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History Lesson: Bones, War And The Right To Vote

Bones discovered in Ridgefield, Connecticut, could be the remains of soldiers from the Revolutionary War. Long Islanders commit their World War II memories to oral history recordings.* And, on this 100th anniversary year of the 19th Amendment, the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame celebrates two sisters who helped win the right for women to vote. We'll discuss pivotal points in regional history, with guests:

*What was life like on Long Island during World War II? Christopher Kretz is on a mission to answer that question. Kretz is part of the National Home Front Project, whose goal is to collect the stories of Long Islanders who lived through the war years.

Credit Chris Kretz / Courtesy of the National Home Front Project
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Courtesy of the National Home Front Project
Fred Scopinich showing wartime photographs from the shipyard.

Here are some of their stories:
  

Fred Scopinich grew up in Freeport on the South Shore of Long Island and he was a teenager at the start of the war. He talks about how gym class changed once the war started. It became less about health and more about preparing the teens to fight.

Credit Kristine Hanson / Courtesy of the National Home Front Project
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Courtesy of the National Home Front Project
Marie Mack with a portrait of her husband in Army Air Force uniform.

Marie Mack was born in 1919, making her 100-years-old. She lived in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, but her family spent summers in Mount Sinai on the North Shore of Long Island. She was a young mother when her husband was drafted. She talked about how the role of women changed during the war and how she prepared her husband for those changes when he returned to the states.

Credit Chris Kretz / Courtesy of the National Home Front Project
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Courtesy of the National Home Front Project
Walter Winicki being interviewed in his home in Great River, N.Y.

Walt Winicki grew up in East Meadow. He was a teenager when the war began. One summer he got a job building the F-7 and Bearcat aircraft at Grumman. He also lived near Roosevelt Field and Mitchel Field and remembers all the different models of planes that flew overhead.