The fact George C. Marshall, a five-star World War II general, loved his Leesburg home caught the attention of Christie Hubner.
"It's nice for visitors or local people to see somebody's impression of this area. It's a great place to visit or live," said Hubner, collections manager at the Loudoun Museum in Leesburg.
Hubner helped research and install the exhibit, "War & Respite: The Marshalls & Loudoun County," on the man, his contributions to the war and his home Dodona Manor, which will be under restoration until 2005.
The exhibit is the fourth of five exhibits funded through a $30,000 Tourism Occupancy Tax (TOT) grant for fiscal year 2003. The exhibit, which opened May 22 and continues through spring 2004, includes artifacts on loan from the George C. Marshall Foundation and the Virginia Military Institute, both in Lexington.
"I hope [visitors] learn about George Marshall, the man and his vast contributions to the U.S. and Europe," said Hubner, project director for the exhibit since work began in March.
"I'm so excited about it for a lot of reasons. It's really relevant to Loudoun County. As a citizen of Loudoun and Virginia, in many ways he was reflective of the people here," said Marybeth Mohr, executive director of the museum, noting the exhibit's interpretation of life in Loudoun during the war. "It's real timely. It's a time when we can more objectively reflect back on the impact of World War II on our community, which makes it relevant to today."
LOCATED in the museum's main hallway, the exhibit is divided into three sections to provide artifacts, photographs and written text on Marshall's biography, his home and gardens, and the county as a home front during the war.
Marshall, who lived from 1880-1959, attended the Virginia Military Institute during his high-school years, a fact represented by an institute uniform on display that includes a jacket, sword, sash and cap that Marshall would have worn at the turn of the century.
In 1902, a year after he graduated, Marshall was commissioned as a second lieutenant and stationed in the Philippines. He advanced in rank from chief of staff of the 1st Division to that of the 1st Army and served for 20 years as an instructor and organizer before becoming a general in 1939. That year, President Franklin Roosevelt named him as Chief of Staff of the Army.
During his war service, Marshall helped establish the Army Air Corps as a separate military branch, which would later be called the U.S. Air Force, and took responsibility for supplying more than 8 million U.S. forces in nine overseas theaters. In December 1944, he was promoted to a five-star rank and received a five-star emblem on the jacket he wore as chief of staff. The jacket, which is borrowed from the George C. Marshall Foundation, is on display in the museum's exhibit. Marshall retired from the Army in 1945.
"Basically, he tried to retire several times, but the president would call him to ask if he would serve in a different capacity," Hubner said about the man who served as secretary of state, secretary of defense and president of the Red Cross. The military dress cape that Marshall wore while he served as a statesman is on display in the museum exhibit, an artifact borrowed from the foundation.
In 1947, a year after he became secretary of state, Marshall introduced a plan for Europe's economic recovery that provided millions of dollars to rebuild war-torn Europe. In exchange, the Europeans were required to use American supplies and equipment to help support the U.S. economy. The Marshall Plan as it was popularly known received Congressional approval in 1948 and earned Marshall the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
MARSHALL and his wife, Katherine Marshall, planned to live in retirement at Dodona Manor, which became a place of respite for the Marshalls as indicated in the exhibit's name. The Marshalls purchased their first and only home in 1941, both for retirement and as a quiet weekend retreat from their quarters at Fort Myer near Washington, D.C. They both liked to garden and landscape on the four-acre property and planted rose and vegetable gardens, along with lilacs and shrubs in front of their house.
Dodona Manor likely was constructed in the 1920s and later expanded as it passed through several owners, including George Washington Ball from 1829-55. The George C. Marshall International Center acquired Dodona Manor in 1995, the same year it was listed as a National Historic Landmark. The center closed tours of the house in 2000 to restore the interior, furnishings and collections, to update the mechanical systems and to plant gardens replicating those of the Marshalls.
"We're looking at a man, a house and a great conservation of land ... in downtown Leesburg," said Anne Horstman, executive vice president of the George C. Marshall International Center.