In 1940 began what Churchill called The Battle of Britain, an attempt by the German Luftwaffe to cow the British into surrender by a bombing campaign targeting not only military installations but also major population centers in Great Britain. To escape the bombing, Great Aunt Alicia Chichester and her grandchildren (Charlie and Rocky Petre and Alicia Cooke ) came to stay at 4969 Pershing in St Louis, the home of her mother Delphine Powell Chambers. They made frequent visits to Taille de Noyer where their Great Aunt Sara Chambers Polk lived. Family lore contends that Lemoine Skinner, an ace reporter with the St Louis Post-Dispatch, while interviewing these “War Orphans”, met and fell in love with their cousin Grizelda Polk. Pictures from Lemoine and Grizelda’s wedding (July 5, 1941) are shown here [Above Left: Lemoine kneeling with Charlie Petre, Alicia Cooke, and Rocky Petre. Bridesmaids Nancy Bascom, Betsy Mahaffey. Below Left:Charlie, Alicia and Rocky. Below Right: Bride Grizelda with Frank Harney and Alicia Cooke].

A decade later, in 1951, “Old Granny” Sarah Polk traveled with her husband Julius (BuPaw), her daughter Grizelda, her son Wm Julius (“Polky”) and the Skinner grandchildren to Europe. They first went to Les Issambres on the French Mediterranean, then traveled on to Tunworth Downs, Hampshire England, where Old Granny visited with her sister, Great Aunt Alicia Chichester and her family. The following 16 mm film footage was shot at Tunworth by Grizelda.

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Fast Forward

As noted in Glimpses IV, Molly Wynn Owen provided us a number of current photos of the Petre, Cooke and Salter families. These follow below:

Alicia (Cooke) Salter with Charlie Petre

Emma Louise, Molly, and Alicia in Turkey, Fall 2007

Claudia (nee Petre) and Ambrose Scott-Moncrieff

Jonathan, Simon and Philip Gray, with Hugo Salter

Edward Petre

Hugo Salter, the Gray Boys, Alicia, Edward and Lucy Petre, and Fenella (Petre) Gray

Rocky and Charlie Petre with Anthony Cooke

Caroline Petre and Alicia

Emma Louise Salter with Lucy (fiance to Edward Petre)

Molly and Toby Salter

Molly, Claudia, Ambrose, Gareth and Nick

Nick Salter with Gareth Wynn Owen

Last but not Least: Siena (Sasha Cooke’s oldest daughter)

MIA’s: Ray Salter, Andy Gray, Melanie Petre, Sasha Cooke, Chloe and Oliver. Next Time!

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Notice: There will be a Quiz on this material at the end of term – be forewarned…

The Chamberlain

England will be the focus of the next few issues of our family Glimpses series, with Molly and Gareth Wynn Owen as the subjects of today’s posting. Molly and Gareth have very generously responded to our intrusive requests with commentary and great photos which reveal something of their adventuresome lives.

This photo (by Gareth ?) won the August Image of the Month Award. It captures, in an image, Molly’s spirit…

Here’s what the Wynn Owens have to say…

“And what are we up to??

Gareth is working on the Iraqi desk for the British Foreign Office, concentrating on internal politics. His dedicated line is, ‘things ARE improving’. We’ll leave it at that!

I am working for a small consulting firm on sustainability/environmental issues. I primarily advise commerical property developers on how to make their buildings more sustainable. We’re also trying to progress a few carbon credit projects in Africa but facing all of the challenges that Africa presents.

We will probably be in London for another year before we’re posted abroad again. We’d love to see anyone and everyone in the civilized UK before we head to the deepest, darkest corners of the developing world. Our near future travel plans include hiking the West Highland Way in Scotland in September and we’re hoping to have a week of beach indulgence in North Africa sometime in the late fall.”

Molly then added these terrific photos of recent travels:

Molly and Gareth Cycling in London	Walking the English Countryside
Fall 2007 -Visiting Turkey with the Salters	Vietnam Coast
Springtime 2008 Trip to Rome	Nick Salter hosts the Wynn Owens for Dinner

Many thanks to Molly and Gareth for forwarding these materials. Your adventures provide much vicarious pleasure for us more sedentary clan members.

Coming Attractions

Molly and Gareth have also sent in recent photos of the English Cousins (the Salters, Petres, and Cookes) who will be the subject of our next installment of Glimpses. Hope you will tune in then…

The Chamberlain

1st Lieutenant Manning Kalish sends us this update on his remarkable activities as a member of the 10th Mountain Division, Iraq.

Background

This Army division’s specialty is rapid deployment anywhere in the world for combat, especially combat in harsh conditions. Here are some excerpts about the 10th Mountain from Wiki:

During 1993, the 10th Mountain Division [Division Insignia on right.]was deployed to Somalia as part of Operation Restore Hope. When Task Force Ranger and the SAR team were pinned down during a raid in what later became known as the Battle of Mogadishu, 10th Mountain units provided infantry for the UN quick reaction force sent to rescue them… The 10th Mountain Division later was deployed to Haiti and Bosnia in the 1990s. Because of the number of deployments, 10th Mountain gained the reputation as the most deployed division in the army.

On October 3 and 4, 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, the 10th Mountain Division played a prominent role in the heroic rescue of soldiers following the downing of two Blackhawk helicopters.This harrowing story of urban warfare against Somali militia fighters loyal to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid is the basis of the book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War .

Here is what Manning sends in for us:

“My battalion 2-30 Infantry (part of 4th Brigade 10th Mountain Division) deployed in November of 2007 from Fort Polk, LA. We arrived in Kuwait at the end of the month and conducted 10 days of training, classes/briefings, and to get acclimated to the weather. We then flew North to East Baghdad to begin taking over for the outgoing unit. The battalion we replaced had seen a lot of action due to the situation at that time and partly because of the way they operated. Since we took over around Christmas time for the most part activity has been relatively peaceful. March saw a sharp spike in activity throughout the whole sector with our battalion seeing the lion’s share. While there were some injuries within the battalion, there were no fatalities during that time. Our sector goes from an area called Muthana/Zayuna up to the Northeast to an area called Sharwa Um Jadr or the SUJ as we call it. The Western sectors are very residential and parts are fairly well off with a retired military officers living there. In contrast the SUJ is much poorer and more spread out and less developed. Most of it is quite agrarian.

Day to day operations focus on continuing to operate with the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) mostly the Iraqi Army (IA) and the National Police (NP) and to a lesser extent the Iraqi Police (IP). Generally the IA are the most competent and the NP a little less so. They both function in fairly conventional military fashion. The IP are like regular cops but probably more corrupt. There is also a fair amount of corruption in the NP. The IA appear to be the most immune. I should also add that it can really depend on the unit. The battalion and subordinate leadership (company and platoon level) meet regularly with ISF and civilian leaders to discuss security as well as infrastructure and other projects and issues. The battalion also works on projects, issuing micro grants to local nationals to help or improve their businesses.

Currently we are planning to be stateside sometime around February. After that I don’t know. Some time off. I need to find a car and a place to live and find out what my options are. I think I’ll be stateside for at least a year but I’ve been fooled many times before.

I realize this sounds like a sanitized piece of political fluff. When we get back and there is a little time and distance I’ll put something a little more personal together and throw in a few photos for good measure. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.”

No Manning, Thank You for all that you and your comrades are doing for us. We have the utmost respect for your courage and sacrifice and we all look forward to your followup notes and photos.

Our next Glimpses posting will be from Molly Wynn-Owen and, as a segue, here is a photo of Manning and Molly in the Iranian desert.

The Chamberlain