Life of Lydia

Dear readers, on Friday my father and I flew to the Winston Churchill Museum in Fulton, Mo. The whole arangment worked out quite well, as I am always up for visiting sites related to WWII leaders, and my father is always up for flying his plane somewhere.

Our family gets a Magazine called Rural Missouri. In an issue this summer, there was an article about the Winston Churchill Museum. My reaction was “I must go to this place!” I made my feelings clear to my father, and my efforts were not in vain.

My father’s usual pair of headsets wasn’t working, so he had to use a backup pair. Even with this misfortune, he still enjoyed the flight. This portion of our day was for Father’s enjoyment. I was quite literally along for the ride.

We landed at a small but surprisingly busy airport in Fulton. In this photo I pose in front of the building. I am holding the two lunchboxes that contained our sustenance for the day.

We used the airport’s courtesy car. The key was enclosed in a lockbox. In order to get the code to open it, one had to call the Fulton power plant.

My father told me it was “a whopping five minute drive” from the airport to the museum. He had an opportunity to parallel park, but did not take it, which disappointed me.

The museum is in an underground bunker of sorts, and on top of it is a cadthedral that was moved from England. Kind of a strange setup, but hey, it’s space efficient!

The reason there is a Churchill museum in Fulton is as follows: In 1946 Truman and Churchill both visited the campus of Westminster College. After being introduced by Truman, Churchill gave his famous “Sinews of Peace,” aka “Iron Curtain” speech. He declared, “An iron curtain has descended across the continent,” in response to Russia enforcing Communism in the formerly Nazi-occupied countries in Eastern Eroupe.

They had a large chunk of the Berlin Wall on display because it was a physical manifestation of the “Iron Curtain.” There was a random lady who came up to my father and was asking him a bunch of questions about the wall and the cathedral. He had read about it on the museum’s website and he answered with confidence while chomping on a granola bar before admitting that it was his first time to visit. Later he realized that he still had his airport badge on, which probably made him look like someone official.

Apparently Churchill’s granddaughter went to Berlin and picked out which pieces of the wall she wanted. She also made the cutouts of people.

The side of the wall that faced the east had no graphitti on it.

After we paid for our museum tickets, one of the employees gave us an in-depth introduction. After that we walked through the museum on our own.

The museum chronologically went through Chuchill’s life. Here, Father views a WWI exhibit.

There was a five paneled TV displaying a video about the rise of Nazi Germany.

Churchill’s likeness was frequently displayed.

I gave Churchill a high five.

There was a random bust of FDR (owner of Fala!) in the corner.

There was another, longer video to watch about Germany bombing London.

They did not have very many actual artifacts in the museum, but they did have Churchill’s top hat. Unfortunately, my father did not notice this because he was too busy looking at exhibits about airplanes.

There was a whole room dedicated to Churchill’s visit to Fulton, there were several relevant artifacts on display. There was a video playing with overly loud background music.

My father posed with a slightly oversized statue of Churchill.

They had a replica of Churchill’s desk. My father attempted to frown.

There was a super cool spiral staircase that led from the underground museum up to the church. This was a major highlight of the trip for me.

The inside of the church had a lot of natural light. It felt like the most British corner of Missouri.

There was an impressive looking pipe organ.

There was a cutout of Churchill in the balcony, because why not?

I have no idea what this was, but it felt very British.

The sign said that this was the sword of the Mayor of London. I know nothing else about it, but it also seemed very British. As you may have noticed, I find British things to be quite charming.

I sat down on the ground to get this shot, but don’t you think it was worth it?

After we were done at the museum, we went to a Break Time gas station and bought beverages. I selected the largest water bottle available, and my father chose a soda and a normal sized water, although I ended up drinking his water. When I was taking a picture of the two empty bottles at home, Luke decided that he wanted to be in the photo.

When we got back to the airport, my father discovered that in order to put the car key back in the lock box he had to type in the code. Unfortunately, he did not remember the code, so he had to call the Fulton Power Plant again and awkwardly ask for them to tell him the code for the second time.

My father worked very hard to get us home.

We returned to Springfield and got the plane put away before the sun set!