Francis Vigo Chapter, NSDAR

06/16/2026

The newest episode of the DAR Today podcast features a lovely interview with President General Ginnie Storage! You can listen for free wherever you enjoy podcasts, or check out the link in comments.

06/15/2026

Fort McHenry has been standing at the mouth of Baltimore harbor for more than 220 years.

The fort that held through the 25-hour British bombardment of September 1814 is still there. You can walk the star-shaped ramparts where Major Armistead's 1,200 men stood through the night while rockets and mortar rounds fell around them. You can stand at the edge of the fortifications and look out at the harbor in the same direction Key was looking from the British ship when he saw the flag still flying at dawn.

The site became a National Monument and Historic Shrine in 1925 -- the only location in America to hold that specific designation. The Park Service flies a reproduction of the 15-star, 15-stripe garrison flag over the parade ground, the same dimensions as the one Pickersgill sewed: 30 feet by 42 feet.

Fort McHenry is open to visitors in Baltimore, Maryland. You can stand inside the walls of the fort where the national anthem was written.

Follow Wonders Untold for more American history you can actually visit.

06/15/2026

What if Lily Gladstone's greatest achievement isn't the award she won?

Awards matter.

They recognize excellence.

They celebrate years of dedication, sacrifice, and hard work.

But sometimes a milestone becomes bigger than the trophy itself.

When Lily Gladstone won the Golden Globe for her performance in *Killers of the Flower Moon*, she became the first Indigenous woman to receive a Golden Globe for acting. The moment made headlines around the world and secured her place in history.

Yet the true significance of that night may not be found in the award.

It may be found in what came next.

For generations, Indigenous actors often faced limited opportunities, limited visibility, and stories told through someone else's perspective. Successes existed, but they rarely received the recognition they deserved on the industry's biggest stages.

Lily Gladstone changed that.

Not because she was handed an opportunity.

Not because standards were lowered.

But because her performance demanded recognition.

Her talent could not be overlooked.

And when barriers are broken through undeniable excellence, something powerful happens.

The industry changes.

Expectations change.

Possibilities change.

A young Indigenous girl watching that acceptance speech may now see a future that once felt out of reach.

A filmmaker may decide to tell a story that otherwise would never have been made.

A studio may become more willing to invest in Indigenous voices and perspectives.

That is how history grows beyond a single moment.

The award recognized one remarkable performance.

The legacy may be measured in the artists, storytellers, and dreamers who follow.

Sometimes the most important achievement is not reaching the top.

It's showing others that the path exists.

🪶🎬✨

Who is someone whose success opened doors for an entire generation of people after them?

06/15/2026

Port Townsend, Washington, 1945
The Boatbuilders' Daughters
In 1942, Jefferson County sent 47 boatbuilders to the Bremerton Navy Yard. They left 22 half-finished salmon trollers on the ways at Port Townsend, with their tools still hanging on the walls.

Their daughters finished them.

It was led by June Okada, 17. Her family ran the chandlery. Her father and two brothers were at Minidoka internment camp in Idaho, and her mother was sick. June could loft a hull by eye because she had watched her father since she was six.

She gathered eight other girls, ages 14 to 22. Daughters, sisters, one young wife. None of them had ever been allowed to touch the boats before.

The shipyard foreman, old Mr. Halvorsen, 71, who was too deaf to be drafted, taught them to caulk and rivet without ever raising his voice. He said: "A boat does not care who built it, only if it was built right."

They worked after school and on Sundays for 18 months. They launched 22 boats between March and August 1945, each one named for the man who started it.

When the men came home that fall, the boats were in the water, painted, rigged, and fishing. The accounts at the chandlery were paid in full. June had kept every receipt in a cigar box tied with twine.

Frank Okada came home from Minidoka in October. He stood on the dock looking at his troller, the Mary June, riding clean in the water. June stood next to him, with tar under her fingernails.

He said, "You launched her without me."

June said, "I had to. The salmon were running."

He put his hand on her shoulder. He did not cry. Neither did she.

That winter, 22 men went fishing in boats their daughters had finished for them. Every one of them came home full.

06/15/2026

A snapping turtle may dig a nest in your garden this week.

You might come out to find a big old snapping turtle, pond mud still on her shell, digging in your mulch bed or the gravel by the drive. It looks alarming. It's one of the oldest rhythms in the yard.

Every June, female snappers leave the water and travel overland — sometimes surprisingly far — to find loose, sun-warmed soil to lay in. Your raised bed, a gravel patch, the edge of the driveway: to her, it's perfect. She'll dig a hole with her back feet, drop a couple of dozen round, leathery eggs, cover them carefully, and crawl back to the water. And that's the end of her part. Snapping turtles give no care after laying — the sun incubates the eggs, and the hatchlings are on their own from the first second.

Which means once she leaves, the nest is in your hands.

Don't dig the eggs up to "move them somewhere safe." After the first day, the embryos fix in place, and rotating or relocating an egg drowns the baby inside. Leave them exactly where she put them. What you can do is shield them. Most snapper nests are raided within a night or two — raccoons and skunks find them fast — so a simple cage helps: lay a square of wire mesh or hardware cloth over the spot, pin it down, and leave gaps at the edges wide enough for coin-sized hatchlings to scramble out in late summer. Mark it so you mow around it, and keep dogs away.

If she's still digging, just give her room. On land she's slow and only wants to finish; she'll bite if cornered, so admire her from a few feet and never grab her.

Come late summer or fall, if you've guarded the spot, you may catch the best show of all — a fistful of tiny armored turtles boiling up out of your garden and making their wobbly way toward water.

She trusted your garden with the next generation, then walked away forever. Mark the spot, shield it, and let them dig their way out in the fall.

06/15/2026

06/14/2026

Chaplain Nicole offers this prayer on Flag Day:

06/14/2026