My father's namesake
My father, Robert McKinley Waters, was named after the good Republican president who held office when he was born. His older brother, my Uncle Johnny, was John William Gladstone Waters, named after Queen Victoria's Liberal prime minister. Grandpa, an immigrant from Belfast, was a great one for naming his kids after political figures he admired. Dad's own heroes included both Robert Taft and Walter Reuther. We in our family have never allowed our own political philosophies to unduly affect our feelings about figures from history or politics we've found admirable for one reason or another.
President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgoz at the World's Fair in Buffalo, N.Y. some four months after Dad was born. I found it interesting when visiting the Antietam battlefield a few years ago that there's a monument not far from Burnside Bridge on the spot where, as a young noncom, McKinley served coffee to the Union soldiers who were involved in the fighting.
Anyway, I came across the slide show of the campaign, assassination, and funeral of Dad's namesake on You Tube, and I thought I'd share it.
Here's a brief documentary on the assassination (the electric chair scene at the end is, of course, a re-enactment- done, as it happens, under the supervision of Thomas Edison).
President McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgoz at the World's Fair in Buffalo, N.Y. some four months after Dad was born. I found it interesting when visiting the Antietam battlefield a few years ago that there's a monument not far from Burnside Bridge on the spot where, as a young noncom, McKinley served coffee to the Union soldiers who were involved in the fighting.
Anyway, I came across the slide show of the campaign, assassination, and funeral of Dad's namesake on You Tube, and I thought I'd share it.
Here's a brief documentary on the assassination (the electric chair scene at the end is, of course, a re-enactment- done, as it happens, under the supervision of Thomas Edison).
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