WEBVTT - Behind the Scenes Minis: Murder and War 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.600 of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. Am Holly Fry and 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:15.360 I'm Tracy B. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:15.880 Wilson. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:20.680 So there was a thing this week. We talked about 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.720 the Beecham Sharp Tragedy, sometimes also called the Kentucky Tragedy, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.960 and there was a thing I thought about including in it, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.640 but I did not, okay, And the reason why is 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:37.839 that it's long. Okay, hold on, I'm counting one, two, three, four, five, six, 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:42.360 seven eight. I don't even know it's there. At the 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:48.479 end of their lives and wrote a poem about their 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:54.080 whole experience, with the intent that it would be engraved 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:59.720 on their tombstone, which sounds lovely at least, you know, 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.760 in ter of like from a sentimental point of view. 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:07.040 But this poem is long. It's not it's not like 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.600 a short little thing. It's like thirty or forty lines long. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:14.360 It's really really long. And I just and it did 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.360 end up on their tombstone, and I just think of 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.080 the poor person that had to engrave all of that, 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.759 because it is not a brief piece of writing by 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:23.600 any means. It would be like going, you know, I 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:27.959 would like two of Shakespeare's sonnets engraved on my tombstone. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.920 Like today, that would probably be quicker work. We have 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.480 machines to do it, mm hmm. Not in eighteen twenty six, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.720 and it basically is a very romanticized version, of course 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.759 of their story. I also didn't note that a lot 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.280 of people, I mean, I think it's it's pretty commonly 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:49.920 believed that Anne really co authored that final document with 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.920 her husband, that she had a lot of say in it. 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.800 It was not written in his handwriting. Okay though that 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.800 Initially when I read that, I was like, are they 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.760 suggesting that this was a fake document? No, most people 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:06.160 are actually indicating that Anne probably wrote it all down 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.760 and was a collaborator on it. Whether that's just because 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.400 he had poor penmanship or she was kind of driving 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.400 the bus in terms of like how that document was 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.200 written and what it contained is a matter of some speculation, 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.640 But the two of them really wrote it together, right. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:30.080 This is such a mess of people lately, We've had 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.680 a lot of discussions of people accusing each other of 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:38.560 things that cannot be verified. Yeah, the whole thing about 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:44.880 her child is so messy, so messy, and the only 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.919 person who we can say knows for sure or knew 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:53.799 for sure who the father was was her, and she 0:02:53.919 --> 0:03:00.560 never she never stated it was anyone other than but 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.799 there are even some questions about whether she ever actually 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.520 stated it was sharp. So it all stays a mystery. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:15.240 It's a little unsatisfying. Yeah, It's also an interesting thing 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.400 in that obviously this was written or this whole thing 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.840 took place in the eighteen twenties, so some decades before 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:28.600 the Civil War, and reading some of the accounts, even 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.800 though I know this was the case, it's still a 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:36.000 little startling how casually people will just talk about the 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.280 enslaved people that they own and how that makes them important. 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.640 It's like, we know that that was going on, But 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.520 then when I read contemporary accounts, it always feels like 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.200 a punch in the gut, like, oh, nobody was Like 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.840 I mean people were, but nobody in this you know 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.520 who was writing this down and being yes, he was 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.200 very wealthy, he had X number of enslaved people, although 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:04.480 they of course don't word it quite that way. Those 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.080 people never go own owning people. That seems that seems 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.680 weird and wrong, Like I just I don't know, I know, 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:17.839 that's my hippie dippy talking I just want everybody to 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.679 have a moral compass. I don't know why that's so hard. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:27.520 It's also an interesting thing in terms of how completely 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:34.200 gripped and entire community can be by the events and 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.760 behaviors in the lives of a very few people, right 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:43.880 because there was all of this infighting among legislators while 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:48.840 farmers were seriously like are we going to survive? And 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.280 some of those legislators really did seem more interested in 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:57.000 just winning over one another than the actual constituents that 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.160 they represented. We've never seen that before. But when you 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:04.000 think about there are a bunch of people literally sitting there, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.400 going is my farm going to be foreclosed? Am I 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.719 going to lose everything? While all of these men bicker, 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.040 it's very frustrating. And then it becomes really really easy 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.039 to see how there could have been political machinations involved 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:25.720 in the murder that played out Like Beecham obviously, you know, 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.880 towards the end was like, yes, I did it, but uh, 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.840 and I wanted to do it, but also I don't 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.719 know if I would have done it. I waited four years, 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.080 but then this guy kept telling me I should do it, 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.200 kept pointing out that my wife's reputation had been ruined. 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:44.760 He was right. I did want to kill him after that. Like, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.919 it's a very interesting example of how levers can be 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:54.440 pulled by people with intents that are dishonorable to manipulate 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.040 the passions of other people to do things that are 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:03.239 not necessarily on their backs but that will benefit them directly. Yeah. 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.920 Yeah, And like, one of the things that really struck 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.760 me was how much leading up to him, like authoring 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.680 or co authoring a confession, how much of it was 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.640 based on absolutely circumstantial. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:20.360 The closest thing to. 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:27.520 Like actual evidence being his wife's saying, like I recognize 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.560 that voice, mm hmm, which I don't know maybe, but 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.719 everything else absolutely circumstantial. 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:40.080 Yeah, everybody that gave testimony just about someone else came 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.960 along and said, that's not true. He never had that conversation. 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:45.880 I don't know what they're talking about. That didn't happen. 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.120 That's not what really took place. It's such a mess, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.279 I don't know. It also is a good, not a 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.680 good example, but a clear example of the way that 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:02.039 public opinion gets put in place, because again, right up 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.240 until the sentencing, Beecham was very adamant that he didn't 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.520 do it, and with no evidence. It took that jury 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.000 less than an hour to go yep, guilty. It's like, 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.160 did you just go off vibes Like, That's not how 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:19.640 that's supposed to work. It's just a fascinator in a 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.720 sad way. I don't have a funny story to add 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.080 to this one. This weekly it was really heavy. I 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.480 try to make sure there's some ding dong story I 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.480 could tell about my own ridiculousness. I'll at least take 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:34.920 the edge off. And there I've certainly, I'm sure done 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.480 plenty of ding dong things in the last several days, even, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.480 but I don't have one ready to roll. I don't 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.920 think i'd ever heard of this before. Yeah, I mean 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.240 I it's one that I stumbled across. It's another one 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.040 of those great I was looking at a paper and 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.000 I saw a headline on another part of the paper, 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.080 and I was like, what's that about? And it was like, oh, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.400 this was one of the great things. Just kind of 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:04.080 makes it light. You surely saw the corpse bride, right, Yeah, 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.960 you know where there's that moment. It's in a song 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.920 where one of the characters is talking about all of 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.880 the things that have been playing out again, revealing some 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.320 some things that the characters in the movie have done, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.320 and they go and a murder most Fowl. I found 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.200 that exact line as a headline talking about this case 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.720 murder exclamation poem most foul, and I always thought that 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.000 was very fun and cute and probably based on some 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:39.439 you know, that is, I think, right, I think one 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.839 of the Shakespeare tragedies. I'm pretty sure, yes, But I 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.240 was surprised to find it as a headline in the 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.199 Kentucky newspaper, Murder most Fowl, and it at least gave 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.440 me a moment of corpse bride fund in the midst 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.960 of a lot of yucky he said, he said, she 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:02.520 maybe said, but we don't know stuff. Yeah. I feel 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.720 like the fact that Anne Cook moved out to the 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.199 country to be alone with her mother, out of society 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:14.599 was probably a good indicator that she didn't want to 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.920 talk about any of that right now. Whether or not 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:23.199 that was an issue of feeling ashamed or I don't know, 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.680 maybe she just didn't want to get in the mess. Anyway, 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.680 It's a lot of sad and so much hangs on 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.200 the testimony of the neighbor, some of which seems to 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:39.760 be almost contradictory of itself. It's unclear anyway, a murder, 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:48.920 most foul. Let's go watch stop motion animation for fun 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:50.360 after such sad stories. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:10:02.400 Yeah, we talked about Wilfred Owen this week. 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:03.400 We sure did. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.880 I have kept circling back to Wilfred Owen repeatedly. Deltiet 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.640 decoram Est is a poem that we've read, I think 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:17.600 in high school, maybe also in college, in like a 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:22.000 different context and a more humanity's context in college and 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.640 in literature class in high school. And I did not 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:32.360 know anything about his life or biography when reading the poem. 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.560 The poem was really about like World War One and 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.719 the horrors of trench warfare and the use of gas 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.280 and things like that. It was not about Wilfrid Owen 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.360 as a person, and so I did not realize that 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.920 he had been a soldier and that he had been 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:51.520 killed at the age of only twenty five, so close 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:56.080 to the end of the war. And when I learned that, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.440 I kept just circling back to I'm kind of wanting 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.439 to do an episode about it, And as I said 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.679 in the episode, I just kept kind of wanting to 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.880 hug him. I am sad that he had such a 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:14.280 short life because of war. I got the impression that 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.760 you had some similar responses as we were wrapping up 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.520 the episode I did and his work, I never really 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:26.440 studied him, so looking at this after you had sent 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.360 it over to me, there's such a very obvious through 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:34.000 line from his work too. Another recent topic, who is 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.760 near to my heart Kurt Vonneguet in the way he 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.319 talks about war. Yeah, I'm like, I guarantee he read 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.000 his work. I guarantee it. I had not thought about that, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:45.520 but that makes absolute sense. 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:51.760 Yeah, it's very not romanticized when he talks about it 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.600 in any kind of way, even in his off hand 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.200 to sides, it's usually all about how stupid the whole 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.480 thing is and pointless, and that is the. 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.360 Undertone of a number of Wilfrid Owen's poems as well. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:12.840 Regarding the height requirement to join the British Army, so 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.600 as we said, he was a little more than five 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.960 to five, just like a smidge over five to five, 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.960 and the height requirement at the very beginning of the 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.199 war had been less than that, and then they had 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.079 such a surge of people trying to enlist that they 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.439 raised it to just have a way to quickly weed 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:37.240 people out, but then kept having to progressively lower it simultaneously. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.440 There were people underneath what had been the original the 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.640 original limit, which I think was five foot three, and 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.600 there were men under five foot three who wanted to enlist, 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.920 and a lot of them actually who wanted to enlist, 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:59.200 And so special battalions were formed, called Bantam battalions, named 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:04.079 for they think rooster, right, bantam roosters. And a lot 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:08.160 of the people who joined these bantom battalions were like 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:15.280 doc workers, mine workers, people who were shorter than average, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:21.320 but also like really stocky and really strong. And I 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:27.240 kind of went on a slight detour learning about bantam 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.520 battalions and then was like, Tracy, you gotta get your 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.960 mind back on your work. So I don't know if 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.880 if that might be a topic for some kind of 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.240 future episode, or it might be incorporated in a future episode. 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:46.880 In some way, I got the impression that like, these 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.160 were generally men who were very used to doing very 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:57.000 hard work, and simultaneously the other battalions of men who 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.920 were taller than that could be kind kind of patronizing 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.120 toward them. Yeah, And so it seems like there was 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.760 a lot of a lot of social expectation and ideas 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.680 about masculinity kind of interwoven with all of this. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.880 Well, this also makes sense because you know, bantams are 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.920 a smaller fowl. Yeah, and they're not just roosters, like, 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.640 there are many fowl that could be characterized as bantam, Like, 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.160 there are ducks that would be called bantam, as well 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:25.760 as chickens. 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.080 I think I've most often heard it with rooster. Yeah, 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:30.600 but they are little and sturdy. 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:31.640 Yeah. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:42.040 Yeah. I also have some thoughts about Harold Owen, Yeah, 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.640 who I have not researched at all. I know zero 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:49.240 about his life. But he went to such links to 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.920 just black out parts of his brother's letters and in 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:57.440 some cases cut out parts of them with scissors, without 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:01.320 knowing that a person who is reading the elections of 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.880 his letters that his brother had edited and published might 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.520 think that, you know, these were letters sent from the front. 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.360 Maybe they just got damaged in transit like that might 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:15.920 be what illegible meant. No, illegible meant that Harold went 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:17.600 through them and expurgated them. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:19.240 He made them illegible. 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:26.440 Yeah, And logically, with it being you know, the early 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:33.320 twentieth century, if what was being cut out was in 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:39.080 some way related to Wilfred Owen having feelings or relationships 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:44.760 with other men that likely would not have been something 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:49.840 he would have been writing openly about. So it seems 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.960 like this could have been things that his brother would 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.400 have been like able to see that people could like 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.640 read into, or like his brother not being particularly guarded 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:06.920 without how he was writing about things right but near 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.680 that passage where Owen where Harold Owen and his biography 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.320 of his brother described him as having no relationship with 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.920 anybody because he thought it might interfere with his intellectual ability. 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.080 Harold Owen said this about himself, quote, I deliberately chose 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.560 the Roman Catholic religion because of its insistence on celibacy, 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:29.920 and Wilfrid's thinking poetry supplanted religion. And I was just like, 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:35.600 I have thoughts and questions, let me do if we 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:37.440 had a time machine, I would just kind of want 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:39.320 to go meet both of these brothers and talk to 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:45.840 them more. This whole thing also illustrates why I can 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:52.880 find the meme about historians describing lovers as friends to 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:59.000 be frustrating, because this is the kind of things that 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:04.040 his story are dealing with when writing about queer history. 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.239 A lot of the time friends and family members who 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.240 are very protective of somebody's legacy, who in some cases 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:12.560 have gone through and cut parts of their letters out 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:18.159 with scissors and will not allow historians access to the 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:23.640 actual primary original documents to review them, only selectively give 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:28.239 some stuff or some exp expurgated stuff or whatever. And 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:35.040 it's only later, often after either those family members have died, 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:40.600 or those family members have become more open about you know, 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.520 their past family member, or in some cases, you know, 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.400 something's been passed down through a family and they come 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.600 into the hands of somebody who has different you know, 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.159 social and political ideal ideals and beliefs than the person 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.960 who was originally cutting stuff out of letters with scissors. 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:04.040 That is when historians are actually able to get more 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.840 into the real depth of a person's whole life. So 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:13.280 as sure, there are you know, previous histories of or 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:18.000 previous biographies of Wilford Owen, including once written by his brother, 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:22.000 that don't touch on that at all, And one element 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:27.520 of that is like just not having access to the 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:40.959 original documents and their entirety to go through. Yeah, I 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:44.960 always try to think about, like what that moment is 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:52.400 where someone decides essentially to rewrite history, and I honestly 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.160 am a little conflicted about it for a couple of reasons. 0:18:55.320 --> 0:19:00.840 Obviously, like it sucks to not have original documents available 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:05.680 to tell it an accurate story. I also do understand 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.879 as frustrating it as it has been for me. Not 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.840 just in cases like this where it's queerness being raised, 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.080 but you know, with anyone where there's something about them 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.439 that someone in their family thought it was best people 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:25.919 not know. But I can also see as incorrect as 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:29.399 this this move was, you know, someone like his brother, 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.040 who clearly had his own stuff going on, worrying that 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:39.560 his brother's legacy would be forgotten or tainted in some way, 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.439 and wanting to position it in a way that he 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.880 would be recognized for his writing and not the other 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:52.080 things about him. Right, I mean, And it's hard because 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.639 it's easy for us to go that's shortsighted. But like 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.920 at the time, it probably seemed like, well, his work 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.800 could be buried forever, or I can do this right 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:03.399 and he can be seen in this other way. Not 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.159 the same thing at all, but right, Like Queen Victoria's 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.399 daughter trashed a bunch of her writing yeah, and she 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.040 died rather than let people see it. And so I 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.440 do understand that there's also a tertiary part of it 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:22.840 for me where I also wonder how much grief is 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.119 informing it, because if you've I mean, every one of 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.240 us will experience a grief if you have not already, 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:32.720 And I'm sorry, and it sucks. But there is a 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:35.439 thing that happens. I have seen it happen to people 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.439 where when someone has passed, without even being cognizant that 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:49.080 you are editing the story, people start telling their version 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.320 of that person's story, focusing on things that are different 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:57.239 than other things and wanting to almost create this not 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.600 always idealized, but a version that is what they remember 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.320 and what they were part of. Yeah. Yeah, and wanting 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.520 to like pare down anything that doesn't fit that. Yeah. Again, 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.160 don't love it, but I do understand the motivation of it. Yeah. 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:19.000 Well, And socially, the culture that you and I have 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.040 grown up in and lived in in our whole lives, 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:29.359 we eulogize people after they die, when like that's just 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.000 sort of a baseline of what's expected. Is like, yeah, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.920 you don't go to somebody's funeral and say a bunch 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.520 of things about them that could be taken as really 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.680 negative into a typical. 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.240 Unless you're a rabbel rouser, unless you're a rabbl rasler. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.480 Like the word eulogy literally has the idea that it's 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:51.200 affirming there in the word yeah. 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:52.160 So yeah. 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.000 The story of Wilfred Owen and all of his personal 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.080 papers reminds me a little bit of and Lister, who 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.840 we covered on the show before. Yeah wrote if you 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:05.399 haven't heard that episode, and Lister basically wanted to marry 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.840 a woman and figured out a way to make that 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:12.720 work for herself and wrote many, many, many diaries extensively 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.880 chronicling her life and also in chronicling all of her relationships. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:23.840 And when a family member later on, you know, this 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:25.560 is all in the nineteenth century, when all of this 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:29.719 would have been stigmatized and in some ways illegal. Family 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.399 member cracked the code that she had written in, realized 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:36.240 what they were about, and kind of went yikes, and 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:38.719 put them back in the vault. And I feel like 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:41.480 we're so fortunate that those things they went back in 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.879 the vault instead of being burned, because that is something 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:49.880 that could have happened and has happened with other figures 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:55.320 from history and honestly people, now, I'm sure so Yeah, 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:59.080 I still just want to hug Wilfrid now I love 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.399 so desperately that he and his mother worked out a 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:07.399 code together. Yeah, and a couple of different codes, a 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.040 couple of different ways to stay in touch. I didn't 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:13.160 know anything about these postcards until learning about the code 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.200 that they had worked out together. And the postcards were 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.080 just basically a fast way to let your loved ones 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:20.159 know that you were alive. 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:20.880 Yeah. 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.120 It took you know, two seconds to fill the thing 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.679 out and then it would just be mailed. And it 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.800 had instructions printed on it very clearly that if you 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:33.040 wrote anything on it other than your name, the date, 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:35.320 and the date of the last letter you received from 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:39.719 that person, it would just be discarded. And also, you know, 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.920 the things in and of themselves a form of propaganda, 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.359 because of all of the statements you could communicate with 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:51.119 somebody were none of them were like yeah, none of 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:53.280 them were like I am in the hospital and will 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:55.600 never recover. Like that was not an option. 0:23:56.119 --> 0:24:02.160 I wonder too, since these were posts cards, if part 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:07.280 of this wasn't an effort at concealment from like enemies, 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:12.160 reading Oh yeah, maybe and trying to triangulate where people were, 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:16.160 what kind of actions were happening, et cetera. I mean it, yes, 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.760 it is propaganda. Still, I'm not trying to claim it's not. 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:22.440 But like, if there is a secondary like intelligence and 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:27.520 concealment aspect to it, maybe so maybe so I want 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:33.240 to I can so easily picture a film about the 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:37.080 leadership sitting around in a room going, well, we have 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:38.840 to make it easy for them to communicate with their 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:41.600 people back home. Okay, but then that's going to make 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:44.200 it easy for our enemies to read them, and them 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:47.920 figuring out this complex flow chart of what they could 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:49.080 and could not include. 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:53.600 Having had a job before where I had to write 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:57.600 things that went through multiple levels of approval and revision, 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:02.760 I am imagining the approval process of exactly what went 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:06.400 on this postcard. I'm imagining that we can just write 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:08.800 a whole musical about the whole writing and editing. 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:11.160 Oh, you write the musical. I don't want the singing, 0:25:11.240 --> 0:25:12.480 but I would be really. 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:15.640 Bad at that. I was just thinking about about Operation 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:17.600 Min's Meat is just what that made me think of 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:22.240 a show that I've only heard parts of. Anyway, Anyway, 0:25:23.560 --> 0:25:27.640 whatever's happening on your weekend. I hope it as good 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:29.600 as possible. If there's somebody in your life that you 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:31.480 want to go hug, I hope they're cool with that 0:25:31.600 --> 0:25:33.320 and that you're able to go give them a hug. 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:37.680 We'll be back tomorrow with a Saturday classic and something 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:43.760 brand new on Monday. 0:25:44.800 --> 0:25:46.080 Stuff you Missed in History. 0:25:45.880 --> 0:25:50.240 Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:54.000 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:56.640 to your favorite shows.