THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504120422
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL SIZEMORE AND STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: YORKTOWN LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
George Bush, brought in as the centerpiece of the unveiling of a newly renovated Revolutionary War museum, was introduced as a warrior extraordinaire. But he punctured the hoopla by poking fun at himself and quoting that ``great author,'' his wife, Barbara.
Amid a crowd of dignitaries so big it would have sunk one of Lord Cornwallis' warships, Gov. George F. Allen likened the former president, a fellow Republican, to the American colonists who ``fought to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical monarchy.''
Allen noted Bush's World War II service as a Navy pilot and hailed him for showing ``the iron will to resist another tyrant,'' Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
But Bush was anything but militaristic as he cut the ribbon Tuesday on the Yorktown Victory Center's multimillion-dollar renovation. He was laid-back and self-deprecating, and even managed to joke about his forced retirement from office in 1992.
State Sen. Hunter B. Andrews, a Hampton Democrat, had pointed out that Bush - in his two vice presidential and two presidential campaigns - is one of only three candidates who carried Virginia in four straight national elections.
Bush's response: ``If I carried Virginia in four national elections, how come I'm standing here unemployed and retired?''
Praising the Yorktown museum's effort to present a comprehensive picture of life during the Revolution, Bush said, ``I hope citizens who visit . . . will take with them a renewed sense of optimism and hope. The American dream is alive and well.
``As that great author Barbara Bush would say, read a book. And read to someone else while you're at it.''
The museum used Bush's visit to throw the spotlight on the final phase of its $5 million expansion and overhaul. The building had been gutted, made over and stocked with new goodies. The lawn was mowed and fertilized green, and the windows had a streakless shine.
Bush showed up at the urging of an old family friend, Robert V. Hatcher Jr., a retired Richmond insurance executive who sits on the board of the museum's nonprofit educational trust.
The backers of the state-operated Victory Center had been fighting for funding long before the museum opened in the bicentennial fever of 1976. The big Virginia biennial followed in 1981, celebrating the year that British and Hessian troops under Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington's men.
When the fervor died down, the center's supporters struggled even more. Artifacts were scant and private donations weren't exactly rolling in.
In the late '80s, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation's Board of Trustees mapped a new future for the center. It called for expanding the time period it covered and bringing in new exhibits covering the Revolution's impact on the regular people of that era.
Instead of focusing solely on people like George Washington, the museum would take a closer look at people like Sarah Osborn Benjamin, who followed her soldier man and ended up earning her keep by washing, sewing and nursing the sick.
``It's long overdue, and it's good to see it here,'' said Joe Goldenberg, a history professor at Virginia State University who visited the museum with one of his students, Harold Dubose of Portsmouth.
Goldenberg said the center is one of several museums nationwide that have reworked their exhibits, expanding them to cover women, African Americans, Native Americans and the working classes.
``It's only right that these people get some attention,'' he said.
In contrast to the popular mythmaking that has often passed for history, the museum exposes visitors to some of the subtler shadings of the Revolutionary era.
There is, for instance, an exhibit about Virginia plantation owner Jacob Ellegood, one of a substantial number of colonists who sided with the British. He organized 600 men into the Queen's Loyal Virginia Regiment, only to be captured and imprisoned for five years. His property was plundered and confiscated, and he was exiled to England after the war.
Many of the tourists on hand for Tuesday's unveiling dropped in with hopes of a Bush sighting.
Laura Linehan, a fourth-grader from Annapolis, Md., had just learned about the Revolution in her history class. But . . .
``Why don't you tell her why you really wanted to come?'' her grandmother, Naomi Reed, said jokingly.
``Because President Bush is my favorite president.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by BETH BERGMAN/
Ex-President George Bush, center - with Sen. John Warner, left, and
Gov. George Allen and wife Susan - speaks Tuesday at the renovated
Yorktown Victory Center. The Revolutionary War museum is working to
present a broader view of life during the war.
by CNB