Fort Erie Historical Museum\u2019s newest exhibit looks at how war and conflict have affected people in the community throughout the town\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Nicole Komar, curator of exhibits, programming and marketing for Fort Erie Museum Services, said the goal was to have an exhibit that went beyond statistics of war.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo often do we get caught up in this happened at this time, these were the key players, this was the result, and it just ends up being based on facts instead of stories,\u201d she said during the exhibit\u2019s official opening.<\/p>\n
While the exhibit, called \u201cWartime Experiences: A Local Perspective,\u201d does move in a chronological way from early Indigenous conflicts to the war in Ukraine, visitors won\u2019t find a timeline drawn along the wall with numbers and stats.<\/p>\n
Instead, they\u2019ll find donated items and stories that show the human impact of conflicts. Komar hopes visitors taking in the displays will be able to draw connections between them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to highlight how these conflicts that occurred hundreds of years apart in some cases have affected the people of Fort Erie and the growth of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the exhibit, visitors will be able to see short videos and firsthand accounts from the Battle of Ridgeway in the museum\u2019s theatre space. There\u2019s also a marble plaque remembering the Ridgeway Nine, who fought during the Fenian Raids in 1866.<\/p>\n
Komar called a display called \u201cA Soldier\u2019s Sacrifice\u201d the \u201cbest example of personal stories and this personal side of war.\u201d<\/p>\n
This display features the three stories of Patrick Dearborn, Albert Storm and Cole Zelenco.<\/p>\n
Dearborn was killed in Vietnam in 1967, Storm in Afghanistan in 2006 and Zelenco in Ukraine in 2023. Items in the glass display were donated by members of the men\u2019s families.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach of them travelled overseas to serve in modern wars,\u201d Komar said. \u201cAlthough generations apart, these men are remembered for their commitment to a cause and really fighting for something they believed in. Even if it meant making that ultimate sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop said he was in high school at the same time as Dearborn, though Dearborn was a bit younger than him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you lived in the \u201860s during the Vietnam War, that was a pretty traumatic time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Redekop said Canada\u2019s military history is one to be proud of because the nation has always stood up for what\u2019s right throughout the world. The important part is ensuring we\u2019ve learned the lesson of the impacts of war on individuals and those who know them.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur challenge in many respects is to make sure that the young people that are growing up have some knowledge of what war is like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added television and movies can sometimes make conflict look cool, but it\u2019s not cool to those living that reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time a soldier, sailor, airman died, there\u2019s a story behind that individual. There\u2019s a family behind that individual. Someone that they have left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visitors can see the exhibit at the Fort Erie Historical Museum daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It is expected to remain on display for at least the next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Erie Historical Museum\u2019s newest exhibit looks at how war and conflict have affected people in the community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4421,136,138,137,4424,50,64314,453],"class_list":["post-275976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-conflicts","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-military","tag-politics","tag-spare-news","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}