Remembering Memorial Day and always

It is a dreary wet rainy day here in La Crescent,  the weather gives me a respite from the heavy duty outside gardening, trimming, hauling, etc myriad mighty physical chores I have been hard at these past few glorious spring sunshiny days.  Rain gives me a chance to rest, that is to do inside domestic chores that are never ending.  But so goes life here, while Jerry is recovering, maybe, although he has ups and downs, and lately more downs than ups???  On Thursday, we drive to Mayo in Rochester where he will see more lung specialists, to determine why he cannot process oxygen keeping him tethered to tanks and hoses.  His primary life outside the house is three days a week at pulmonary rehab where he is strengthening his muscles, but his lungs are not working.  Who knows what lies ahead anymore,  his attitude is not the best, because he feels useless, unable to do much of anything.  So this leaves it all up to me and as a friend said today, "good thing you are healthy and able to do so much."  Yes I am thankful for that, but it would be good to have a rest now and then and not always have the next task beckoning.  Being a compulsive person with only 2 settings either on or off, I spend all day doing so that night brings me exhausted to bed.  Jerry has little interest is even riding somewhere and it is really rough to even get a semi conversation out of him. He never has been one for talking much, but this all leaves me worn out too.

Greenwood Cemetery, Lower Burrell, PA
Hillside family graves plot

Still as I started to write it is Memorial Day and I feel badly that I did not get to PA again this year so far to tend to my graves and to visit my 2 friends there at Greenwood Cemetery too, Dana and Carlie passed last year.  Really I know more dead people than living folks or so it seems.  This is the cost of aging.  We survivors, left behind to remember.  I wish there were a florist I could contact in PA to have flowers delivered to my graves, I say my graves because it is only me who is left to care for them, a duty I feel deeply.  And yet when I am gone, there will be no one, so perhaps the graves are being prepared for the coming neglect.  

My father and Combat Crew 193

My father Lewis S BallAdd caption

Today I remember my father, US Army Air Corp 2 Lt L S Ball, B-24 pilot, gone forever disappeared somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean with his entire combat crew 193, June 1944, months before my birth.  The father I never knew but knew of, the young  man I would now outlive by many many years, he is standing back row, this photo  on the far left with the crew members. .I would learn later in life through my membership in the American War Orphans Network (AWON) that there were  many, some 185,000 of us WWII kids, deemed "orphans" by our own   government, yet Mom never acknowledged the word"orphan", she said she was alive and that I was not an "orphan." I never knew anyone in my situation growing up, how I wish I had, because I have learned so much through AWON, we share so many similar feelings.  A time when  little was discussed contrast to today when everything is talked beyond reason.  I always wanted to get to Charleston, SC to look out at the Atlantic ocean from there where the plane departed, never to return, but so far as  with other things I want to do someday, no Charleston trips have materialized.  This photo shows him, gazing out there toward the ocean that would consume them all.  Oh how different life could have been.  I have no grave to visit for him, no cemetery plot to leave flowers, only the vast Atlantic.  Because no trace was ever found of the plan and crew, my paternal grandmother went to her grave always believing he would return some day.  I have learned about the German U boats that p[atrolled the east coast, and there was speculation, what if on that return flight from Nassau, as they radioed that they needed fuel, what if, a German U boat surfaced, bam, and disappeared.  My late uncle Henry, his brother believed there was something to that and  perhaps there was, it was a different country, time, place.  much speculation, no definitive answers except that he would be gone ..

"Wally", in my dad';s writing

.Another mystery to me was this photo of "Wally" that I found in 2004 when Mom died and I was clearing out her closet.  There among a suitcase of mementos and documents of my father along with letters she had received from Hap Arnold, founding General of the US Air Force, was the photo.  I would learn much later, several years back now from cousins I never knew and have yet to meet,  in Taunton, MA that Wally was the only child of my father's aunt Margaret, a sister to my paternal grandmother.  Walter Kudzia, KIA in the Battle of the Bulge in Germany, 1945 months after he had turned 20.  His body would be returned to MA in 1947 to be buried at home, as his mother wished.   Wally was a rifleman, US Army, enlisted right out of high school.  Part of his tale is told in a recent WWII magazine.  It seems that my family paid dearly the price with fatalities in WWII.  Something I will be asking the good Lord about at the end of my time here, "why"  I pause to remember them, the ones I did not know.  I suppose the answer could be, "why not"  

Walter's death WWII magazine

And so Memorial Day, wet, rainy here, pausing for some time at the computer, I have posted all this and more onto Facebook, where I will get comments from my AWON family for sure.  This blog writing that I do so sporadically, is almost a private diary for me. 

Today another friend sent this You tube link, nicely done, A Soldier  Died Today, it brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat     ttps://www.youtube.com/embed/eEs4ke7cdNQ?feature=player_detailpage%25&fbclid=IwAR08yZr3tMz4dpapnxg0DJn2qTVkqT4f15jp-Vi6Eoh2MvXzf4VdjTuTCT0   If you are not moved, you are heartless..Here in La Crescent there is no more Legion building where the old guys go to gather and talk, instead it was sold out, the building had gone to ruin, sold for a pittance of a room in a Community Center, the big deal for the town.  Many of us think this will be another waste of money and become a burden on the property tax payers in the future but for now it is welcomed by the community.  However the Legion is no more, gone with it are the reminisces and the multi thousands of $$ donated to this town and the entire community over the years.  The event Center, bah humbug!  I know I am aging, I do not like these changes, I am comfortable with familiarity.  

A month later than planned

Us, Jerry and me May 5, 2018 at the LaCrosse Symphony

Although this blog is not, nor has it ever been  a means of communication for me,I  will try to keep it somewhat as a frame of reference for all that I have written here in the past.  Way back when I started  this, it was how I thought folks would check in.  I was wrong in that judgement.  The blog was an outlet for my  writings and through it I met  some  great folks, mostly on Sepia Saturday where we could share old photos, histories, etc.  But  those same folks have too migrated to social media, Facebook, where I have found a home and the best way to keep in touch with  friends and family.   For the  wary, nervous, or perhaps technology and change resistant people who do not  use the media,  it is their choice. But then they should not  wonder why they hear not from others.  We can use our smart phones and post in an instant and so Facebook replaces email and old time blogging.  I do not understand that fear and aversion to social media, it is as safe as one  chooses to make it, but so it goes.  There are many things I do not understand and truthfully now, at 74 years, my age, I do not even ponder nor try to understand those others nor their choices.  

I meant to post excerpts from our 2018 annual greeting letter, but truth, I sent few cards and greetings this year.  You will know why as you read,  2018 has not been a good year for  us, never the less, we made it and look ahead, always ahead to far  better times!  

“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…” so wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Me rearranging some of the study,
what else to toss or donate?

"Merry Christmas, 2018   This was our year of trips canceled, hospitalizations, dental and medical treatments, surgeries. Last December I canceled our snowbird reservations due to my sudden tooth ache, an old (30 years?)  root canal went bad, infected, antibiotics healed it but I was reluctant to travel and end up looking for dental care in a strange place with no way to know if it would  return.  I am less adventurous than some of my friends who  urged  me to not cancel but just go! Ended up with oral surgeon for extraction, early February. So, began process of months for healing, consults, dental implant and crown, ending in October.  Fortunately I did not need a bone graft and healed well but those periodic appointments kept us home. I used that time to clear out a lot of clutter, collection of old magazines, etc from the downstairs study.  As much progress as I made  there is always more to do. 

 

Grand daughter Janine and husband
John and their dog

Easter Eve, Jerry ended up in the Emergency Room, severe gut pain,determined it was from adhesions from his former surgery >35 years ago in CA.  The surgeon cleared the adhesion with a probe, avoiding surgery.  That was a 2 week + hospitalization, culminating in canceling our travel plans to CA for grand daughter’s wedding in April.  Very disappointing. 

Jerry had a bout of laryngitis April which led to an ENT specialist treatment, injection to cure a bowed vocal cord.  During that, diagnostic scans revealed a suspicious spot on his upper left lung, almost under collar bone.  Antibiotics followed and all seemed well. He has some lung fibrosis which the pulmonary specialist has been watching for years. Even the Mayo Rochester specialists thought it was an infection, so we were relieved. 

along the hiking trail up Devil's Tower I
made the trek alone and was absolutely blown away 

In August we took a short motor home trip to an RV Rally in Spearfish, SD a wonderful area with many hiking opportunities.  But the altitude and the latent smoke from the Canadian wildfires bothered Jerry with shortness of breath, and coughing. So rather than proceeding on to Denver area as we planned we returned home.  We hope to return to the Spearfish area another time, there is a wonderful RV Resort there and so much to see.  Because Jerry was not feeling right he did not attempt the trail hike up the mountain and back down but waited for me at the Ranger station.  I was glad I did it, but as I said, want to return to the area.   The American Coach Association RV Rally was awesome and we were able to meet interesting fellow RV travelers and renew friendships.  

Just one of the views from the trail

End of September we flew to Arlington, VA for a gathering of my American World War II Orphans Network, ceremonies at Arlington and the WWII Memorial, banquets, and some sightseeing.  We were in DC during the Cavanaugh hearing protestors nonsense which interfered with a few plans.  

WWII Memorial DC, for my father and all the others, my AWON
siblings, we all lost our fathers in WWII

Mid October more diagnosis for Jerry, as Mayo persisted, ultimately led to consults with oncology, potential treatments and surgeon who recommended a lung biopsy. Extensive lab tests disclosed the spot was an elusive cancer that needed to come out.  The surgeon advised he was well and healthy enough for surgery, done November 7, took over 6 hours in 2 phases; removed all the cancer, confined to that sole nodule, upper left lung lobe, all lymph nodes were clear. His son Al flew here from CA for a couple days and surgery and back home day after. Jerry came home to recover Nov 13, my birthday, and had been healing ahead of expectation. He needs oxygen at times, though less now.  Most of his pain is tolerable, achiness from healing 2 ribs that were broken for the surgery as well as cutting through his back muscle and removing a rib. (I asked the surgeon what kind of person would be made from that rib?  He laughed and said, “that’s a good Catholic question!”). They recommended 3 follow up chemo treatments as a precaution lest there be an errant cell. It began December 18 then every 3 weeks. So far, his major bad after effect, extreme fatigue, depression, so his mid-day naps continue.  Oncology Dr believes he can handle it and has many good years yet ahead. (Update January 2019,,,he has decided to forego the remaining 2 chemo doses.  The first treatment  set him back on the healing path, caused him to lose weight and zapped him of energy and enthusiasm.  He declared that was not living but merely existing, and I know that was true.  After our conference with the Oncologist January 7  where she assured him that she could decrease the dose, eliminate the steroids that led to the bottom out chemo crash and she urged him to reconsider over this week.  But although I have tried to persuade him to try again, he is determined no more and will just proceed with healing.  It is not a simple choice, but one  that created ponderance, especially since there  is no evidence of cancer.  He just  cannot bring himself to go through another round of poisoning hell. )  We are fortunate to live here with Mayo care; lesser doctors would have missed this. December 7, he had a  severe spasm cough which ended up with severe rib pain and a trip to the ER.  There more tests to determine all was ok, healing ribs jolted a nerve near the fractures, would require him to take strong narcotic pain meds for a few days.  He’d been getting by with Tylenol.  Now off all stuff again. He is frustrated but I remind him to be thankful.

Here we were at a Czech restaurant in Prague,
November 2015

In November after another unpredictable medical emergency I lost my last closest high school friend from PA, Carlie with whom I'd gone to Europe for the Christmas markets, Danube river cruise, n 2015.  We did not get to PA this year.  She & I talked on the phone weekly and I teased her about ganging up on me with Jerry, told her I was going to come back and move her here and get a 2 for 1 discount at Mayo. She was hospitalized about the same time as Jerry, but hers was massive lung cancer throughout bronchials. No chemo nor surgery possible though she had 9 doses of radiation which did nothing for her.  She died a week before Thanksgiving.  She never married so she was the last of her family.  She was my last lifetime friend whom I could talk to any time.  I was and am heartsick. She was previously healthy and also not a smoker. I considered flying back there but with treacherous weather, flights, and all I had to handle here I did not; she would have understood.  Every day when Jerry was in the hospital, he asked about her. I miss her, she was the last long time link of my life someone I could talk to whenever about whatever. I have lost 3 of my dearest friends, never having had a sister they were my sisters.  Roberta back in CA so long ago, Sandy another CA just a few years back and now Carlie.  We have very few real friends in our lives and I was blessed with a trio, but now all gone. 

Days fly by with follow up doctor appointments, I am the driver.  I am learning to do most all the things, that he has always done other than what we hire like electrician and snow plowing.  During the first light snow dusting, I shoveled our driveway and front steps, took me 90 minutes with one break and a lecture from Jerry on how to do this.  Hah!  Had an electrician replace all the downstairs fluorescents in suspended ceiling with LED’s, previously Jerry had replaced some.  Looks good now all done although he grumbled that he could do it later, I figured just as well get it done and over. We look forward to spring.  I’m really busy but so long as we get good days of sunshine and I can get to the Y to work out life is almost a normal keel. By the end of the day I am done, I’ve never had insomnia and these days I hit the pillow and out. 

 I managed to tackle our 7-foot, artificial Christmas tree out of its box in the corner of the closet and assemble it., decorated it although it has all its own LED white lights so that is easy.  I like the light in these long winter dark days and might leave it up until February or March. When Jerry got up from that nap he could not believe I had done that, he said, “it’s bigger and weighs more than you.”  But I did it! (Update Jan 2019, now all is boxed up and put away, but Jerry had recovered enough to help with the disassembling of the tree back into its 3 parts and repacking it into the box, tying that box up and getting it back into the closet corner.) 

I am very late on sending cards, this was a year of challenges, confirming that aging is not for sissies.  

We are looking forward to spring.  Wishing a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.   "

So there it is,  the events that led to being suspended snowbirds, stuck northward another winter, cancelling all FL reservations.  Two weeks ago Jerry felt well enough to venture down the back to the motor home house to check on the rolling castle on wheels, all is good.  Ahead, the future, always ahead, do not look back, that never works well. 

My Father Lewis S Ball Sepia Saturday 19 (Click here to visit others' on Sepia Saturday)

For this week I show a photo which I treasure, my father and my hero, Lt. Lewis S Ball and Combat Crew 193, First Air Force, First command 113th Army Air Force Base (Wing), D squadron, Unit Combat Crew 193, Charleston, South Carolina  

My father is standing, back row far left, hand in pocket, pilot, 2 Lt. Lewis S Ball, standing at the far right, Eugene de Palma, bombadier and Flight Officer; and Raymond Pachucki, front row 2nd on the left, radio operator. The other men are F/O Allyn A Pierce Harris Co., TX; F/O Allen Cantor Wayne Co, MI; Sgt. David R. Hackney Milwaukee Co. WI; Sgt. John P. Flynn NewYork Co, NY; Cpl. Calvin J. Arent Berrien Co, MI; Sgt. Charles V. Brewer ; Sgt. Theodore Hirsch Berrien Co., MI. Believe me I have searched and searched to find any trace of remaining families, etc.

This fatal flight would have been nearly the last flight before this crew would have shipped to England for the war effort. Although I have all the names of the men on this flight, from the accident reports and records I have obtained in my search for information over the years. I can match only three to the men in the photo. Just months ago I was contacted by the nephew of Eugene de Palma, bombardier and matched that name and face. Three years ago I was contacted by the niece of Raymond Pahucki and identified him in the photo.

I have written about my father other places on this blog, explaining how I never knew him. (See my sidebar for the blog posts in the heading "Somethings about my Father".)  He was a pilot in the US Army Air Corp and he and his entire crew disappeared on a flight that should have but never returned from Nassau, Bahamas to Charleston, SC. June 20, 1944, never a trace found of the plane or crew. I came to earth in November and he left that June, although he knew of my (or someone’s imminence).

I am one of what were 185,000appx. USA war orphans, so designated as "orphans"  by our government, those of us who lost our fathers in World War II. I belong to an organization known as the American World War II Orphans Network (AWON) and I have a tribute to my father on their website. If you want to read more you can access that at http://www.awon.org/awball.html     It  was not until after 2004 and my increased activity in searching for and finding information that I began to really talk abou my dad. All my years growing up there was no discussion; I thought my family was wierd but I learned that was the way of that generation, silence, all too frequently.  One of my AWON colleagues has written a poem, "The Wall of Silence" which describes those feelings.   I hold deep gratitude to AWON for uniting me with others who clearly understood how different we were and for removing that reluctance to mention.  Even today sometimes people's eyes glaze over, they don't want to hear nor to listen, but I think Sepia Readers might be interested in just a sliver of this history.   

Louie, as he was called, was born April 3, 1922 to Frank Ball and Anna Kudzia Ball in Harwick, PA, the middle of three sons. They were a stalwart Polish family and devout Roman Catholics. Louie was a Boy Scout and a member of the championship first aid team of PA. Louie worked at Duquesne Light Company, Harwick mine before enlisting in the Army, against the wishes of his mother. I was told by Uncle Henry  and others that my father was exceptionally smart and that he was the favorite son.  They say Louie had the best sense of humor and was full of fun. The  3 brothers are in this photo Eddie, Henry and Louie.  I remember very little of Frank Ball, my father's father who died when I was maybe  7 years old.  I had infrequent contact with my grandmother Anna Ball. 
Lewis (Lou)  and my mother, Helen Pauline Konesky married at Maxwell Field, AL June 12, 1943; this is their wedding picture.  This was to the consternation of his mother, my Grandmother Anna Ball who was adamant that the eldest son, (Louie’s brother Edward who was also off in the Army) should have married first.  Perhaps if Louie had lived Anna would have accepted Helen and Helen would have  gotten along with Anna.  I like to think that.  There are many reasons for the bad blood between my mother, the surviving widow who remarried, and my Grandmother Ball, grieving mother who went to her grave at 80 still believing that someday Louie would be found and come home. For these and other reasons I hardly knew my father’s family even though we lived close in PA. I was blessed though to have contact with Uncle Henry and his family( my father’s baby brother) who lived in CA as we did; we lost Uncle Henry in 2008. Today again thanks to the internet and my AWON tribute, I am in contact with my cousins, daughters of Uncle Eddie after years of silence. It is interesting to hear what they know of Grandma Ball.   The photo below was taken sometime in early 1944 with my Dad home for a short leave:Left to right, Henry,Mother Anna, Lou, and Frank Ball.  My grandmother Anna gave me this old photo when I left for California so long ago.

But for this Sepia Saturday the photos will suffice. I have assembled a huge scrapbook about my father and am working on a memoir about my life growing up and surviving without a father, never knowing anyone else like me until I joined AWON in 1990’s, always wondering what if, and yet not having many answers until my mom died in 2004 and we found a suitcase full of letters and paperwork. But as I said this is not my story this Sepia, this is only to share some photos of my dad.

Dad was stationed for a time at Ft. McCoy, WI, not far from where we live today. I am amazed when I trace his steps and see the same places today that he saw so may years ago.  He loved to take photographs and in that suitcase in Mom’s closet I found this one taken in February 1943 outside their barracks at Ft. McCoy. It was developed across the river here in La Crosse, WI.  These are 4 of  dad's friends in his writing left to right, Tony, Jackson, Joe, Jerry,  Looks like they are all enjoying a smoke!  And here outside the barracks  also at Ft. McCoy, prior to the time he  left for pilot training, Lou (my dad) and Jobe.  No last names and no way to identify these men. 
I close this post with a quote from one of my father's pilot training books.  It was a dedication to the brave men who were pilots during that siege of a time, warning them that they were not immortal and what might be ahead.  I use this line every time I post something about my dad---... their memory becomes a treasure...he holds the sky...

Latest photo of my dad

I love this photo of my dad with the P-38 fighter. Those are the planes that he really wanted to fly but ended up as a B-24 pilot as they needed those in WWII and the Army Air Corp did not offer planes or career of choice. Things were different. My cousin, Carol, retrieved this and some others of nose art from her mother's home in PA and sent them to me so it was like a wonderful Christmas present. I looked through his pilot logs and can surmise that this was taken at Dorr Field, FL, approximately July 1943. You know the story of my dad, flight disappeared en route from Bahamas to Charleston SC, June 20, 1944 about five months before I would enter this planet.

With the recent commemorations about D-Day and the celebrations of 65 years, I think about my dad. Here he was a young pilot and knew from a briefing that soon he and his combat crew 193 would depart Charleston, SC for England. The Air support was needed. I wonder how much they were briefed stateside about the D-Day operations. He knew for sure that something big was up and this is when he began to feel the fear.

Recently on our AWON website I was struck by something a friend shared which her father had written to his parents. How similar to what my dad told his "baby brother." How different it was in WWII with sincere faith, devoutness to country and God and patriotism. I shared with Brenda that my father said nearly the same thing in a post card I have which he'd not mailed to his mother shortly after he had enlisted against her wishes. In 1942 my father wrote to his mother, "Mom, it will all be God's will and we trust for the best no matter what." His faith was that strong.

I have clung onto similar thoughts through out my life at many times when things looked the most dismal. I still hold onto these words today remembering that I had a father with very deep faith. I would not want to disappoint his spirit by losing mine, no matter what!