Note: I'm posting this since I don't like seeing "0"s on the index page. Anyway, I wrote this for my highschool newspaper as part of a column about places of historical interest in Montgomery County, Maryland
The date? January 9, 2003. The time? 2:30 pm. The temperature? A quite exemplary 63 degrees. So like any other young male, I woke up groggily, grabbed some clothes, and headed out the door with keys in hand. My every intention was to head out to downtown Bethesda, or to Best Buy in Rockville, and indeed I had every intention to follow those intentions. Somehow though, I found myself bored in front of a 7-eleven on MacArthur Boulevard. From here, I was looking out across the street, where a brown sign was declaring something like, “This way to Glen Echo and the Clara Barton House.” Perhaps it was the mildew on the ground, the cigarette smoke to my right, or the gas fumes in the air, but for some reason I felt like obeying that sign.
So thus I followed and soon enough my curiosity led me to the chopped up asphalt of the Glen Echo parking lot. I hopped out of my car and looked up toward a hill, where, hidden inconspicuously behind a row of pine trees, was a house composed of yellow paneling, white shutters, and a red rooftop, while looking quite uncharacteristically Southern in a Yankee kind of neighborhood. The place already looks huge from beneath the hill, but as I begin to come up on the side of it, the house almost seems to take on mammoth proportions.
The air around it is bestowed with a certain elegance, serenity, and warmth that escape most places in the area. I almost expected to see an old Southern general to step out and wave “Howdy!”… almost. As I walk up the wooden steps, I grab a brochure stating that this is the house of Clara Barton. But soon enough, I am whisked away from the quiet peacefulness of the front porch by a person, who claims he works for the National Park Service, in green uniform.
His claim is quickly verified by seven tourists - all fitted with disposable cameras and goofy hats in stereotypical fashion – who are waiting for the guided tour to begin. Being here once before, I kind of knew what to expect, but that tour happened back when I was a Cub Scout.
Yet the house is really only half of the story, if that even, for Clara Barton lived a rich and varied life before she spent the last fifteen years of her life here. Indeed, it is hard to decide where to begin and where to end with Barton’s life. For starters, many may not know that she is the founder of the American Red Cross and her house used to serve as a warehouse for the organization. Before that though, she served as a humanitarian during the Civil War.
During this period of conflict, many organizations sprung up to aid the soldiers who lay dying on the fields after a battle. But due to her independent nature and her desire for individual recognition, she often worked alone while aiding the soldiers. After the Civil War, Barton established a charity that helped to find missing soldiers.
Although Clara Barton was a shy person, she was very outspoken in her opinions. As the brochure from the Park Service states, “She promoted the enfranchisement of the former slaves and became a staunch supporter of the growing feminist movement.” However, in 1868, she suffered a nervous breakdown and went to Europe for rest. There she heard about the Red Cross, which was started by a man called Jean-Henri Dunant in 1863 in Switzerland, and whose intentions were to help the soldiers after a battle.
When she returned, she fought hard to establish the American Red Cross. Perhaps many would think that this would be a fairly easy job, and yet it took her over a decade to get it done. Finally in 1882, the US Senate ratified the Treaty of Geneva, which made the American Red Cross possible.
Throughout her last years, Clara Barton remained very active in the organization she founded, and also in a number of other activities from the feminist movement to gardening. In 1912, she died at her home in Glen Echo.
