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And the stories
keep coming
By Susan Olling
Some of my contributions have been a bit, well, tongue-in-cheek about
tourists. I’m stepping back from that to share some of my early
volunteer experiences where I learned how much fun tourists can provide.
My first volunteer experience started almost thirty years ago.
The Washington National Cathedral (AKA the Big Church), the seat of the
Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., was looking for volunteers.
Being an Episcopalian wasn’t a requirement. The greenhouse
sounded like fun. Barbara, the volunteer coordinator, had another
idea. Would I like to give tours on Saturdays? It’s funny
now; I wasn’t used to talking to groups. What I knew about
cathedrals would have fit comfortably on the head of a pin. After
lots of studying (Gothic architecture, stained glass, carving, the
history of the Big Church, etc.) and going on other docents’ tours, my
final “exam” was to be a walk-through tour with Eileen, the docent
coordinator. She was a lovely English lady we called “Ice Lady”
(not to her face, of course). I was supposed to take my test with
Eileen on a Saturday in April. There were school groups seated
everywhere in the nave. She asked if I could do a
tour. My test was a group of forty kids from South
Carolina. (I passed.) Ten years of tours followed.
Back then, we could get keys to go up into the towers and under the
rose windows. While I was on the board of the local Buckeye Nut
U. alumni club (Don’t be too surprised, I was president for a year,
too.), I took ‘em into those non-public spaces a few times.
Some docents liked talking about specific parts of the Cathedral
fabric. Mine was American history. A brick from the 1617
Jamestown church tower and the Rev. Hunt’s statue, the Lewis and Clark
windows, the Statesmen’s Window, and the War Memorial Chapel were some
of my favorites.
We docents were a pretty religiously diverse group. Episcopalians
there were, but Methodists, Lutherans, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, and
a few of us Presbyterians made up the denominational gumbo. One
of the Saturday bunch was the wife of a retired Navy flag
officer. Joan always made us laugh when she shared how she kept
her husband’s ego in check: she’d ask the admiral where they kept the
sails. Harriet and her family were on the Philippines in late
1941. She had a baby while they were imprisoned, and her husband
created a device to remove bugs from the rice ration (think chicken
wire). Ann, a volunteer in the Rare Book Library, was another
interesting soul. She came to D.C. as a “government gal” decades
before and told numerous stories about the demonstrations during the
late 1960s. I was working on a presentation about the Lee-Jackson
Memorial Bay. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was
kind enough to send primary source documentation about their funding of
the bay. Ann and I were chatting one day, and she mentioned that
she was a member of not just the UDC; she was a member of the Daughters
of the American Revolution, too. Well, they were both wars for
independence, depending on which side you were on.
Next came the National Park Service where I first volunteered at the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM) just a few years after it was
dedicated. Had to be careful with the ladder. It never
seemed to fail that I’d have to tote that big thing to the memorial’s
apex to get to one of the top lines. Some of the
XY-chromosome-carrying visitors made rather risqué comments. They were
veterans, but they were also old guys. The comments went in one
ear and out the other. Some of the veterans were a bit under the
influence, and all those memories started coming back. After a
few years, I moved from VVM to the Washington Monument (WAMO) and did
walk down tours. The nicest of the memorial stones is a piece of
Alaskan jade. One of the things we used to do was tell visitors
who were waiting that the ranger on the elevator was celebrating
his/her birthday and to sing “Happy Birthday” on the way up. They
did. Always good fun. There wasn’t much the elevator ranger
could do but listen.
For the past ten years, I’ve volunteered at another site on the
National Mall. For now, it will remain unnamed. Between
there and sitting on benches, the stories keep coming. Thank you.
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