Last weekend I had a chance to interview Tukufu Zuberi, the keynote speaker at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. Dr. Zuberi is one of the four hosts on History Detectives, a popular program on PBS. In this interview, he talks about the program and he also ties genealogy and history together in a very personal way.
The folks at Roots Television kindly videotaped the interview and have now made it available online. You can watch the interview right now at http://www.rootstelevision.com/index.html?bcpid=7225568001&bclid=240119644&bctid=28247555001 or by clicking on the image below.
Dick, thank you for this interview. I had not heard about this program, but became very interested, especially since you mentioned the Japanese balloon bombs. What is so cool is that PBS has the shows online, so I searched out that episode.
Imagine my astonishment when in the middle of talking about the bomb, they mentioned a pastor having a picnic with his wife and a Sunday School class finding a bomb and all but the pastor being blown up. In my mind, I immediately thought, "No, Mom always said it was on a beach, and they were blown up by a Japanese mine that happened to float up on the beach."
So I went to some historical newspapers. Sure enough. I found many copies of the article in papers all over the country. Archie Mitchell and wife along with the Sunday School class had this misfortune of this happening. I had always been told it was a beach. Even a 1945 paper said it was in a forest and a Japanese Balloon bomb. I had never before heard of them.
Anyway, Rev. Mitchell married again later on--to a sister of the girl who found the balloon and was killed along with her brother. He later served as a missionary to Viet Nam and was captured. Years later his wife was also captured. My mom's connection? Same denomination, and she knew them. We prayed for them night after night.
Thank you for this interview. I loved it, and now must watch this show.
Posted by: Cheryl | July 04, 2009 at 08:02 PM