"Duty" is a pleasure

Dear ISHS:
Many, many thanks on behalf of Theodore Roosevelt "Double Duty" Radcliffe for his receiving a "Lifetime Achievement Award" via your excellent organization. Mr. Radcliffe was truly honored and will also cherish the wonderful evening.

Sincerely,
Claire Hellstern

Editor's note: "Double Duty" Radcliffe, the oldest surviving member of the Negro Baseball Leagues, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award on October 19, 2001, at the annual ISHS Centennial Awards in Chicago.

Bones to pick

Dear ISHS:
In your Illinois Heritage magazine issue, Fall 2001, page 30, you ask for an explanation of the pile of human bones labeled "Havana Cuba, 1898."

In Our Islands and their People (Wm. S. Bryan, editor, N.D. Thompson Publishing Company, 1899, Vol. I, page 48), the caption of a photo of a Havana suburb cemetery explains that graves were rented and if the leases were not renewed, the bodies were exhumed and thrown into an open pit elsewhere on the grounds. The caption also notes that this practice was discontinued by American order. Hence what the Logan photo pictures is a custom no longer practiced, and innocent of your yellow journalism implications. Truly yours,
Alphonse D. Johnson
Newark

Editor's note: Thanks for a logical explanation to a very disturbing photograph. The "custom" of taxing the poor to rebury their dead, as practiced by the Spanish government in Cuba, however, was a form of legalized extortion, the very sort of thing that invites revolution, which usually leads to overflowing graveyards. And that's the subtext that gets left out of the history books, as any good yellow journalist can tell you.

John Hartford

Dear ISHS:
The warm remembrance of John Hartford in the Fall 2001 issue of Illinois Heritage brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye.

This gentle man's love for the river and steamboats was most evident in his many television appearances through the years. It was always a joy to watch him.

Word of his death saddened me, but I heard no tributes to him in the days afterward. Now I know that others also miss him. He will forever remain gentle on our minds.

Mrs. William L. Short
Mt. Vernon

4 IILLINOIS HERITAGE