Artifacts

  Among the things I have I classify as artifacts is a hand sewn handkerchief. I'm certain my dad would be amused that I call that an artifact as it did belong to him. On second thought, knowing my dad as I do, he wouldn't be amused he would be a bit insulted. I can hear him saying, I'm not that old! This coming September he would be 100. He flew in B-24 bombers during the second world war, and I would tease him and say, you flew in airplanes, with propellers on them. That usually launched him into a discussion about the P-51 Mustangs and how fast they were and how they held the record for climbing and on and on. Why propellers, there is nothing wrong with propellers! 

 What does that handkerchief have to do with airplanes. Well, that handkerchief was sewn by his grandmother in the fall of 1943. My dad had been drafted into the service and assigned to the Army Air Force. At that time the air force wasn't a separate branch of its' own and so when you were drafted you could simply be assigned to that. My father was to go to school to become a flight engineer on B-24 bombers. He wrote home about that and told his grandmother he had been assigned to the 65th heavy bombardment group, 8th air force. The logo of that outfit is embroidered in the center of that handkerchief. The lucky dice, 7 come eleven. And it is that handkerchief that my father carried with him into the wild blue yonder as he flew missions over enemy territory. He carried that with him, along with survival maps and what was called a blood chit. I also have those items; the blood chit is displayed but the map is too large for that. 

 I framed that handkerchief and wrote a small passage in explanation for future generations to understand what it is. My grandmother Clara was daughter to Lucy, my father's grandmother, and it was Lucy that made that handkerchief. You see Clara passed away shortly after my fathers birth from complications in giving him birth. As a result, Lucy raised him and his older brother Elwood. Elwood had already been drafted and was serving when dad was called up. Lucy like all mothers and grandmothers in the nation could do nothing but sit and pray. And Grandmother Lucy was a praying woman. I can only imagine her thoughts as she stitched that handkerchief. 

 Combine that with the thoughts of my father as he placed that handkerchief in his pocket before taking off into the skies not knowing if he would make it back. Being in a bomber wasn't exactly the safest place to be in the war. In fact, during WW2 heavy bomber crews experienced a 71% mortality rate or listed as missing in action. Nearly 100,000 airmen were lost in heavy bombers. I'm certain those air crews were all too aware of that. But my father was among the lucky ones that survived and returned home unscathed. He had flown the requisite number of missions. Twenty-five missions in total. Twenty-five times where his life was at extreme risk. But he made it, the handkerchief made it, and he returned home. For years that handkerchief remained folded up among his mementos of the war. I don't recall seeing it as a child. Dad didn't show much of anything from that time beyond his scrapbook with pictures of airplanes, with propellers on them. Mostly those planes all had that nose art on them and that is what was highlighted in the pictures. In a way that handkerchief has become a piece of nose art too. An artifact. To my dad, a memory. To me, a memento. All priceless. 

                                                         not a professional mounting but it has character