DAR Celebrates National Service Day and Founding of NSDAR

Jane Busdeker

Jane Chambers and Jane Busdeker were among volunteers for the Moving Wall Vietnam Memorial in Morristown.

Service to America is a key emphasis of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR). Therefore, annually on October 11, the National DAR Day of Service and the anniversary of the founding of the NSDAR, members of local chapters engage in special projects to give back to the community.

This year, members of the Martha Dandridge Washington (MDW) Chapter, NSDAR, served in the following three areas:
Karen Chambers coordinated and served a tasty lunch for 37 department personnel in the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department to honor them for their service to the community. Included in that group were the administrative staff, corrections officers, detectives, and the sheriff.

Ellie Betts, Jane Busdeker, Jane Chambers, Elizabeth Finchum, Carolyn Mitchell, and Anne Word joined many veterans and community-minded individuals who volunteered to man The Moving Wall Vietnam War Memorial for 24 hours per day Oct. 11-14. Among their duties were staffing a medical tent, locating names of the deceased in a register, and escorting visitors to the wall to locate names on the panels. On Thursday morning, Ellie Betts was also among volunteers who read aloud the names of 1,295 Tennesseans which are on the wall.

Third, Julie Wilbur and Melissa Rockefeller will be doing their Day of Service project on Nov. 6 at a meeting of Girl Scouts of the Southern Appalachian Council Troop 2058 led by Amberly Miller. They will present the story of the Walker Sisters of the Little Greenbrier region in the Smoky Mountains. Six of the sisters were given a lifetime lease on their mountain home after the area became part of the Smoky Mountain National Park. They maintained their mountain home and practiced mountain arts just as past generations had done. The last sister still living on the homestead was Louisa who died on July 13, 1964. The program will include a show ‘n tell with old kitchen implements and other period items. The girl scouts will make fresh butter to eat with their snack.

Throughout the year, NSDAR members record all of their volunteer hours and submit those numbers to the national office to be counted toward President General Ann Turner Dillon’s goal of 19 million service hours completed during her three-year term of office. President General Dillion chose 19 million in honor of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave women the right to vote. The amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, after the state of Tennessee cast the deciding vote that made the amendment a part of the constitution. The 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage will be celebrated in 2020.