Chapter VIII
On Mother’s Day
in 1964, Mrs. Harold Leonard took an armful of lilacs to her mother’s grave in
the Chariton cemetery. She observed two
women walking among the graves, carefully reading each stone. Presently they approached her and asked if
she might be able to help them locate the grave of a soldier of WWII. Then began the unfolding of a story of the
beauty and strength of woman’s devotion – the affection that hopes and endures
and is patient, a story of love destined to blossom only in heaven.
During WWII when our Navy used foreign
ports for shore leaves and supplies, it was in a foreign port that Orin Wilbur
Westfall, S1 USNR and Isabel Davies of Australia became friends. Orin had enlisted in the Merchant Marine in
WWI, stationed at Great Lakes Naval Station, but the war was over before he
shipped out. He continued with the Navy,
in the Commissary Department, stationed at Midway Island. After Pearl Harbor, he reenlisted and was
assigned to the aircraft carrier, USS Hornet, the ship from which Major James
Doolittle led sixteen B25 bombers in the surprise attack on Tokyo on April 18,
1942. The Japs sent wave after wave of
bombers to sink her and when she began to list, the crew was ordered overboard. Orin and his shipmates were in the water an
hour and a half. They were picked up and
taken to New Caledonia. Later it was
found that his discharge x-rays showed tuberculosis. He was ordered to the hospital where he had
chest surgery and became an arrested case, but was never able to work.
The years were gliding by. Orin and Isabel continued to love and to plan
if only his health could be restored.
Between hospital visits he lived with his sister in California, always
hoping that he could bring Isabel to the land he loved so well and had offered
his life in two world wars to defend.
But it was not to be. One lung
was removed, a heart condition developed, and then cancer – until in 1962 when
death, the great counsoler, released him from further suffering.
His request was that he be laid to rest
beside his mother and grandmother. His
mother had died when he was ten years old and his grandmother in Knoxville had
raised him. Orin’s sister, Alice, had informed Isabel of his death. Thereupon, Isabel and her mother planned a
trip around the world with the ultimate goal to be a visit to Orin’s grave in
Lucas County, Iowa. Here it was in the
Chariton cemetery that they met Mrs. Leonard who ferreted out for them the
sources of information that crowned their quest with success. Paul Holmberg, secretary for Lucas County
Soldiers Relief, found t hat burial had been made in Oak Hill (also known as
Stoneking Cemetery) on the hillside by Stephen’s Forest. Mr. and Mrs. Holmberg took Isabel and her
mother out to Oak Hill. The little party
of four walked to where Isabel could be directed to the hallowed spot. There she stood for a time, alone with her
thought of love and the echoing sign of the forest, then rejoined her new made
friends, murmuring, ‘ My mission is finished.’
Next day they resumed the journey back to Australia half a world away.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It
is a peaceful spot – this cemetery with its ball-clipped evergreens, its well
kept lawn and its unimpeded view toward the setting sun. In a very early day Mr. and Mrs. Adam
Stoneking, grandparents of Mary Gladson, migrated on a covered wagon from
Wheeling, West Virginia and arrived at what is now Stephen’s Forest over the
self same road that is still in use.
Here they camped until they could build a log cabin. Their son Joseph bought forty acres near
by. Later another family came by in a
covered wagon on their way to Missouri.
They had a sick baby. No doctor
was available and there was no effective medicine so the little one joined the
company of the angels. Said Mr.
Stoneking, “We will bury the baby here on the hilltop”. The little form was laid to rest in the
northeast corner of the forty acres that Joseph had bought and he later gave
and deeded to Lucas county this acre. No
tombstone was to be had so they placed a stone from the forest to mark the tiny
grave. Regrettably it is no longer
there. Brave sun, shine softly there;
zephyr winds, blow gently there; kind traveler, tread light there, the baby is
asleep.
Pages 22-24
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