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Friday, June 15, 2007 -
This morning we headed out from Minneapolis at 7 am. It was about a 6 hour drive to Kansas City, Missouri and we wanted to arrive in time to tour The National WWI Museum. This is the only museum in the United States that is solely dedicated to WWI. It was the perfect trip site because we had ended our home-school history studies this year with WWI. We had also learned earlier this week about the humanitarian role Herbert Hoover played in WWI. We arrived at the museum by 2 pm and purchased tickets.
The memorial tower was built in 1926 in dedication to the soldiers who fought in WWI and the museum opened in 2006. We went up in the tower, which provided a scenic view of Kansas City, MO. Once in the museum we watched a short film about the start of WWI and then toured the exhibits.
To enter the exhibits, visitors cross a glass bridge with a poppy field containing 9,000 poppies planted beneath. Each poppy represents 1,000 soldiers killed in combat during WWI (yes, that amazingly totals 9 million!). Poppies are significant because they grew abundantly in Europe after WWI, growing best when all other foliage is absent and the ground is churned and burned up. The most notable place poppies were seen was in Belgium after WWI. The bombs of WWI had decimated the land leaving room for the beautiful poppies to grow in abundance. The heavily churned earth and the high concentration of lime from the limestone buildings made the perfect catalyst for the poppies to grow.
This is why many wear the red poppy on Veteran's Day. The famous poem "In Flanders Field" by John McCrae was written as he looked over the poppy fields during WWI.
The museum closed at 5 pm and we headed to our hotel for the night. Tomorrow we plan to visit Independence, MO and the Truman Library.
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