ELDRED - Most Americans spend only one day a year remembering and honoring those who died serving our nation, but for Joel Gilfert of Eldred every day is Memorial Day.

Gilfert, who recently published his second book, "Pennsylvania and the Eldred Area at War: 1941 - 1945," has been collecting military memorabilia since the early 1980s when he was in high school. Gilfert is now the proud "curator" of a three-room military museum in Eldred, which houses more than 100 years of American military history, along with that of allies and enemies. He told The Era Sunday afternoon the inspiration for his collection came from his history teacher at Otto-Eldred Junior-Senior High School, Robert Longnecker. Longnecker is a Vietnam War veteran and a local American Civil War and Napoleonic Wars buff to boot.

"This is my passion," Gilfert said looking around at his wares. "You have to love it to do something like this." Relatives of Gilfert have served in different wars (and are honored among others at his museum), but he was not able to serve in the military, he said. He went on to say that he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army right after high school, but was rejected due to poor eyesight. Gilfert's museum, on the second floor of 194 Main Street, features uniforms, medals, supplies, flags, newspapers, magazines, photographs, letters, weapons, postcards and much more from the Spanish-American War, the Cold War era, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and a few items from the Gulf War and the current War on Terrorism.

The collection is separated into segments by country and era, and features a collection each from Germany, Communist Russia and Japan as well as those from America and allied forces. Gilfert emphasized his interest is in history, not politics. While living in Germany from 1995 to 2000, Gilfert was able to pick up many artifacts and also traveled to battle and grave sites, all the while interviewing Europeans about their thoughts on the various wars. Gilfert lived in Germany while working for KOA Speer Electronics out of Bradford, where he is still employed. In Belgium, he was visiting a surplus/antique shop and actually came across a box meant to store spare parts (tubes, vibrators, fuses and lamps) for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Oddly enough, the box and parts were made by Kane Manufacturing Company out of Kane.

Most of his collection, however, was donated or purchased on the Internet auction site eBay, Gilfert said. Gilfert's museum also features a Wall of Honor, with fallen soldiers from the Eldred, Rixford, Duke Center and Otto Township areas. Uniforms and short histories on some of the veterans from the rest of McKean County - serving in both World Wars, Vietnam and Korea - are also displayed. Gilfert, who also published a quarterly newsletter, said that felt writing and publishing was the next logical step in his military history collecting process. He has also published a book on the history of Duke Center circa 1880. A third book, this one on the Battle of the Bulge, is currently in the works, Gilfert said.