Two boys from a small town

I have written about him before,* my great uncle John. He had always been a bit of a mystery to me. My knowledge of him was limited. I knew about him from the big granite stone in the family plot and an odd family story. I knew a little from his letters home** - first from the farm and then from the war (John was quite the joker - a bit sentimental and sometimes formal in his letters). After my father died, I found a speech Daddy gave at the VFW Post that was named for John. He was the only boy from his home town to die in WWI.

Then I learned more about John as a Marine from his military records. I had gathered my maternal grandfather's records (all three pages of them***) a few years ago. After that I wrote for my paternal grandfather Hal's records, expecting very little. That package of records - over an inch thick - included a copy of a letter from my great grandfather. Between the lines was a story of brothers - of love and loss. So finally I wrote for Uncle John's records. Another large and complete package arrived.

Uncle John's military records disclosed the color of his eyes and the color of his hair. I discovered that he was only 5'6" at enlistment.**** He had a few scars (what farm boy doesn't). I put my fingers on his fingerprints that were part of his records (and wished for a photograph).

But I had never seen John's face.

Oh, maybe he was present in some blurry old photo observed when I was a kid and cared nothing about such things. But now that it mattered to me, I discovered we had no photos of him.

After much inquiry, I discovered a cousin with photos. She recently shared those photos with me.

So, here he is with his older brother, Hal. Upon learning that war had been declared, these two young men - farmers from a small town in south Texas - went to the recruiting center and attempted to join the Marines. Uncle John passed the physical, while Hal did not. A month later the Navy took Hal.

Hal served as a guard/gunner on troop ships and traveled frequently from the United States to France. He was able to visit with his brother when he was in France on at least two occasions (One of John's letters expressed gratitude for the tobacco Hal brought him). They also found the time to take a photo to send home to their mother.

Hal and John *****

John was a muleskinner.****** His records tell the story of the campaigns he was in. They tell of his awards. And they tell of his death in France days before his 21st birthday and a month before the end of the war.

John and Hal*******

So, on this Memorial Day, I write again about my Uncle John and his brother, Hal. They were barefoot boys straight from the farm. They weren't perfect, but they did what they saw was their duty.

One lived and one died.

And we remember.


NOTES:

*Memorials, posted Saturday, May 24, 2014

**His mother saved his letters and a number of us found them in the old homestead when we "broke the rules" and went into the then abandoned house. We also found an old American flag in tatters. I suspect that was the flag given my great grandparents when John's body was returned home years after the end of the war. While some American military are still buried in Europe, the government offered to bring home the war dead and John's parents asked that his remains be returned for burial in his home town.

http://jack0204.tripod.com/gen/flinn/John_E_Flinn_Letters.htm [There is some discrepancy between the letters I have seen and this transcription, but they are substantially correct.]

***A 1973 fire in the archives has destroyed many military records, but I understand most of those were Army records. Thus one great grandfather's records no longer exist while the entire Naval records of the other grandfather and Marine records of Uncle John were still available.

****Most of the men on this side of the family were well over six feet tall. I was surprised to see that John was short compared to the others. One cannot help but notice in the photo that John was much shorter than Hal - even with his hat on, he was well shy of his brother's stature.

*****I think this photo is so intimate. They are so young. And their relationship is forever noted by the crossed arms resting on the chair (and echoes Hal's hand on the baby chair in the childhood photo).

******He talks about his work in one of his last letters.

This is not a family photo, but is one of a WWI era mule team with muleskinners.

*******There is a strong family resemblance between my grandfather, my father, and my son. My husband saw the "uniform" photo and joked, "Yeah, well our boy (who is in the Army) would rather wear a dress than wear a Navy uniform." And I laughed and showed him the other photo with the boys in their fancy childhood "dresses." [I suspect they only dressed up for the photo - note John's bare feet.]

5-23-17 - since posting, we have noted the resemblance of these two to others - a cousin, some nephews. Families leave marks.