Message from the President
Do you want to hear something astounding? Earlier this week, the last known surviving Civil War widow died. Confirmed on Monday by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Helen Viola Jackson, age 101, died while a resident of the Webco Manor Nursing Home in Marchfield, Missouri. She was married at the age of 17 to Union veteran James Bolin, who was 93 at the time of their marriage. Their nuptials were kept secret for the next 81 years. Jackson who was Bolin’s caretaker explained their union as, “He explained to me that he did not have any money to pay me for taking care of him. Therefore, he asked for my hand in marriage so that he could leave his pension to me.” With Mrs. Jackson’s passing, and with the images coming out of Washington D.C. last evening, do the words from President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address uttered on March 4, 1865 come to your mind?...
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” - President Abraham Lincoln
Welcome to Our Second Century of Prosperity
Speaking of 1865, or two score years later, at least, I introduce to you what we’ve coined to be our Second Century of Prosperity. As you know, the Greater Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce is the merged business advocacy organization serving our four counties. Your Chamber includes all or part of no less than a dozen former Chambers of Commerce and business groups who decided to come together, starting a century ago, into a strong and regional organization which today is dedicated to the ‘prosperity of community, commerce, culture and citizens of our valley.’
So, please stay tuned all year long. This year we will make an extra measure of devotion in remembering the past, honoring the women and men on whose shoulders we stand today and in building a prosperous future, a ‘better normal,' and the Roaring 2020’s.
So, please stay tuned all year long. This year we will make an extra measure of devotion in remembering the past, honoring the women and men on whose shoulders we stand today and in building a prosperous future, a ‘better normal,' and the Roaring 2020’s.
