Missouri - part 1

November 19, 2019 - November 29, 2019

Drove from Meredosia, Illinois to Hannibal, Missouri - childhood home of Samuel Clemens (more commonly known as author Mark Twain)

Looking down the main street of Hannibal as duck comes on.

These quips are from Mark Twain's autobiography.

His boyhood home as seen in later years.

Bust of Mark Twain

Sam with his wife and 3 daughters.

From Hannibal we drove to Fulton, Missouri to see the National Churchill Museum.  Why is there a Churchill museum in Fulton, Missouri you ask?  It turns out that Winston Churchill gave a speech at Westminster College in 1946 in which he warned about the coming menace of Communism, referring to an "iron curtain" falling across the European Continent leaving Eastern Europe under the influence of  Russia.  His speech heralded the start of the cold war.  The museum provides a thorough accounting of Churchill's life.

The quote by Joseph Stalin reads:
"A powerful and cunning politician...he was the strongest personality in the capitalist world"

This is picture and a quote from the day Churchill delivered his speech at Westinster College in Fulton, MO.

The Iron Curtain in actuality.

Sculpture of Churchill in front of the museum.

The Churchill museum sits below the church of St. Mary Aldermanbury.
Built before 1181 the church was destroyed in the great fire of London in 1666.  It was rebuilt by Christopher Wren only to be partially destroyed again in the blitz of London in 1940. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Churchill's speech at Westminster College the college raised enough funds to move the damaged church from London and rebuild it on the Westminster Campus as a tribute to Winston Churchill.

Although the individual blocks were numbered prior to shipping them, they were used as ballast on ships which essentially gave them a free ride from England to the U.S.  When they arrived in Fulton the builders described the process of finding the blocks they needed as the worlds biggest jig-saw puzzle.