File:Kittridge Wing Supt. GNMP to Mrs. Forrest Gertrude Kibler General Chairman UDC Feb. 3, 1964 (4399839d-d221-46c8-9cba-e4918b2ef497).jpg

White paper with typed black text

Mrs. Forrest Kibler 724 Longleaf Drive, N.E. Atlanta 9, Georgia Dear Mrs. Kibler: Thank you for writing to us, and for sending the sketches and plans of various proposed memorial designs. We recognize the difficulty that you find yourself in with respect to the committee decision on the memorial design, and hope that whatever statue is finally commissioned will find favor in your eyes. The function of the National Park Service at this stage of the arrangements is to assure that a monument appropriate to the battlefield is selected, and one which is also appropriate to the purpose of the memorialization. Therefore, we do not feel that we are in a position to assist in selection of designs, nor should we reject any design until we have given a complete study. In connection with the DeLue design, for example, we think it may be necessary to examine the clay model which Mr. DeLue will be making. The same care should be exercised with respect to approval of inscriptions for the monument. We will want to examine a scale layout of all proposed texts, as well as the proposal for inclusion of Mr. Williams’ name, since the letter size and placement of the various sentences will have much to do with appropriateness of the various statements. Your action in circulating copies of the regulations on inscriptions will have good effect, we are sure, in bringing the inscription proposals into proper shape. The design for an eternal flame monument, submitted with your letter of January 23, is one which we are disposed to reject, for the reason that an eternal flame memorial already exists here at Gettysburg, dedicated by President Roosevelt in 1938. We are presently of the opinion that it would not be appropriate to duplicate this eternal flame with a second such construction on this Park.

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