Mom and Liam watering the tomato plants earlier in the summer.
Do you hear family stories from family elders? It seems the same stories are told over and over. I have most of them memorized. I try to get mom to tell other stories. Don't know how much longer she will be around to tell them. I wish I had written down some of dad's stories.
This story is about my uncle Joe. I never met him because he died before I was born. I was exploring things on the internet and came across some writing about Joe on a website that catalogs graves. Someone had posted a newspaper article that ran in the local paper after Joe was reported MIA in the Philippines in WWII.
I asked mom for clarification because I thought some 'facts' in the article were incorrect. It stated Joe had graduated from high school and he had not. He finished 9th grade and was old enough to enlist so he did. It said his occupation on his enlistment papers was actor. In Jackson, MS? in 1940? Mom said he was a joker and prankster but also had a very good singing voice. He had solos in some local Christmas or church programs. I think possibly he wrote that hoping to be an entertainer in the army.
His army job was airplane mechanic.
I reminded mom that I had heard he was a boxer. She said he won the Golden Gloves for his category/weight one year but the next year he was knocked down and decided not to fight anymore.
She laughed as she said he said, "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day."
After he was declared missing their mother Corona traveled to Washington, DC, to ask for answers to what happened to him. Her brother Wiley Smith worked at the Pentagon, so I guess he helped her as she looked for someone to answer her questions. Mom said she thought Wiley was a chemist for the War Department.
Some memories are sad but I'm glad to record them. It's part of our family history. Long before any of us were born.
