MUSIC A lot of history, although it deserves to be remembered, can easily be forgotten if people, well, forget about it. It then becomes almost like buried treasure waiting for someone to uncover it. Delving into history is, it's almost like beachcombing. You're never quite sure what you're going to find, but sometimes you find some incredible things.
And that's what happened over 10 years ago. Someone who's a friend of mine now, Tom Woodruff of Louisa County, Iowa. He had a call from the widow of a boyhood friend of his who said that this friend's grandmother had put together a scrapbook.
It roughly went from the late 1800s to the first few years of the 1900s. And she knew it might be of interest to Tom because Tom is an amateur historian. And so she ended up getting that scrapbook to Tom.
So of course, what does he do? He sits down and he has to go through the entire scrapbook. And there on this 57 page scrapbook on page 23 was a little news clipping. It was from a 1907 Columbus Gazette newspaper, and they were talking about the devastating toll the Civil War had. And it talked specifically about the Littleton family were less fortunate when it came to losing people.
Of the six brothers, only one lived to return, and he shortly died of disease contracted in the service. And right there, that was the flashpoint for Tom Woodruff to try and find out more about the six Littleton brothers. Tom had started working on this for a few years, and a mutual friend of ours connected me to Tom. She knew that I loved history, that I did stories about history.
And she said, I've got a fellow you need to meet. Well, I met Tom Woodruff and the chase was on as they say, what can we do to bring this story back to light? Because it was one of those profound stories that inspirational in service to country, tragic in the total loss of the male lineage of a family. There were four sisters left from that family. And in fact, many of the relatives, the descendants of those four sisters knew very little, if anything, about the six great, great, great uncles that they had at one time. So that was kind of the genesis of getting involved with the Littleton brothers story.
We have a lot of missing puzzle pieces. Some of the pieces we have are based in census records. So a number of the Littleton family members were notated as mulatto. The migration of the Littleton family, they originated from Maryland.
And it looks like James and Martha, they were the mother and father. They started toward moving west because they wanted more opportunity. And their first four children, Sarah, George, John and Thomas were born in Maryland. They probably left Maryland in late 1836 or so. They ended up stopping in Ohio for a while to keep expanding their family. So Ohio became home for the birth of William and then Mary. Then after Mary was born, sometime after that, between 1839 and 1841, they completed their migration to Iowa. So when they got to Louisa County in around 1840, 1841, that is when the family completed its expansion. Rebecca was born in 1841, Pramila in 1843, and her twin brother, Kendall, same year, Noah in 1845, and that completed the family. Trying to figure out why the Littleton brothers served, that is where the best historical forensic researcher would really have a challenge. You could go to the newspapers, but there didn't seem to be a lot of information about the Littletons in there.
So we really don't know. But Iowa has kind of a Janus personality when it comes to the Civil War. There were virtually no important battles fought in Iowa during the Civil War. But there was a sense of dedication and duty that the people who targeted Iowa as the place they were going to sink their roots, that they wanted to support that fierce patriotism that they seem to have. And that's what kept drawing so many people to enlist in the service from Iowa.
I think that's part of what drove them into enlisting as they did. Thomas was the first one to enlist. He enlisted in July 16th of 1861. He was in Company C, 5th Iowa Infantry. Next was William Littleton. He enlisted in September 21st of 1861.
Company K, 8th Iowa Infantry. The third Littleton brother to enlist was George Littleton. He was the oldest brother. He enlisted in 1862. And because he was working at the time in Illinois, he enlisted in Illinois. The three final brothers were Kendall Littleton, John, and Noah. And those three brothers all enlisted on August 21st, 1862 and served in Company F of the 19th Iowa Infantry.
And their service was to be relatively short-lived. And you've been listening to John Busby tell the story of the Littletons. And the Littletons lost all six of the boys in that family. The bloodline.
Four sisters remained. And so many of these stories are untold until they're told. And you're hearing it here on Our American Stories. John Busby telling the story of the Littleton family and so many other families ravaged by the Civil War. The highest death count in all of the wars America has ever fought.
600,000 plus. The story continues of the Littleton brothers here on Our American Story. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. A place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.
Go to hillsdale.edu to learn more. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident.
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Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today. And we return to our American stories and the story of the six Littleton brothers who all enlisted to fight in our nation's civil war, our bloodiest war. Here again is John Busby of the Culture Buzz on KFMG 98.9.
And here's Monty. At the outbreak of the civil war, all six Littleton brothers would enlist to fight for the union and some of them would see action at Prairie Grove, Arkansas. Unfortunately, it was that battle that took its greatest and quickest toll on the Littleton family. In battle, Kendall died and was buried in a mass grave there. John was severely wounded in the thigh and he was transferred to Fayetteville, Arkansas to hopefully recover.
However, he died eight days later and is buried in an unmarked grave there in the national cemetery. Chances are that he didn't die so much from his wounds as from the infection. Noah did survive the Prairie Grove battle, but it was interesting on what happened to him.
He shows that even accidents can happen in war. And that's exactly what happened to Noah. Noah was part of a foraging group. That's one thing that in the civil war, the troops had to forage what was available in the land that they were crisscrossing. Noah was on a foraging trip that included ferrying goods that they acquired across the White River, which is down between Missouri and Arkansas. During the time that they were ferrying things, the rains had kind of made the river turbulent. There's a great passage here. This was a first hand account by Timothy Phillips, a member of Company A of the Iowa 19th.
Several days ago, nearly 100 men were sent out as guards to a forage train. They returned the day the new boat was built under the supervision Lieutenant Faust, the first light duty. The boat was considered ample to carry two six mule teams across loaded and a number of horsemen and footmen. The boat was unmanageable and passing to the center of the stream and sunk. Water pouring over the boat washing one team and several men from the boat, which after became submerged, broke loose.
The water was very cold and water setting from shore made it require superhuman strength reach it while we as gazers could not render assistance and be only witnesses of their death struggles. One of those who perished was Noah. Thomas, the first to enlist, ironically, fought more battles and served in actual, I guess you'd call combat situations than any of the other brothers. He fought in the battles of Iuka, in Champion Hill, the siege of Vicksburg and Mission Ridge. And that's where he was captured. When he was captured, he was sent to Andersonville. Andersonville was located in Georgia and it was situated in a wide open field area, just bare dirt ground.
There was a very sluggish stream of terrible water that did come through it a little bit, not pure. Food rations were inconsistent at best. The prisoners were packed in. If a disease was brought in by a prisoner, it could run rampant through the ranks of the prisoners there.
It was a gulag type situation. When word about what Andersonville was about got around to the Union Army, they knew that if any of their compatriots were sent to Andersonville, it was almost assuredly a death stamp. And after two and a half, almost three years of captivity, that is when he died of chronic diarrhea in Andersonville. And he ended up being buried at the Andersonville National Cemetery. William was in Company K, 8th Iowa Infantry.
He was the second of the Littleton brothers to enlist. He fought in the battles of Shiloh, and he was wounded there, Jackson, and the Siege of Vicksburg. And that's where he contracted a disease. A disease he would later die of, like so many others, in a St. Louis hospital.
But what happened to George? George was in Company B of the 65th Illinois Infantry. He did have a battle, and it was a name that's well known. It was a battle at Harpers Ferry. He was captured and imprisoned briefly, but in these early days, there were prisoner exchanges.
The honor system was in place where, my side has this many prisoners, we want to exchange for that many prisoners on your side, and they will not go into combat for X number of months, or something like that. George was reassigned after the prisoner exchange, and he was reassigned to Chicago, where they had what was kind of the Union's version of Andersonville. The winters were brutal, and that is where he probably had pneumonia.
He did get back home, and he lived for a while longer, but he finally succumbed to the brutal toll that the military life, the diseases that he encountered, took on his body. And that's what made George become the sixth victim of the six Littleton brothers. The Littleton brothers' story resonates with me because it encompasses a national level of kind of cross-sectioning of what happened during the Civil War in a single family. You had all these brothers enlist in the war. All the sisters were married back home.
Some of them had multiple marriages because they outlived husbands, things like that. But with the brothers, you had the diversity of ways that those who served perished. You had in battle. You had wounded from battle and perished afterwards, probably a combination of the wound and disease. You had disease. You had accident.
You had imprisonment. You had all these different ways in this microcosmic perspective of six brothers. And that's where the tragedy is, because these days we don't think of having to endure this kind of tragedy. And the Littleton brothers is a special, unequaled sacrifice tragedy that needs to come to light again. And a good way to bring it to light would be a monument. A monument that only recently came about even though the idea had been floating around for a long time. The Loiza newspaper a hundred years ago actually commented about this when they talked about the six brothers. There needs to be a memorial built to honor the lives of these six brothers from Toolsboro in Loiza County who all died as a result of volunteering to fight in the Civil War.
When it was dedicated on Flag Day, June 14th of 2016, the keynote was delivered by Tom Morain, who was an exceptionally well-known historian and scholar. He read something that has always stuck with me in his words. He quoted the Bible, And with that question begins the Bible account of how Ezekiel watched dry bones take on a new life. And in this story, the people of Israel are the dry bones who had lost touch with their heritage, but who could live again if they recover that historical memory. In a similar way, the Littleton brothers would not mean much to us today if we know them only through the bare bones of the census record, George, John, Thomas, Kendall, William, and Noah. And a great job as always by Monty Montgomery on the production of the piece, and a special thanks to John Busby of The Culture Buzz on KFMG 98.9 for sharing with us this remarkable story of the Loiza County, Iowa family, the Littletons, and the Littleton brothers.
Again, all six perished in the Civil War or just thereafter. The Littleton family story here on Our American Story. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. And we continue with Our American Stories. And up next, a story from Brad Server. Brad grew up watching The Three Stooges on TV, not knowing he was related to one of the greatest comic performers of all time. Every day after school, Brad, his brother, and their friends would pile in front of the TV to watch their idol, Jerome Howard, best known as Curly. Then one day, the secret about their unknown grandfather was unveiled.
Here's Brad Server, a.k.a. Curly G. To start this journey, we must first go back to Lithuania, this where my great-grandparents, Solomon and Jenny Horwitz, met and married. They later left for America and arrived in Castle Guard, New York, in 1890. Here, they would start their family of five boys, Irving, Benjamin, Samuel, Moses, and Jerome. Later, the world would know the three of these boys as Shemp, Moe, and Curly. My name is Brad Server, and I'm the youngest grandson of Curly Howard of the Three Stooges.
This is my American Story. When Shemp and Moe were in their teens, they would sneak off to Coney Island to watch the Vaudeville Acts. They would later join these performers and were then decided to go on to New York. They would later join these performers and were then discovered by Ted Healy, a well-known Vaudeville actor. In time, they met Lawrence Feinberg, better known as Larry, and they became Ted Healy and the Stooges.
In time, Shemp would leave the act, and baby brother filled in. The rest is comedy history for the ages. Why, you cowards! You're afraid of saying Niagara Falls!
Niagara Falls! Slowly I turn. In step by step.
Inch by inch. In 1937, Curly met and married my grandmother, Elaine Ackerman. A year later, they would have a baby girl named Marilyn, my mom. In 1941, my grandparents divorced when my mom was three. My grandmother would remarry a year later to a man named Moses Diamond. My mother lived with them, but would visit Curly on the weekends when he was in town.
As my grandfather's health started to decline, her visits were less frequent, and she remembers visiting him in the hospital often. In 1952, when my mom was 14, Curly Howard passed away at the age of 48. After my grandfather's passing, she would legally be adopted by her stepfather, who really had become her everyday dad. In early 1960, my mom met my father, Haskell H. Server, in Los Angeles, California.
In December, my brother Darren was born. Then, in 1962, my sister Andrea. And then, in 1965, I joined them. My parents, though, would later divorce in 1971. So, after my parents divorced in 1971, it was a typical arrangement where my brother, sister, and I lived with my mother. My dad would then move to Pacific Palisades, because he was doing well in the insurance agency that he was working for. And then, later, my brother would wind up moving in with my dad.
A year later, I would move in with my dad. But we really started showing signs that we had something very special in our blood, because we were performing. My brother was a self-taught piano player, I think, at the age of five. We all loved to sing. We would gather around the piano, my sister, my brother, and I, and we could all carry a tune.
So, you know, it was great. So, we would sing songs. Later, it would develop into performing makeshift musicals for my grandparents at the time, or my mom.
If she was to drop us off, we'd say, Mom, come in and see this. And we would do the famous shows of that time in 1971, 1972. We were doing Cabaret, West Side Story, Sounding Music. And to this time, we came home like every other kid. After school, we came home, and we wanted to see The Stooges.
So, we'd rush home. We'd watch in LA, it was Channel 52, UHF. And you had all the great shows that were coming on. You know, you had Kimba, you had The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, you had Speed Racer.
I mean, all these great shows, but The Stooges is what we came home to watch most. And Curly was our hero. My brother and I both loved Curly the most. But the problem with that was, at this age, I was six, my sister was eight, my brother was eleven. We had no idea that we were the grandchildren of Curly. We hadn't been told yet.
But it was this one day that we found out. I believe I was maybe eight at the time, maybe my brother was twelve, somewhere around that time. And my grandmother had taken my brother, Darren, to see his first Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof. And he was at awe when he saw the show. I mean, after the show, when they were driving home, my grandmother and him, he just kept going on and on of how he wanted to be an actor. He wanted to be an actor, and he was just persistent. And I think finally my grandmother said, Darren, enough. I get it.
It's probably because show business runs in your blood. Your biological grandfather was Curly from The Three Stooges. What do you mean, Grandma?
Yes, yes, yes. Never mind that. You have your grandfather that you have now.
So just know that your talents come inherently through your bloodline. And just don't carry on with it when you get home, la la la. So it's like, my brother was basically in shock.
You know, he didn't say another word, I think, on the way home. And then he comes home and he tells me. And we're like, I mean, I was like, you have to be, that's not true. Certainly.
And he's like, Bradley, it's true. Grandmother told me. And we were just, you know, we were like, what do you do with that? I mean, your heroes become your family. We're not ordinary people. We're morons.
And then what are you supposed to do with that? I mean, did I really think or did we really think the next day when we went to school, you know, and tell our friends, the same kids that came home with us every day to watch The Stooges, we were now saying, oh, by the way, Curly is our grandfather. So, you know, we live with it.
We watch The Stooges. We're like, wow, that's our grandfather. And it was like, we didn't talk about it when we were at our dad's once we found out because, of course, that's my mom's father.
So he doesn't want to hear anything about my mom. They're divorced. My mom, she didn't talk about it because, one, she was very young when Curly died. She was 14. When she was three years old, she was, you know, adopted by her new father.
So that really became her everyday father. She channeled out the Three Stooges. Curly was just not something that she talked about. And then it was something that we were kind of told not to talk about because even though our grandfather, Moses Diamond, was an amazing man and an amazing grandfather to us, he wasn't Curly Howard from the Three Stooges. So we basically were in check. So, you know, through high school, did I talk about being Curly's grandson?
No, not really. You know, I was already class clown. I was space case. I was the guy that they wanted. Everyone wanted Brad Server to go to the parties because I was the funny guy. It was probably only later, if I was ever, if someone didn't like me or some guy was going to kick my ass or whatever, that they would go, hey, you know, that's, by the way, that's Curly's grandson.
And then the person would say, oh, okay. You know, gave me a little, a hall pass. And you've been listening to Brad Server tell a remarkable story. By the way, what a good shock, right? My granddad's Curly.
I bought him a lot of hall passes. When we come back, more of the story of Brad Server and in the end, a story of family bloodlines here on Our American Stories. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. And we continue with Our American Stories and Brad Server's story. Let's pick up where we last left off. So I continued to, through the 90s, build my career. And I still, at this point, hadn't met anyone from the 90s. And I still, at this point, hadn't met anyone from the 90s. And I still, at this point, hadn't met anyone from the 90s. And I still, at this point, hadn't met anyone from the 90s. And I still, at this point, hadn't met anyone from the Three Stooges family.
And I was 30 years old or something at the time. It didn't even cross my mind, but it was one day my mom said, Hey, Aunt Joan, which is Mo's daughter, is having a little reunion at her house. And so I went to this reunion where I met my Aunt Joan, Mo's daughter. And it was great. She was an incredibly wonderful, warm lady. And she had so much memorabilia. And it finally was a chance to talk about being the grandson with another family member. And it was great. And it was so odd that all these years later, why am I just talking to a Stooges family member? The whole thing about being the grandchildren of Curly Howard, one of the most iconic comedians of all time, was suppressed. It was like we weren't to talk about it.
We did talk about it. But now I was with Mo's daughter. And this would start turning into spending more time in the future with Stooges family members, which was great. But what really turned my life around was in 2000, I had my daughter, Elizabeth Elaine Server. And she's named, her middle name Elaine is after my grandmother Elaine.
And I love being a dad. And, you know, had my career. But I still hadn't gotten in the Stooges thing until I went to my first Stooges convention. And these conventions were going on for a long time.
And they were usually in Pennsylvania, Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, which is about 30 minutes from Philadelphia. And I went to my first Stooges convention. And I bet the fans, you know, and the fans are so endearing and amazing. They love the Stooges to this day. They mean everything to them.
And I would hear the stories of how the Stooges changed their lives and how much the Stooges mean to them. I want a piece of turkey. Me too. Oh, so you want a piece of turkey?
Yeah, give it to me now. You got it. And then other Stooges family members were at these events. So I started building relationships with them.
And that was great. And so I would continue. It was about every year we would go to these Stooges events. I'd go with my brother and then later I would go by myself. And then I'd bring my daughter and she got exposed to being part of it. And she loved it, you know, for a while.
You know, as she got older, she was like, I don't want to go to these things anymore. But it really was special. And really all the fans out there of the three Stooges are fans in general of comedy. If you're in the Philadelphia area, there's the largest stooge museum. Maybe the only stooge museum, but it is three stories of the largest and greatest stooge museum in the world. It's called the Stoogium.
And it's in Ambler, Pennsylvania, which there again isn't too far from Philadelphia. And I strongly recommend that you go there. It's a must for any stooge fan that can go. It's truly amazing. And a couple things that come with the singing and the other talents and being able to play music was, out of the three of us, I call us the grand stooges, was, I was able to go up this in my register and talk like this. And it was like, what? What is that? I'm a victim of circumstance.
Who you hitting? Be quiet. But it was like, whoa, I didn't even know that I could do that. All these years later, I was like, wow, I guess that was something that was, you know, God-given. Curly gave me that, that I had this kind of high-pitched voice.
Slightly. So, I continued to go to the stooge events. And of course, social media was happening big then. It was on Facebook and I was reaching out to the fans and going back and forth, listening to their stories, telling, you know, commenting, them telling, you know, there again, the stooges brought a lot of these people out of their darkest times. And it meant so much for me to be able to give back and tell them thank you and how much I appreciate them.
And just kind of just building off that. But in 2012, something that I thought that would never happen was the stooges were going to be on the big screen. The three stooges movie.
So, what else happened in 2012? I, on social media, met a friend who now is my business partner, who is the gentleman that is extremely talented, named Andy Pagana. And Andy found me shortly after the stooges movie came out. And he actually tried out for the role of Curly and came in third place. And he sent me his audition video.
So I was like, wow, I met this guy that tried out for Curly. He wound up having, he had such a love, not only for the three stooges, but had such a background in the comedy trios and duos of that genre. He was, you know, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers and all of them.
And we became extremely good friends. And he was a writer. He was a producer. He was producing. He wrote screenplays. He was a great photographer with filming stuff. So it was like, he was like, Brad, you got to make videos. I mean, he was doing some videos, but it was like, the fans need to see you. I was like, ah, I guess.
I mean, I love the camera, right? I experienced that. So we started filming videos. And the first video that I think I remember doing, it was going to be my grandfather's 113th birthday. And I thought that we should do a tribute birthday, you know, or tribute for his birthday, right?
So we came up with, why not get hit by 113 pies? So we spent the day going throughout Hollywood and the day and night. And we went to different places. Some people were celebrities. Some people were just people off the street.
Most of them were people off the street. And for the whole day and night, I just got pelted with 113 pies. And I was, like, honored. I was beat. I was so tired.
I was, I mean, it was hard, but I'm like, wait a second. The Three Stooges did this for years and took so much punishment. And my grandfather took so much punishment.
The least I could do is take 113 pies in one day. And that video can be seen on YouTube, on my YouTube channel, Curly's Grandson. But it came out great, and the fans loved it, right? And so 99% of the comments, which is hard to find these days, were all very positive. They loved it. They laughed.
They enjoyed it. So Andy and a couple of my other buddies that are extremely talented, we started doing video content. So we built the Curly's Grandson channel, Andy Bagana's got his own channel, and it's just, it's slapstick-type comedy. And I just am myself. I'm Brad Server, that funny guy. But I use my high-pitched voice, but it's just naturally in my nature that I look a little bit like him, which is a blessing, because he's a very handsome man.
We all know that. But something else came up, and it was a challenge that I didn't think that I would ever encounter, and that was a live performance. We're going to be putting on the Three Stooges live, and it's going to tour the U.S., and we want you to be the fifth man, which is basically a supporting actor in all the little skits, and what about it? Do you want to be in the show?
And I was like, of course, because we didn't know. Were the Stooges still going to be relevant? Was our show going to be relevant? And it was, and it was really after the shows where the fans stayed. We did Q&As, and they stood in lines for hours to take pictures with us and to say, thank you so much for bringing us back in time, when things were so much simpler and so much better.
I mean, today has so much muck-muck and so much stuff going on that going to see a Three Stooges show, a matinee or an evening show, and they absolutely loved it. There's some things that happened that I don't have all the answers to that I'm going to work on, and I just want to continue to bring laughter to the fans. I want to continue to be in front of the camera.
I want to have people go to my channel, Curly's Grandson, on YouTube and find me on Instagram and find me on Facebook and interact, and I do my best to try to reach out to them. And Curly G, there again, short for Curly's Grandson, I love that brand. It represents my grandfather. I'm representing his legacy. So I want to continue to do that, and I just want to thank you for allowing me to be on your show. Oh, and thank you, Brad Curly G, for coming on our show, and thanks to Greg Hengeler for the great production on the piece. And my goodness, my favorite part of this story is when he went to his first Stooges convention, and we are heading, the show is heading to a Stooges convention, I promise you. And there he met the fans who told him how much the Stooges had changed their lives and how much the Stooges meant to them. And then it led to, of course, Three Stooges Live and touring the country. The story of Brad Server, in the end, the story of a family bond between he and his grandfather, Curly of the Three Stooges, here on Our American Story. MUSIC
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-02-17 00:14:10 / 2023-02-17 00:28:28 / 14