Longtime Volunteer Provides Oral History Of American Red Cross

LIMA — A local volunteer who has been serving the American Red Cross since the end of World War II provided an oral history of the organization Sunday during an event at the Allen County Museum. VaLaire Orchard, who is in her 74th year with the Red Cross, took the more than 20 individuals who attended the presentation all the way back to a time when the Red Cross was just an idea and not the organization it is today. Orchard spent the first portion of her speech describing the early life of Clarissa “Clara” Barton, who brought the Red Cross to America in the late 1800s.