Giving Life

They say a person dies twice — once when they have their physical death and the second time when we stop saying their name. Since you died over seventy-one years ago, odds are you were close to experiencing that second death if you hadn’t already. But today, over a hundred years after you gave my family life, I will resurrect yours. 

I was introduced to you in 2016 when scanning old black and white heirloom photographs belonging to my Aunt Etta at her home in Wheelersburg, Ohio. You were sitting in a wicker chair in front of what looked like a post-Victorian era photography backdrop. My grandfather was standing next to you and had his hand on your shoulder. Both of you appeared to be in your early twenties. 

When I removed the black cardboard back from the frame that held you and him hostage for who knows how many decades, I was surprised to see some writing on the back of the photo.    It read:

“Ora Wells & war buddy who saved his life in battle,” followed by your name. Next to Christ who died for us all. This man was talked about as a savior.”

When I held the photograph up and showed my Aunt Etta its front and then flipped it to its back, she immediately recognized it and said with emotion your name. Etta cried while telling me the story about the day she got to meet the man that how pulled her father out of a shelled and burning ammunition truck about to explode on the Western Front in WWI.

 Later that same summer, I made a trip to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and focused my efforts on obtaining information about you and my grandfather’s involvement in WWI. 

I was able to learn that you and my grandfather grew up within a couple of blocks of each other in New Boston, Ohio. When the Great War started, both of you were found free of venereal disease and assigned to the same unit while in Camp Sherman. The two of you were found competent enough to drive Pierce-Arrow trucks for the 308th Ammunition Train of the 158th Field Artillery Brigade, 83^rd Division. From all the documents that listed your name and my grandfather’s, I suspect both of you must have looked after each other in trains and ships carrying you to war, and while you were fighting the Germans in France. I also discovered a battle after-action report that made me believe it could have been the particular engagement responsible for the story my aunt Etta told me.

One September Sunday last year, I went looking for you. Thousands of your brethren greeted me as they stood in perfect and perpetual attention while hundreds more lay prostrate, level with the ground. I spent several hours walking up and down, eyeing your brethren in long rows of freshly cut grass, still wet from the morning dew. Just as long tufts of wet grass covered my dockers, socks, and cuffs of my cargo pants, I suspect it also covered you. Time ran out, and I didn’t find you.

I later discovered that Findagrave.com had misled me. I never found you because you were never there. You were in the cemetery next door. Today, almost a year later to the day, I finally found you. I brushed you off and sat down next to you. Learning from your obituary that you died at the early age of 57 after being in ill health for six years, I think I know what killed you. Remembering that every labored breath my grandfather took was a constant reminder of the harmful effects of what mustard gas can do, I suspect your exposure to the gas, perhaps when saving my grandfather, was a factor in killing you.

While sitting next to you, I told you about my family and the legacy you made it possible for us to create. When it came time to leave, I thanked you and left a single red rose to remind you of our visit. 

Over a hundred years ago, you gave my family and me life. Now, more than seventy-one years after your death, I give you life. Thank you, Francis Oliver Crabtree.