Veteran's "Memory Album" Project

Description of Project

Photographs

Obituaries and Biographies

Publication

List of Veterans and Progress Chart

The Ireton Area Historical Society (IAHS) is assembling a "memory album" honoring all Ireton area veterans.  Since May 2010, we have collected more than 560 photographs and have identified more than 700 veterans with ties to Ireton and its surrounding townships -- Reading, Center, Eagle and Washington.  DVDs based on the first year of the project are now available -- click here for more information. 

This is an ongoing project.  If you have not submitted a photograph or information about yourself or about a family member or friend, please read on!

The Society is seeking photographs of servicemen and women who called the Ireton area “home”.  We are including veterans from the Civil War to the present day -- those who served in war or peace, in the regular military or in the Guard -- with ties to Ireton or Reading, Washington, Eagle or Center Townships.

The memory album (actually a series of albums) contain the following:

1.  For deceased veterans, a photograph and obituary or biography.  Please check our list (page loads slowly) to determine what information we have already assembled.  If you can help us with additional photographs or information or have questions, please e-mail us.  If you would like to add brief information about the veteran's military service that was not included in his/her obituary, please contact us.

2.  For living veterans, a photograph and information provided by the veteran.  We would like the following information:

Name of Veteran

Branch of Military

Dates of Service

Where stationed

Current city/state of residence

Optional information -- whatever the veteran would like to share such as unit, rank, medals & commendations, "job" duties in service, stories, information about civilian life

Photographs

Photographs in uniform are preferred; however, if not available, please provide any appropriate photo  (wedding or high school graduation photos work well because servicemen & women are usually young but we'll take anything).

There are several ways in which the photographs may be provided to the society: 

1.  If you would like to have the photo scanned and returned, call Janet Brown at 712-278-2810 or e-mail to make arrangements. 

2.  You may scan the photo yourself and e-mail it or give it to a society member on CD.  We want to reprint the photos as 4" x 6" prints.  If you scan the photo, please use the following resolutions:

Your photo size: 

    1" wide (or less) - 600 pixels/inch

    1" - 3" wide - 600 pixels/inch

    wider than 3"  - 300 pixels/inch

If you have a choice of scanning a large copy of the  photo or a small copy, please scan the larger one -- we'll be able to keep a sharper image by reducing the size for printing than we will by enlarging. 

If you do not know how to change the resolution on your scanner, please e-mail and we'll try to help.

3.  You may make a reprint of the photograph and donate it to the society.  Reprints may be made fairly inexpensively in most photo departments.  Please provide a duplicate of the photo not a photocopy if at all possible.  Give the reprint to a Society member or mail to:  Janet Brown, 406 8th Street, Ireton, Iowa 51027.

Obituaries and Biographies

Many obituaries were available to us through the Sioux County Digital Newspaper Archives.  Please check the list to see if we have the obituary for your ancestor/relative/friend. 

If we do not have the obituary, we'd appreciate a copy.  You may provide it as follows:

1.  Make a photocopy and send to:  Janet Brown, 406-8th Street, Ireton, Iowa; or,

2.  Scan the obituary at a resolution of 300 pixels per inch and e-mail it.

If you have obituary-like information on a veteran but no copy of the obituary, please e-mail us.  We have a form that requests the information typically found in an obituary.

Publication

We plan to compile albums - one for Civil & Spanish-American War, one for World War I & Peacetime, two for World War II due to the number of WWII vets, one for Korea and the Cold War and one for Vietnam and Post-Vietnam.  The albums will be stored and displayed at the Ireton Museum and at other community events as appropriate.

Due to the costs of publication and to the changing nature of the information, we do not plan to "publish" the albums.  We are converting the pages to Adobe PDFs and will donate DVDs with the pages to area libraries.  We will also make them available to the public at a reasonable charge.  You will then be able to print any pages that are of interest to you.   We hope to make substantial progress on the project by late fall and may have the initial DVDs available for Christmas 2010.

Veteran's List and Progress Chart

We have compiled a  list (page loads slowly) of Ireton-area veterans based upon information provided by Bertram Post #276 of the American Legion, the Ireton Diamond Jubilee book, Ireton, A Proud Heritage, 1882-1982, the names on the World War I community service flag, a photograph of the World War II "Roll of Honor" and from information provided to us since this project began.

We would appreciate your help in correcting errors in this information and in adding omitted service men and women.  In particular, no lists of veterans have been created since 1982 so we need assistance in adding those names.  E-mail us or call Janet Brown at 712-278-2810 with any corrections or additions.

Who qualifies as an Ireton Area Veteran?  Anyone who served in any branch of the U.S. Military or the National Guard and who has ties to the town of Ireton or to Washington, Reading, Eagle or Center Townships. We would like to be as inclusive as possible with the albums so if you had/have an Ireton area tie, please contact us.

We are using the following Service Eras:

Civil War (1861-1865)

Spanish American War (1898)

World War I  (1917-1918)

Peacetime (1866-1897; 1899-1916; 1919-1940)

World War II (Sept 1940-August 1945)

Post World War II (September 1945-June 1950)

Korean War (June 1950-January 1955)

Cold War (February 1955-July 1964)

Vietnam War (August 1964 - May 1975)

Post-Vietnam (June 1975-Present)

Please note that these service eras vary somewhat from the government's definitions and are only for the purpose of determining what "section" of the albums the veteran's page falls within.  It does not have anything to do with how the veteran is classified for veterans benefits. 

We currently have about 650 Veterans on our list.  To see the complete alphabetized list and our progress, click here.  Please be patient as the page loads - it is a large file. 

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THANK YOU to each veteran

for his or her service and

THANK YOU to each of you for

your help with this project.