International Day of Peace

PRENOTE: My post about the 2026 election is here.

September 21, 2026, the International Day of Peace, was so designated by the United Nations on September 7, 2001, four days before 9-11-01.  Yesterday, the third Tuesday in September, is now the official opening day of the UN in New York City.  The creation of the UN dates back to the end of WWII in 1945.  I am a strong supporter of the United Nations, acknowledging how difficult it has to be these days.

Sunday, September 20, 2026, was the 100th birthday of our friend, Annelee Woodstrom, and we attended the celebration of her life in Fargo, North Dakota.

More so than most of us, Annelee was and is a personal witness to the foundation story of the UN.  She was born in 1926 in Germany, and grew up in Hitler’s Germany through the end of WWII.  She experienced the horrors of war.  She was 18 when the War ended.  In 1947, not yet 21, she came to the U.S. to marry her Gentleman Soldier, Kenny Woodstrom of Crookston MN.

The marriage was not without complication.  She was, first of all, an “alien”, enemy no less, who spoke no English.  The laws had been amended to permit “war brides’, so that was okay.  She was over 18, so of legal age to marry here.  But there was a complication: she was not yet 21 and under German Law permission of her father was required to marry.  Annelee’s father had been killed in the war.  Though over 40 at the time, he was a draftee who had declined to join the Nazis, and presumably was killed somewhere in Russia near the end of the war.  I don’t think that it has ever been established exactly where he died, or where he is buried.  That is the nature of war.

Kenny and Annelee married and had two children.  Kenny died in 1998, a year after the 1997 flood devastated their town of Ada.  They had been married 51 years.

While she had only completed 8th grade equivalent in Germany, during her marriage she went  to and graduated from college, becoming a career public school teacher in Twin Valley Minnesota, and a finalist for Minnesota Teacher of the Year.

Their daughter, Sandy, and two of her friends,  were struck and killed by a drunk driver in the 1970s, and are buried next to each other in Ada.  Her son and daughter-in-law had three children, and she has several grandchildren.

She documented her life in three books: War Child, Empty Chairs, and So It Was – all remembering her life as she lived it in Germany and in the United States,  I am not sure she is still selling the books on line, but if so, they are certainly worthwhile as a story of a life.  I know she has books available, but I am not sure of their accessibility, so will have to leave that as an open question.   Hers is a remarkable story among millions of remarkable stories about all of us.

POSTNOTE: As it happens, the International Day of Peace is always the day after her birthday, and the United Nations convenes on the Third Tuesday in September, this year September 21, 2026.

We are not at a time of peace in our country or world.  Here are the summaries from the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2026. Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman, and Heather Delaney Reese among others.