The next meeting of the Saint Croix River Valley Chapter National Society Daughter of the American Revolution will be held at 6:30pm on Thursday, May 17th, at Boutwells Landing (651-275-5000 or http://www.boutwells.org/gpc.iml) located at 5600 Norwich Parkway, Oak Park Heights, MN. Please email the Chapter Regent, Deb Gangnon, at scrvcnsdar@gmail.com to make a reservation to attend. Visitors will be excused following the program as we will then have our business meeting.
The program will be presented by Kim Heikkla, an adjunct instructor in the history department at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN, and the author of the book, "Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Vietnam." Kim will speak on her experiences during the time when fifteen Minnesota nurses spent a year caring for casualties of the war, only to come home and descend into isolated silence. To heal themselves, they banded together as Veterans. Kim will explore what drove them to enlist, what happened in-country, and how the war changed the their lives. These women have since launched a campaign to build the Vietnam Women's Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. which was completed and dedicated in 1993 (http://www.vvmf.org/WomensMemorial).
Currently there are 24 DAR Chapters with more than 1,000 members in the state of Minnesota. The public DAR website may be viewed atwww.dar.org/. Please contact Deb Gangnon for information concerning membership in the Saint Croix River Valley Chapter DAR which meets regularly in Stillwater, MN. The DAR is a non-profit, non-political 121 year old social service organization devoted to historical preservation, education and patriotic endeavor and open to all women 18 years of age and older who can prove a blood lineage to a patriot of the American Revolution. The DAR does not discriminate against color, race or creed. U.S.A. citizenship is not required for membership.
