Monika's Story

I've learned a lot from ThinkQuest. We have three opinions from three different people. Carolyn Reeder's opinion of the park is more like mine. I love that the park is there, but I'm sad people had to give up their homes for it.

ThinkQuest has helped me learn what the real story of the Shenandoah National Park is. I thought it was just a park that had always been there. But after we watched "The Iris Still Blooms”, I thought the CCC boys were big bullies who wanted to make a really big park just so other people could see where people have lived.

As for the CCC boys, I'm not really mad at them anymore. I now know that they were just doing their job. They were desperate for money and for them it was just a job. They needed money for their family to stay alive because of the Great Depression and to them it was "either your family gets moved or my family dies.” I think the park was just a place the Virgina Government wanted to have the whole Nation see. The Shenandoah National Park is beautiful any time of the year.

I liked the interviews we had. Even though I did not go to the Lambert's house, I saw the movie of it. I think the Lamberts had a very different viewpoint of the park. In the book The Undying Past of the Shenandoah National Park we found out that Mr.Lambert's father knew George Freeman Pollock, so Mr.Lambert thought that the park was a good thing to have. It's not that he didn't feel sad for the people who had to get displaced, he just wanted the park more than Carolyn Reeder or the Perdues.

Carolyn Reeder nor the Perdues know somebody who would do anything to make the park happen, but Darwin Lambert does. Darwin Lambert knew different people than the Perdues and Carolyn Reeder, and Carolyn Reeder knows different people than the Perdues. I think that's a reason why they have different opinions. From what we've heard, I think the Perdues have the emotional opinion, the Lamberts have the opinion that the park is just a park, and Carolyn Reeder is in the middle.

Now, I think that whenever I do go into the park, I will do what Charles Perdue said, and think of who had lived there. I will always feel very sorry for them.

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