In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Historic Vienna Inc.’s 2018 main exhibit was entitled Home Front – The Great War and Vienna. The exhibit featured information, images, models, and artifacts, including uniforms, equipment, and documents, from “the war to end all wars.” The exhibit included a diorama of the fearsome trenches that were ubiquitous on World War I battlefields as well as a graphic display of awards and decorations.
“Vienna didn’t have an awful lot to do with the war,” notes an HVI curator, Mike Berger. “Seventy-three men with a Vienna address fought in the war,” which the United States did not enter until 1917. However, the names of two Vienna soldiers who lost their lives in World War I will ring familiar to those living in the community today. The exhibit tells how George Dyer and Clarence Gunnell, for whom the local American Legion Post is named, lost their lives.
