22.05.12
But then World War I ended, the boys came home and the town did
forget. The flag was folded and rolled, tied with a green string,
stuffed in a box and locked in the town safe with village board
minutes, voter lists, maps and ledgers.
Untouched for decades.
Until this summer.
Bev Buss is an amateur historian, but she wasn't searching for a
mystery when she stopped by the village hall in late July or early
August.
Community Day was coming up. Chicken barbecue, tractor pulls --
and Bev's local history display at the American Lutheran Church.
That was new, so she wanted a mention on the town's scrolling
sign.
At the hall that day, they showed her the safe they'd yanked
from the old village hall.
"They said, ‘There's all this old stuff here. You want to go
through it?'"
The safe stood more than 5 feet high, weighed half a ton and
didn't come up from the old building's basement easily.
"Three guys couldn't budge it," said Darwin Buss, the town's
maintenance supervisor and Bev's nephew. "We had to pull it out
with the backhoe.
Source: Lincoln Journal Star