From "Speaking of Faith" to Chicago via Berlin and Cheltenham

I have long enjoyed a podcast and American Public Media radio program formerly called "Speaking of Faith"(SOF), now called "Krista Tippett on Being" (or just "Being"). This evening I listened to a series of Krista reading excerpts from her book Speaking of Faith. Browsing further through the list of SOF podcasts, I came upon one entitled The Fall of the Wall, JFK’s Assassination, and Two Birthdays that sounded especially interesting. Krista was born on the evening of JFK's election in 1960. Like me, the JFK assassination is one of her earliest memories. She later lived and worked in Berlin. To quote from her piece:

"Two decades later, I ended up spending most of the 1980s, most of my 20s, in a city that kept Kennedy’s memory alive like no other. He remained the unparalleled icon of the charismatic America that had rushed to Berlin’s side as the barbed wire beginnings of the Wall closed around it on August 13, 1961."

She goes on to describe the astounding fall of the wall, coincidentally on her 29th birthday in 1989. The post SOF Observed - The Fall of the Wall, JFK’s Assassination, and Two Birthdays on the SOF Observed / onBeing blog. From there you can get to the Krista Tippett on Being website.

Somehow I got to onBeing's Flickr photostream. The first photos displayed today (17th September 2010) are from the recent Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham, England.

Finding myself more interested in Cheltenham then the Greenbelt Festival, I found this page on the history of Cheltenham. Included on the page is a picture of E.L. Ward's Department Store from the 1950s. I wondered of course at a connection with Montgomery Ward. 

I had thought that Montgomery Ward was the result of a merger of concerns run by a Mr. Montgomery and a Mr. Ward. Not the case. Aaron Montgomery Ward founded the world's first mail-order retail company in Chicago in 1872.

References

    Ward (Montgomery) & Co. from the fascinating Encyclopedia of Chicago

    Aaron Montgomery Ward from Wikipedia

Related and recommended:

    Innovation, Invention, and Chicago Business also from the fascinating Encyclopedia of Chicago