Drive past Bellwood, Nebraska, and you’ll see it before you see the sawmill. It’s a 30’ x 50’ American flag flying over the sheds. People have stopped along the highway to take pictures. Some have driven onto the property for a closer look.
BJ Barcel, who runs Barcel Mill and Lumber Co. with his family, says it turned into a landmark almost immediately. He raised it for his Aunt Vi, who turned 100 over Labor Day weekend.
Aunt Vi’s standard
Vi has lived with BJ and his wife for twelve years, and BJ says she has always been a stickler about the flags on the property.
“At the first sign of fading, fraying, or the slightest damage, she insisted that a flag be replaced,” he wrote to us.
As BJ tells it, she graduated high school in 1943 at 16, left rural Nebraska for Burbank, California, and went to work at Lockheed Aircraft, where the P-38 was built. He says she was personal secretary to the company president, handled his wartime correspondence, and carried a security clearance to go with it.
“Can you imagine a 16-year-old girl today holding a position like that?” he asked.
After the war she married a fighter pilot who later worked on experimental aircraft in the early days of the space program, and BJ says she came to know some of the country’s first astronauts through him. She spent her working life in federal service and traveled the world before coming back to Nebraska.
Living with her has given BJ something he didn’t expect. “My mother passed away 21 years ago, but through Aunt Vi, I have been able to learn so much more about my mother as a child and about the early years of her marriage to my father. Those stories have given me a connection to my family’s history that I never expected to receive.”
The pole
The flagpole started life as part of a wind-generation project that didn’t work out. The tower was just standing there. “I always felt it was begging for a better purpose,” BJ wrote in his review.
For her hundredth, BJ turned the old tower into a flagpole and set it beside the mill.
The flag
A pole that size needs a big flag, and it had to arrive before the party. BJ ordered a 30’ x 50’ polyester U.S. flag.
“Freedom and Glory went far above and beyond to get this beautiful 30’ x 50’ American flag to me in time for a very special Labor Day celebration honoring my aunt Vi’s 100th birthday,” he wrote. “The flag looked incredible, and the photographs tell the story better than words can.”
He said more in an email to us. “The flag we purchased from Freedom & Glory was more than a decoration for her 100th birthday. It was a fitting tribute to her patriotism, her lifetime of government service, and her extraordinary connection to American aviation history.”
Around the mill
Barcel Mill and Lumber Co. is a family sawmill in its 78th year, and the property is well known around the area. There’s an arboretum with trees from around the world, a 17-foot redwood lumberjack carving named Woody, and a treehouse. BJ says there’s a story behind that one too. [ LINK/ URL https://barcelmill.my.canva.site/barcel-mill ]
“It has become an immediate landmark,” BJ wrote of the flag, “and a meaningful tribute to Aunt Vi and the remarkable century she has lived.”
Happy 100th, Vi.
Vi’s rule
The U.S. Flag Code makes a similar point. A flag should be retired once it’s no longer a fitting emblem for display. If you’re wondering whether yours has reached that point, our Flag Code page explains what to look for and how to retire a flag properly. You can also send a worn flag to us and we’ll see to its retirement.
Share your story
Do you have a flag with a story behind it? We’d like to hear it. Email it to customercare@freedomandglory.com with “Flag story” in the subject line. Photos welcome.