Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day! On this day, I always remember my Uncle Jerome who was shot down over Bremen, Germany after having engine problems during WWII. He was a navigator of a "Flying Fortress" B-17. Several others survived the crash, some made their way back to England while two others became POWs until the end of the war. They contacted my grandmother to give her the details. They never found Jerome's body and his death killed his mother. She was never the same. My mom was only 13-years old when he died and it forever changed her life.

Jerome was a published poet, pianist and composer. Mom tells about her brother bringing a piano home and trying to get it up into his bedroom on the second floor. It got stuck on the stairs. As pianos and dining room tables are not real necessities, these were usually sold first if a family needed money during the depression. It cost her family more money to hire movers to get the piano into her brother’s bedroom than the cost of the piano itself. She talks about having her sister and brother playing duets with him in his bedroom and her in the living room while Mom would tap dance or sing from the bathroom. He also had an engineering mind and I often wonder what he would have done with his life. He was only 19-years old when he died.

When mom met and decided to marry my dad, he had a very German surname. My grandmother insisted that her daughter would never have a German name, she paid the court costs to have it changed and I was raised using his mother's maiden instead. Very English. Sadly, my brother was the only boy born in my dad's family so the German name was forever stopped.

My best to all the families of our soldiers. May they all come home alive and well.