Millie Ogden, CEO of 3 Link Communications in Port Vila offered to help the museum with planning for the Coolidge commemoration and exhibition. Her company will be providing us with a satellite uplink to ensure we can livestream the commemoration on the internet. Further details of how you can watch the event will be put up on social media and our website soon.
However, Millie also came up with the idea to contact the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. Given the obvious connection between us both, we thought they might have some interest in what we have planned and potentially attend the commemoration later in the month on October 26.
Within days we had a delightful response from the organisation, but unfortunately they won’t be able to attend. However, as their President, Matthew Denhart explained, they wanted to do something special for us.
Matthew and his team generously organised a very special gift to be sent to the Museum, that will hopefully arrive in time for the exhibition. A letter accompanying the gift, says in part:
We are most appreciative of your invitation to take part in the commemorative event planned for October 26, 2022 in Luganville, Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. We regret we are unable to attend in person. However, enclosed, please find a gift to your organization — an antique Moxie bottle filled with water drawn from a faucet at the historic Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. If the above-cited press reports are accurate, the same natural spring fed both this bottle and the one used in the 1931 christening of the SS President Coolidge. Moxie was the President’s favourite soft drink and this bottle was actually found here on the premises. We hope this new artifact will be a welcome addition to your celebration, and may be kept at your museum if appropriate.
Ms. Ogden, thank you again. We wish you and your colleagues a successful 80″ SS President Coolidge anniversary event next month.
Assuming the bottle and letter arrive in time, we will be putting them on display with our other artefacts. The bottle will make quite a talking piece for visitors to the Museum.
We’d like to thank Matthew Denhart and the staff at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation for their wonderful gifts. The bottle and its accompanying letter, will make beautiful additions to the Museum’s Coolidge collection.