Something About Nothing

You might recall that almost two years ago to the day I posted about visiting the grave of my mother's friend at Arlington Cemetery .  A few weeks later I posted about the mistake I made in finding his grave and the wonderful results from that mistake. Last week I returned to Arlington Cemetery in an attempt to find the correct grave.  I was surprised to find out how close we had been to Jim's grave two years ago. Just across the street from The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in section 46 is the grave of a young man my mother knew and loved.

While searching for photobooth pictures for flashback Friday I discovered an obituary my Mother had clipped and saved from her friend Jim. I was very excited to find this slip of paper as it shows the names of his Mother, Sisters and Grandmother. I now have a lead in finding his family to see if they would like the photos I have of him. In fact, I looked up all four names using familysearch.org , and believe I found out that one of his sisters died in 1992. I may have also found that his mother and grandmother's death dates. However when I googled his sister "Mildred Hrdina" I found her! I found her through an adoption website where she has listed herself as a birth mother. She is/was searching for a son she gave up for adoption in 1963. She put up the listing 10 years ago and so I am hoping she is still alive and well and still at the same email address. I emailed her through the site and hope to hear from her soon! In the meantime I received a letter from Arli...

This past week while we were in Washington DC we went to Arlington Cemetery. We went to see the things that everyone else sees: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers and the graves of Robert and John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis, but we also went to view the grave of James Lee Ferrell. Who is he, you ask? He is a soldier who died in Vietnam in 1969 and he was a friend of my mothers. When we found his grave, we discovered that his tombstone was missing. There was only a small broken off stone in the ground at the site where the tombstone should be. The tombstone of the soldier next to him was also missing. The front office was surprised to hear this news. The clerk asked if I was his next of kin, and I told them I didn't know if he had any living relatives and so they let me fill out a report. The reason I don't know if he has any relatives is because my Mom was given the flag from his coffin. I'm really not sure what my Mom's relationship was with him. I ...