Corner View: Replace

These are sermons of my dad's.

Some are handwritten. 

Then there are those that came after he got the word processor.

That was the transitional 'tool' between the electric type write

and the computer.

Since we just celebrated the 4th of July,

I am showing the first pages of three written

about  Freedom, Faith, and America.

There is another big box like the one below and also a smaller one

full of Dad's sermons.

They are precious and

we cannot replace them.

We also found letters from my mom to my dad

and from him to her

when he was overseas.

These cannot be replaced either.

This one tells him that she now knows  he was in the Battle of the Bulge.

Berlin had reported that the Germans had virtually wiped out the 106th division,

which was what my dad was part of

except for 212 who were left wandering in the high snow.

He had told her to never assume he was dead if he went missing in action.

Instead, she was to believe he had been captured.

That is what she did,,

and he had been one of the 212,

who were captured and taken to POW camps.

Mother's letter was never sent.

These are letters from my dad to mom.

Below shows the dates of Dec. 5, 6, 10, 12, and 13.

That last letter was written about a week before he was captured.

These are two that were written after his camp was liberated.

Here are photos of my parents before he left for the war in Europe.

She quit nursing school to marry him.

The schools later eased up on the single status for nurses

because there was a shortage, 

probably due to many marrying their sweethearts

before they were shipped overseas

and also because of a greater demand.

However, Mom was packing to go back to Cleveland to school,

when she got the telegrams -- 2 of them in a row.

1st - Missing in Action

2nd - German POW

 She stayed home to be near her family

as she was devastated.

Here is my family shortly after I was born.

Dad was in seminary after graduating from Asbury College

near Lexington, KY.

He had promised the Lord he'd do whatever God wanted,

if God would just get him home alive.

God did.

In gratitude for his life 

and in response to God's 'call',

Dad left his machinist job at a steel mill

(which he returned to after the war)

and went to school to become a Methodist minister,

which he was for almost 50 years.

As I've already stated,

 I cannot replace these.

Instead I will put them in scrapbooks

specially designed to keep them from deteriorating.

Some of the letters will go in the POW scrapbook

I made for my dad's 80th birthday.

For more on replace, please go to Francesca's.