VHS Closed: July 4th

The Vermont Historical Society will be closed on Friday, July 4th in observance of Independence Day. The Vermont History Museum will reopen for its regular hours on Saturday, July 5th, while the Vermont History Center will reopen on Tuesday, July 8th. 

Pictured: a folded American flag that says on the edge that would attach to a pole as follows: "U S Ensign No. 7 Funeral Mare Island Feb 1944."

The Mare Island Naval Station in San Francisco Bay was a base for the Pacific Fleet during World War II and a location where Naval flags were produced. Some information about this kind of flag can be found in the accession file.

This could be the flag given to the Rossi family after the death of Claude Raymond Rossi (1921-1945). He had enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 after graduating from high school in 1940, and trained to become a pilot. He was commissioned as an Ensign and a pilot in December 1944. He flew off an aircraft carrier patrolling the coast of California. At the end of WWII, he became a test pilot and died in a plane crash in Alameda, California on Sept. 24, 1945.