-the Postcard Project- exhibit honoring American Women Veterans, created by Cadets of Bataan Military Academy-Honor Guard, and:

American Veterans & Patriots dedication of

American Hero Memories

to

The Museum of The American Military Family& Learning Center

American Hero Memories will be escorted onto Museum property by Motorcade

11 AM: Dedication

1 PM: 4 Voices, Spoken Word Performance by Veterans & Military Family Members

We look forward to having you, your military supporting organization,

your family and friends to join an ‘Honor’ line.

FREE TO PUBLIC

MAMF’s Exhibit, Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family to Open in Lea County

Lea County Museum Photo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FROM:  THE LEA COUNTY MUSEUM

DATE: 10-7-2014

American Military Family Exhibit Opens at Lea County Museum Oct. 13

On Monday, Oct. 13, from 5 to 7 p.m., the Lea County Museum in Lovington will open to the public a traveling exhibit that focuses on the hardships and rewards experienced by families of U.S. military personnel.

Titled “Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family” will be on loan for two months from the Museum of the American Military Family in Albuquerque.  Its debut showing was earlier this year at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, also located in Albuquerque.

Director of the MAMF Dr. Circe Woessner will be on hand for the opening of the exhibit in Lovington.  She is a former overseas brat whose husband served in the Army for 20 years before his retirement.

The exhibit focuses on several themes, including family members as unsung heroes, loss and grieving, and the importance of different forms of communications between families and those serving in the military.

The exhibit includes several ways for visitor interaction.  One way is that visitors can contribute to Operation Footlocker, a traveling repository of items and memorabilia put together by Military Brats.

Many generations of Military Brats grew up with footlockers—their transient lifestyle meant that their possessions had to be easily fit into something that could be packed up and moved away at a moment’s notice. Toys, books, keepsakes—anything that didn’t fit, often had to be left behind.

Now there is a footlocker for all Brats, traveling around the country, collecting items and memories—as a repository for trinkets and treasures of generations of Brats.

The footlocker travels around the USA–to Brat functions, to schools, to libraries…to anywhere people gather who want to learn more about the military family experience. People come, pour over the contents of the footlocker set out for display and frequently contribute their own items, registering them in the footlocker’s logbook. Some people choose to sit down on the spot and write out a favorite story or memory, adding it to the notebooks, which travel with the footlocker.

Inside a typical footlocker there many folders of stories, photos and memorabilia from Brats who attended schools on military installations in the US and Overseas. There are tee shirts, letter jackets, cheerleader sweaters, buttons, yearbooks from various DoD schools, and souvenirs from around the world. There are toys and letters, beer mugs and books—and each footlocker has a mascot.

Wherever the footlocker is, Brats gather, and tell their story by adding an item to the growing collection. Since 1996, there is now a “fleet” of seven footlockers. When they are not traveling the country, they reside at the Museum of the American Military Family in Albuquerque.

When you visit the exhibit, please bring an item or written memory piece with you to donate to the footlocker collections. Items can be dropped off at the Lea County Museum to be added to a footlocker after the exhibit closes. Donated items become part of the Museum of the American Military Family’s permanent collection.

The exhibit will remain at the Lea County Museum for two months until just before Christmas.

For more information about the exhibit, call the museum at 575-396-4805

 

FOR MAMF, NO LAZY DAYS OF SUMMER

Raising flag

By Allen Dale Olson, MAMF Secretary/Public Affairs

When the MAMF exhibit, “Sacrifice & Service: The American Military Family,” closed on August 31, it had seen 17,116 visitors since opening on May 26 in the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. And that doesn’t include the members of the Albuquerque Museum Collaborative Council or all the elementary and middle school kids who attended summer science camps in the Nuclear Museum. There were 145 VIPs at the Opening Reception on May 30.Sacrifice & Service Poster for Nuclear Museum

 

 

But the exhibit was more than an exhibit. There were book readings by Steve Sparks, R. Sam Baty, and J. Allen Whitt. Four Poets – Caroline LeBlanc, Circe Olson Woessner, Jacqueline Murray Loring, and Karen Bradberry entertained with touching and humorous excerpts from letters and messages about family life in the military. » Read more

1 2 3 4 5 8