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History Buff Catalogs Veterans' Memories

MEGAN ECKSTEIN

Frederick News-Post

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) -- An easy way to get Priscilla Rall engaged in a conversation is to start talking about local history. She lives and breathes it.

Rall lives in a house her husband built on his grandfather's farm in Rocky Ridge. Though the house is only 4 years old, she has filled it with antiques, from the furniture to the decorative pottery to the 1930s refrigerator, oven and stove.

The 60-year-old retired art teacher loves local history of all kinds, from the documents to objects to places that tell the story of Frederick County. But oral history is what has really captured her interest, and she has spent the past seven years working with the Frederick County Veterans History Project and now the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project. She listens to veterans talk for hours about growing up in and around Frederick and how they experienced World War II, the Korean War and other major events.

"There is just so much history," she said. "This is our heritage. We have so much to be proud about, and there are so many unsung heroes."

Rall has a "War Room" in her house, with shelves overflowing with books and memorabilia, primarily from World War II. The shelves also have many white binders -- Rall cataloged every single one of her veteran interviews, keeping the cover sheet with the veteran's biographical information, copies of documents and photos she submitted with the interview, and sometimes even maps she compiled to show where the veteran fought.

There's her first interview: Vernon Keilholtz, an Army Air Force pilot in World War II with the 100th Bomb Group. She sat with him in a B-17 plane in 2004 as he touched the plane's throttle for the first time in more than 60 years, telling her and a crowd of onlookers about his war experiences.

Then there was her most unique interview, with Howard Baugh, a Tuskegee Airman in World War II. And her most famous interviewee -- former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel, who instructed soldiers at Aberdeen Proving Ground for two years during World War II. There are 93 others, whose stories Rall seems to remember as clearly as if they were her own.

Looking through her many binders, Rall can rattle off details about each veteran's service. But for Rall, the relationship doesn't stop when she turns her interview package in to the Veterans History Project. She keeps in touch with the veterans, and her binders reflect that.

They're also filled with cards, letters, photos of her with the veterans at picnics and parties, and obituaries when the veterans have died. She still tears up talking about some of those who have died during her seven years of doing interviews.

The veterans and their families have taken notice of her passion and returned the favor. When her father, Capt. Ed Rall, who served in the Army Medical Corps after World War II, died in 2008, Rall struggled to track down his military records needed to arrange military honors for his funeral. Rall told the wife of a Korean War Veterans Association member about the setback just hours before the funeral, and she gathered four other veterans' wives to do the funeral honors for Rall.

"I could never repay them for doing that for me. It was really, really an honor," she said.

For someone who grew up watching movies about war heroes and television shows about combat, playing with little green soldiers and wearing her father's Eisenhower jacket, Rall said it's easy to idolize the veterans she works with. One of the most amazing experiences she's had was last June, when she traveled with three local D-Day veterans to Bedford, Va.

"To go to the D-Day Memorial with three veterans, I never thought in a million years I would be that privileged to share something like that with personal heroes of mine."

Information from: The Frederick (Md.) News-Post, http://www.fredericknewspost.com

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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