On July 1, the winners of the Seward Rotary Club’s 4th of July Home Decorating Contest were announced. The Keith and Ellen Gardner family won the nighttime display while Charles and Mary Gebhardt took home the prize for best daytime display with their yard of revolutionary figures.
Mary, a fifth grade writing teacher at Seward Middle School, actually had won the contest two years ago and knew she’d have to do something extra special for the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Originally, Mary thought of just doing Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty peeking over their fence but, wanting to do something more specific to the 250th celebration, decided to fill her yard with 12 revolutionary figures: Sam Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Deborah Sampson, Alexander Hamilton, Martha and George Washington, Crispus Attucks, Thomas Jefferson, Molly Pitcher, Paul Revere and Betsy Ross.
The project took Mary two weeks of late nights to complete, but with every new layer of paint added, every new cutout finished, she felt more and more confident that her vision for the yard would come to life exactly like she wanted. And after hours and hours of “burning the midnight oil” and some help from her husband Charles to plant the stakes in the yard, Mary succeeded.
And while winning is a huge honor, especially considering Mary and Charles’ love for the Fourth, Mary also hopes her foam figures will be an educational tool for both the community and her fifth grade students, who do a large writing project each year on the Revolutionary War.
“I wanted to have some women in the mix,” Mary said. “When I do things with my students, the girls all choose Betsy Ross because they don’t know any women who were important or influential. So I really wanted to make sure I put some women out there too.”
Two of the women Mary highlights in her decor are Deborah Sampson and Molly Pitcher. Deborah Sampson, born in 1760, was the first woman to enlist in the United States military and is often called the first woman to take a bullet for the nation.
But she did it all under the name Robert Shurtleff. Disguising herself as a man, Sampson enlisted in 1782 and served in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment for 17 months. At one point during her service, Sampson took a musket ball to her thigh, and in order to avoid being taken to the hospital and potentially caught, she cut the ball out herself and continued fighting.
Unfortunately, after falling ill in 1783, Sampson was discovered. At the time, most women caught disguising themselves as men were prosecuted, but because Sampson was such a well-respected soldier, she was honorably discharged without pay. It wasn’t until 1805 that she received a pension for her service.
In 2021, the Deborah Sampson Act was signed into law, establishing a historic investment into the care and support of women veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The other woman Mary chose to highlight—and who is Mary’s personal favorite in the collection—is Molly Pitcher, who technically wasn’t just one woman. Molly Pitcher was a nickname given to the women who would bring pitchers of water to tired and wounded soldiers.
However, one woman in particular closely matches the most famous Molly Pitcher story: Mary Ludwig Hays. After her husband was injured during the Battle of Monmouth, Hays immediately took up his position of reloading the cannon, having watched him enough in drills to understand the basics. And in 1822, the state of Pennsylvania awarded her an annual pension of $40 for her service.
Mary looks forward to telling people all about the figures and their stories and decorating her classroom with them next year. She and Charles also said they’ve thought about adding more to the collection of foam figures in the future with other famous Americans. Regardless of how she decides to decorate next year, though, Mary is happy to bring the 4th of July to life in her home and share that energy with her community.
“I love that this city is the 4th of July City,” Mary said. “It’s just fun to get people involved, and it’s a source of pride for this community. And this yard now is a source of pride for us.”
The figures can be seen at 640 South 2nd Street
