Oral History Interview with Evilu Pridgeon, October 24, 2015

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Transcript of an interview with Evilu Pridgeon, educator and longtime Dallas LGBT activist, for the Dallas LGBT Oral History Project. Pridgeon discusses her childhood in Austin, Texas; education; work history; coming out; Dallas LGBT history; AIDS crisis in Dallas; LGBT activism; The Dallas Way; diversity in the gay community.
Date: October 24, 2015
Creator: Wisely, Karen & Pridgeon, Evilu, 1949-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Martin L. Allday, October 8, 1994

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Interview with Martin L. Allday, an Army WWII veteran from Austin, Texas. Allday discusses his experiences at the Battle of Okinawa, including being drafted and basic training, transiting the Pacific, assignment to the 96th Infantry Division and arrival on Okinawa, events of the fighting on the Shuri Line at Zebra Hill, being wounded, evacuation and recovery, returning to Okinawa, clean-up operations, souvenirs, and adjustment to civilian life. An appendix includes a letter typed by Allday for a panel discussion of the battle, a map of the battle from "The Second World War: a Complete History" by Martin Gilbert, a veteran's questionnaire from the Admiral Nimitz Museum he filled out, and a one-page biography.
Date: October 8, 1994
Creator: Marcello, Ronald E. & Allday, Martin L.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Roadside Crosses in Contemporary Memorial Culture

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A fifteen-year-old high school cheerleader is killed while driving on a dangerous curve one afternoon. By that night, her classmates have erected a roadside cross decorated with silk flowers, not as a grim warning, but as a loving memorial. In this study of roadside crosses, the first of its kind, Holly Everett presents the history of these unique commemoratives and their relationship to contemporary memorial culture. The meaning of these markers is presented in the words of grieving parents, high school students, public officials, and private individuals whom the author interviewed during her fieldwork in Texas. Everett documents over thirty-five memorial sites with twenty-five photographs representing the wide range of creativity. Examining the complex interplay of politics, culture, and belief, she emphasizes the importance of religious expression in everyday life and analyzes responses to death that this tradition. Roadside crosses are a meeting place for communication, remembrance, and reflection, embodying on-going relationships between the living and the dead. They are a bridge between personal and communal pain–and one of the oldest forms of memorial culture. Scholars in folklore, American studies, cultural geography, cultural/social history, and material culture studies will be especially interested in this study.
Date: October 15, 2002
Creator: Everett, Holly
System: The UNT Digital Library