This particular story isn't about a model build, but it deals with crafting something cool from paper, so I thought that you may be interested in reading about this little adventure.
A couple of months ago one of my cousins posted a couple of photos to Facebook that intrigued me. The photos were of a postcard that my paternal grandfather sent to his mother in late May of 1919, announcing his return from World War I.
I am a bit of a history buff, particularly in history dealing with World War I and II. I was aware that my grandfather was in the "Great War", but I didn't know any particulars about what he did or where he was deployed.
The postcard provided the key that I needed help me find out more about my grandfather's role in the war. The card contained information written down by my grandfather about the unit that he was a member of, the 305th Field Signal Battalion. Using this piece of information, I was able to perform some searches and stumbled across a number of sources relating my grandfather's unit to the 80th Division.
Wikipedia provided a great overview of the 80th Division's history. The 80thdivision.com site provided more historical information, along with information about the 80th Division Veterans Association, reunions and various points of contact. The Troubleshooters site provided a boot camp photo of my grandfather's battalion, along with information about an excellent book about the history of the 80th Division in WWI.
I decided to craft a Christmas gift for my dad using my newly acquired information. I searched a bit more and was easily able to find a copy of my grandfather's draft registration card on familysearch.org.
I assembled the artifacts into a collage that I mounted onto a 16x20 framed layout and also gave my dad a copy of the book that I discovered. The result was great and my dad loved it! I'm looking forward to continue my research into the 80th Division using the book and hopefully attending a future 80th Division Veterans Association meeting. I also hope to find additional photos containing my grandfather.
