Memorial Day 2014 – A Look Back

For my Memorial Day posting this year, I decided to focus entirely on my father.  Ronald Allen Myers was killed in action in Czechoslovakia on May 6, 1945.  Sadly, I have no memories of him.  I was about 2 years 10 months old when my mother got the following telegram.

My dad was born in Jackson Michigan on April 2, 1911.  His parents were Frank J. Myers and Mary Ethyl Cerrow Myers.  He had an older brother Clifford.  Ronald met my mother, Elizabeth (Beth) Weed while he was working his way through college as a ‘soda jerk’ in a drug store.  My dad graduated from Michigan State College with a degree in Forestry in 1938.   Ron and Beth were married on January 5, 1939.

They didn’t have too much time together as the USA was at war with Japan as of December 7, 1941...followed shortly by Germany.  Because my dad had a degree, he applied for and was accepted at Officer’s School.  He was washed out because he was color blind.  After completing his training he was shipped out to Europe in 1945, where he served for only about 4 months before being killed.  He was buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery near the town of St. Avold France.

For some reason, my mother and my dad’s family never kept in touch…even though they lived in the same town.  Consequently, I know very little about him, his family or his life growing up. 

This is a photo of my mom Beth and my dad Ron with me.  This picture was taken in front of my grandmother and grandfather Weed’s house on Prospect Avenue in Jackson Michigan.  I’m guessing that this photo is from sometime in early 1943.

I was a little older in this photo.  I believe that this was the last photo I have of my dad and me…probably sometime in the summer of 1944.  He was shipped over to Europe in January of 1945…arriving only 4 months before the end of the War in Europe. 

Note: German forces surrendered in Italy on April 29, 1945.  A total and unconditional surrender was signed on May 7th, to be effective by the end of the day on May 8^th.  Nevertheless, German Army Group Centre resisted in Prague Czechoslovakia until May 11^th.   As I mentioned previously, my dad was killed on May 6th...

This obituary was taken from the Jackson Citizen Patriot Newspaper…

The electronic age does dish up some interesting connections…surprises that probably never could have happened back in the day when the internet and today’s information overload didn’t exist.

Recently I received a phone call from Mark…a historian with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.  He told me that he’d been looking for me for some time and after finding my blog site with last year’s Memorial Day posting, he knew that he’d finally located the right person.

He had been contacted by Maureen from Corunna Michigan.  She’d been looking for me too…but had little success.  Prior to World War II, her father and my father had been close friends.  They’d also worked together at Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources as Conservation Officers.  Maureen asked for Mark’s help in finding me.  She had something from my father that she wanted to pass on to me.

 

After Mark found me he gave my information to Maureen and then he gave me her phone number.  When I called, she told me that she had a letter that my dad, Ron, had sent to her parents, Frank and Frances, during WWII.  Maureen felt that since her parents had held onto the letter all of these years, it indicated that my dad was very special to them.

This is the letter that her parents had been saving for all these years…

I thought that with the receipt of the letter to his good friend Frank and his wife Frances, this would be a good time to publish the last letter that my father wrote to my mother… You may notice that the tone of the second letter is a bit different than the one that he’d sent to his friends…

Note: If you enlarge the pages, you can read the lines that are creased...

What else is there to say…?  My dad died defending our…my freedom!  I just wish that he had lived long enough for me to know him.  Who knows where my life might have gone…what road I might have followed. 

We can never forget those who have died and suffered for us, for our way of life.  God Bless America and God Bless our heroes!

Just click on any of the photos or pages of the letters to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by…

 

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave