Fort Leonard Wood Yearbooks - Search Feature Now Live!

     It's done! The search feature on my website, https://www.ftleonardwoodyearbooks.com/, is now live! I was having a heck of a time trying to code the feature, but after walking away from it for a little while, it finally worked!

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Now you can search for a name on FtLeonardWoodYearbooks.com

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    Let me show you how to do this. You head to my website: https://www.ftleonardwoodyearbooks.com/. If you look up in the right-hand corner, you should see a Magnifying Glass. When hovering over the top, a popup box should appear and read "Open Search Bar". When you click on it, a search bar will show up for you to search my site.

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    Now all you need to do is type in the name you are searching for. I recommend starting with just a last name. Then hit the "Enter" key. After that, the results will show up for you. From here you can click on the results to look at the page(s).  If you look at one of the results and decide you wish to go back to the rest of the results, just hit the back button.

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I am so excited that this is finally working! This will make it much easier to search for your relative. I am still in the process of adding more yearbooks to my site. It takes me time to type each name and scan the pages. I am still taking care of this all on my own. I would like to purchase a book scanner to make it much easier, but they are a little pricey.

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If you would like to support my efforts, I would greatly appreciate a donation. 100% of everything that comes in goes toward this project. Just click the link below to make a donation.

Donate to FtLeonardWoodYearbooks.com

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If you have any questions about this project, how to use the site, or use the search feature, just leave a comment here or you can email me at AuntieJen82@yahoo.com.

This is why I did this - Fort Leonard Wood Yearbooks

    Guys, listen. I recently received an email that just blew me away and made all the work I've been doing on this project worth it. I'm crying right now. I did not expect this to happen as soon as did. Heck, I wasn't sure if it would happen at all.

A gentleman by the name of Ed Janota sent me this wonderful email:

"Hello Auntie Jen,

"This is amazing that you have a copy of the year book from my 1960 basic training, I was on 4 Battalion, 3rd Reg, Co B. 

"I am listed as E. Janota, Jr. I was 17 yrs old and fresh out of high school then headed to MP school at Ft Gordon. Eventually wound up in Vietnam in 1966.

"I lost my year book around 1978 after moving to Texas. I have also lost almost all of my old service buddies. I would dearly love to have pdf pics of anything you have from my year book. I am going to your donation site and do what I can.

You are a Godsend, Bless You. "

    This is why I did this. From the first moment that I saw the yearbooks in the antique store, I decided to purchase those books & put them online. For Free! I knew there had to be graduates that had lost their yearbooks or never received them. And there had to be families of these servicemen who had never seen these yearbooks. My dad never discussed his service in Vietnam unless prompted, and even then sometimes he wouldn't talk about it. 

    So receiving this email has just reassured me that I am doing the right thing. It has lit a fire under me to try to track down more yearbooks. I already got two more recently. One I found online and the other was donated by Lynn Wagner from the Franklin County Historical Society. We are going to grow this collection as large as we can. And keep this collection for free. 

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FtLeonardWoodYearbooks.com

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    I need your help, guys. Talk to friends and family. Look at yard sales. Search antique stores. Help me track down as many yearbooks as we can. If you are ever curious if I have a particular yearbook or not, just check my website. Keep it bookmarked. Now is the time to be looking for these. Servicemen from this time period are passing away and their belongings are being donated. Let's save these yearbooks. Together. I don't even need to have the book in hand. If you can photograph or scan the yearbooks, that will be just as good. 

    If you are unable to find yearbooks but want to help, you can send me donations that go directly toward purchasing yearbooks. Here is the link specifically for this: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/AuntieJens?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Together we can connect servicemen and their families to these yearbooks.

Week 21: Yearbooks - Fort Leonard Wood Army Training Center

      Yearbooks are a fantastic source for locating pictures of your ancestors and learning more about a particular time in their lives. I have all my yearbooks from when I was in school from my Elementary years up to High School. I also have my parents' yearbooks in my collection now. Ancestry.com has been growing its yearbook collection as well and, thanks to them, I've been able to download many copies of ancestors' yearbooks. But there is a collection that I haven't found anywhere else as of yet. And this prompt is giving me the perfect opportunity to announce a project I've been working on as well.

    One yearbook I inherited that was in my dad's collection was his Fort Leonard Wood Army Training Center Yearbook from when he attended. He went through the training center in preparation for Vietnam. I remembered going through it with him one time before he had passed. He said they were stock yearbooks in which a section was added that included their photos. It still gave me an insight into the training he went through while attending the Army Training Center.

    Fast forward to last year when I went to the South County Antique Mall. I had a specific item I was looking for in the book sections when I came across the cover of a yearbook I was very familiar with. It was a Fort Leonard Wood Army Training Center yearbook. Granted it was from a different year, but it still resembled my dad's yearbook. I was so shocked anyone would sell their relative's yearbook. Soon after, I found more yearbooks from Fort Leonard Wood. My mind just couldn't process this. Do you know how many people I've seen post on the internet wishing they had their Father's yearbook or even just a photograph? That's when I came up with an idea.

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Read my blog post

Antique Malls and Fort Leonard Wood Yearbooks

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    After searching online, I have yet to find a Fort Leonard Wood Training Center Yearbook collection on websites like Fold 3 and Ancestry. I know every day more and more collections are being digitized and added to their sites, but they are usually behind a paywall. I wanted to make these yearbooks available to anyone and everyone. So that's why I would like to share the website I created just for these yearbooks.

www.FtLeonardWoodYearbooks.com

    This website is a collection of yearbook pages containing graduates from Fort Leonard Wood Army Training Center in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. The years included will be 1959-1967. The focus will mainly be on the Vietnam War era. Please visit my site to learn more about this project.

    I am still working on getting the yearbook pages added that I have in my collection. It is very time-consuming typing all the names into the site and scanning the pages for viewing. My goal is to make this site searchable for anyone who visits which is why I am typing each name individually into the site. That way the search engine will pick up the names. That will be the last task I will work on, but for now, you can go to each yearbook and use Ctrl + F to search for a name. 

    If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I want this site to be as user-friendly as possible. I am also hoping to grow my collection very soon. I will be on the lookout for more yearbooks when I start going to yard sales, estate sales, and antique malls. 

This project is dedicated to my Dad and all those soldiers who fought in Vietnam. May their sacrifices never be forgotten.

SSG Dennis G. Fuchs

Fort Leonard Wood Yearbooks and Copyright 🍂

     If you've been following my blog, you will know I picked up a couple of Fort Leonard Wood US Army Training Center Yearbooks from the antique store a few weeks back. I couldn't bear to see them stay there and not be preserved and shared. My dad attended there for his training before Vietnam, so these books have a special place in my heart.

U.S. Army Training Center
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Company C, First Battalion, Second Brigade
23 February 1967

    I shared the books I had in some of the genealogy groups and told them I would do look-ups for people. So far I haven't found anyone people were looking for, but it's possible that could turn up later. I was asked if I was going to upload the pages to the internet so people could view them on their own. I had briefly thought about it but wasn't sure if I would be able to. For one main reason: Copyright.
    Most of you probably didn't know that most yearbooks, especially today, are copyrighted. And not just one copyright, but many levels of copyright. I have attended a few webinars that talk about copyright so I'm familiar with the topic. I honestly didn't realize how much is actually copyrighted. Especially yearbooks.
    Judy G. Russell has a wonderful blog called The Legal Genealogist. She is a Genealogist with a law degree and she dedicates her time to helping people understand the law, especially when it comes to family history research. It's actually her webinars I've attended. So I searched her blog for answers regarding yearbooks and copyrights. 

Read what she wrote on her blog
Copyright and The School Yearbook

    Definitely helpful, but I still had a few more questions. So I contacted Judy directly to get some more help and answer my questions. I just wanted to be sure that legally I wouldn't get into trouble. I had thoroughly checked through the books for any mention of a copyright notice or mention of a photographer and I found nothing. So I would assume that means it would be in the public domain. I contacted Judy on the 18th and responded on the 19th.

Judy G. Russell on October 19, 2021 at 10:51 am
From a purely copyright perspective, something published in the US without a copyright notice before 1977 is in the public domain. (See https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain) But do consider privacy issues… Not everybody wants their yearbook pictures online.

    I was so glad to hear that they should be in the public domain. That clears up that concern. But privacy... yes this is something I had thought about. How would these men feel having their pictures online? The truth is we are coming to a time where a lot of these men are no longer living or are passing away. And some of the men that are still living may want to see pictures of their old comrades; the old friends they served with. So at this point, I am willing to risk it to share these photos for family and friends to be able to view these pictures.

    So coming up soon, these yearbooks will be available online for anyone to view. I am still researching the best place to upload these yearbooks for viewing. I'm also considering creating a database. I'm not sure yet. Still have to work out the details. But I do know I want to upload these. So stay tuned for that.

    So let me end this blog post by putting this out here. I have mentioned this already in another post, but going to share it again. If you have a Fort Leonard Wood yearbook that you don't want anymore, I will take it. OR if you wish to scan the pages and contribute your yearbook to this collection, please feel free to send them to me. I will happily include them. Instructions on how to do this will come later in another blog post once I figure out where I am going to host this. But I wanted to put it out there now to hopefully draw attention. 

Anyway, thank you, and stay tuned!! 

Antique Malls and Fort Leonard Wood Yearbooks 🍂

     Sometimes my hubby and I like to go to Antique Malls on the weekends and just look around. Sometimes we are looking for specific items, but most of the time we are just browsing. One of our favorite Antique Malls we like to visit is the South County Antique Mall off Tesson Ferry in St. Louis, Missouri. They have quite a selection of booths filled with all kinds of different antiques. Some genuine and some... not so genuine. Some treat it like a garage sale to get rid of just random items.
    A few weeks back, we were looking to get out for a bit so we went over there to look around. Mark was on the lookout for some old records and I was looking for a book for the Franklin County Historical Society. So that meant I was browsing through tons of stacks of books. Let me tell you, I never expected to find what I found. In one booth, they had a ton of military memorabilia that caught my attention, so I stopped to look. And what did I find in the back on some shelves? Yearbooks from the U.S. Army Training Center in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri dated during the Vietnam War. *gasp*

    I recognized these books because I had my dad's copy in my office. I couldn't believe it! Who would get rid of these?? And there were quite a few! Some were duplicates. How did this person get these? Well, that how part didn't interest me as much as the "How much are they?" part. Only a few bucks per book. Oh, they are mine now! I just couldn't leave them behind. I didn't know what I was going to do with these yet, but I figured as long as I had them they were safe.
    No, I'm not crazy I promise. I just knew that there had to be some people out there who didn't have these books and would be interested in them. I also knew Yearbooks were a hot item right now in the genealogy community, so I figured I would check to see if these were available anywhere to donate so they could be digitized.
    Well, fast forward to now. I have about 8 books now, including my dad's. I have shared which ones I have in the Missouri Genealogy Group and in the GAA Group as well, offering look-ups for anyone. I had learned that Fort Leonard Wood apparently doesn't have copies of the yearbooks for anyone to look up anymore, so I knew I made the right decision getting these books. I haven't found anything in them that anyone was looking for yet, but you never know.
    I'm hoping to get the pages with people on them uploaded somewhere for others to look through, but I have to research the copyright laws on this first. I don't want to get in trouble. I don't plan on putting up the whole book; just the pages with people. So be on the lookout. 
    Now every time I go to Antique Malls, I am checking every booth for these Yearbooks. I found more in other booths and began to wonder, "why are all these popping up all of a sudden?" Then I remember back to when I visited my dad's grave. The majority of the headstones around him had "Vietnam" written on them, my dad's being one of them. And it occurred to me, that generation is started to pass away. Just like World War II veterans, soon this generation will be no more. And what happens when people pass away? Things get donated, sold, or (even worse) trashed! So I am sure we are going to be finding more and more of these yearbooks popping up.
    The Vietnam War was not like the first three wars. Americans didn't come home to a hero's welcome. Most came home to people who hated them and wanted nothing to do with them. They were treated so differently. Look, I don't care if you agree with the reasons we were at war or the politics of the war, you don't do that to those who risked their lives fighting for those who couldn't fight for themselves. These soldiers came back scarred for life. And then to get rejected by your own country, just makes it worse. The experiences these soldiers went through were nothing like anyone should ever have to face. So it's no surprise if these men didn't talk about their service with their family (my dad barely did). And then it's no surprise that these books end up being gotten rid of. 
    So I've taken on this project. To collect as many yearbooks as I can and upload their pictures for others to find. Because their pictures deserve to be shared. Their names deserve to be remembered. So if you are out and about and you find any of these yearbooks (or any yearbooks for that fact; I found quite a few booths that had high school and college yearbooks), I suggest you pick them up, scan the pages with faces, and names, and add them to a site online somewhere. Or if you don't want the hassle? Send the Fort Leonard Wood Yearbooks to me! I'll take them. Just send me a message through my blog or you can email me at auntiejen82@yahoo.com.

In honor of my Dad and all the others who served in Vietnam, here is a video I put together last year (2020). I compiled interviews I conducted with my dad from times he actually WOULD talk about Vietnam and put them together in a slideshow presentation. Enjoy!

This blog post was posted on The Genealogy Blog Party for celebrating Family History Month.