This place is famous because President Franklin Roosevelt met with Winston
Churchill and Joseph Stalin to discuss the World War II status in Europe.
Roosevelt probably picked the place because it was in his home state.
N O T !!!
Okay, my best subject in school was geography. And I did pretty well in history too.
I knew about the key meeting between Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin and Winston
Churchill. And I knew it took place in Potsdam. What I did not know was there is a
Potsdam in Germany. I only knew of the one in New York. And since FDR is from New
York, I assumed he liked this north central New York town and arranged to have the
big meeting there. WRONG! It was in Germany. So I show up at the Potsdam Museum
and one thing I wanted to verify was my reasoning why that important meeting took
place here. The two staffers at the museum said that was the first time they heard
anyone think that the WWII meeting took place in their town.
EMBASSASSING!
The three of us did have a good conversation for a while though discussing history
and the area and they asked where I was from and knew of the Nelson-Atkins Museum
because the Nelson had donated many pieces of old pottery/china to the Potsdam NY
museum. They also, just the day before, had received a stack of old post cards from
someone who found them in an old box and donated them to the museum. One of the
postcards was from someone who was visiting D.C. and mentioned that s/he saw "Mr.
Truman" on his daily walk that day.
FUN!