From: Ronald Gillen (gillen@NCONNECT.NET)
Date: Thu May 13 1999 - 21:16:46 PDT
Ronald Gillen wrote: Pictures in the URLs below..... > ========================= snip ============================================= Nick Georgiady recalls story of Gertie the Duck By Bob Ratterman OXFORD PRESS A war-ravaged world in 1945 took time out from the stress of dealing with the death and destruction of World War II to watch as a duck hatched her young on a bridge piling in Milwaukee. It was a welcome release in the news of the world as "Gertie" nested on the piling. She laid six eggs, eventually hatching five, and then raised the youngsters. The news of Gertie the Duck and her offspring went around the world, inspiring Nick Georgiady and Louis Romano, a couple of teachers stationed in England while serving in the U.S. Air Force. The Milwaukee natives read about Gertie on the front page of "Stars and Stripes," the newspaper produced for the armed forces. "Anything catching the more human side of living was a nice relief," said Georgiady, now retired from Miami University. Georgiady and Romano returned to the United States after the war and went back to teaching grade school and collaborating on children's books. In 1959, they wrote "Gertie the Duck" about the famous nesting mallard in Milwaukee The book has since been translated into French, Spanish, German, Swedish and Danish with a Chinese version currently in the works. Last fall, Georgiady paid a visit to Milwaukee, where a statue of Gertie and a young duckling has been erected on the bridge near where the duck nested in 1945. The saga of Gertie began in April 1945 when a young boy pointed out the duck to his mother as they walked along the Wisconsin Avenue bridge. Gertie and her family drew crowds of watchers and became the subject of daily news stories in the city and, then, the country. When some visitors began tossing stones and cigarettes at the nest to get Gertie to move so they could see the eggs, the Milwaukee Humane Society posted an officer near the next to keep traffic moving and prevent injury to the duck and her eggs. Gertie and her family even caused alterations to the city's celebration at the end of the war in Europe on May 8 of that year. A victory parade was planned along Wisconsin Avenue with high school, college and military bands playing and soldiers and sailors marching. "It was a glorious celebration," Georgiady said. "The marchers knew the eggs were about to hatch so just before they reached the bridge, the bands stopped playing and all the marchers tiptoed quietly across the bridge, not wanting to frighten Gertie. On the far side of the bridge, they began playing again as they marched away." Once the eggs hatched, the problems increased as the nest area was small and the growing ducks, still unable to swim, occasionally fell in the water. Bridge tender Paul Benn became a national hero when he used a rowboat to rescue one of the ducklings with a net. Gimbel's department store, located next to the bridge, provided an empty store window display area to the duck family, which was relocated there with the help of the humane society. Later, they were moved to Juneau Park on Lake Michigan, riding on a fire engine with a marching band playing and crowds lining the streets. "When Gertie and her family were set free in the park, they joined the other ducks (in a lagoon at the park) and people watching them could identify them because they had been marked with a splash of yellow paint on their backs," Georgiady recalled. "Then as the summer passed and the weather grew colder, more and more of the birds took off and flew south for the winter including Gertie and her family. But each spring, for many years after that, people would go to the park and look for Gertie and her now grown-up family." "Gertie the Duck was one of 105 children's books written by Georgiady and Romano. Georgiady brought his interest in helping children read to Miami University and continues it even in retirement. Gertie has been immortalized locally, too, as the "Silver Gertie Award" is given each year at the Eileen Tway Children's Literature Conference to individuals for outstanding contributions to children's literature. The award is a silver pin made by Mik Stousland. Georgiady remembers the story as a break from the hard news of the world in 1945. "People who observed Gertie's adventures or who heard about this unusual duck still talk about the pleasure and joy that this true story brought to many people at a very difficult time in our history," Georgiady said. "It is a story that lives on, as it should." > http://www.eppsteinuhen.com/WHATSNEW/90th/wn_in-3.html http://www.eppsteinuhen.com/WHATSNEW/90th/wn_in-4.html http://www.eppsteinuhen.com/WHATSNEW/90th/wn_in-6.html