My Mom and Dad were truly in love. Both had experienced previous marriages which had not proven to be what they had expected. There had been precious few "good times," and both of those marriages had ended in divorce. In 1943, however, they found each other and by year's end had pledged their love to each other.
After the simple marriage ceremony in the little town of Unionville Center, in Union County, they had returned to an old farmhouse on the outskirts of North Lewisburg to take up their lives together. They enjoyed just a little over a month of wedded bliss before notification came that Dad could expect to be drafted into the military for service in World War II. He made an effort to enlist in the Navy, but during the physical examination learned to his sorrow that he was color blind. He enlisted in the Army, determined to be the "best marksman" that the Army had ever seen.
By March 1944, he was prepared to leave North Lewisburg for training at Camp Blanding, Florida. Mom walked with him to the old depot where he boarded a train for Urbana, where he was to link up with other young men who were leaving for service. Mom and Dad said their good-byes, tearfully to be sure, and waved to each other as the train pulled away from the platform.
That night Mom began a nightly ritual which she maintained all of the time that he was gone. Before retiring for the night, she walked to the front doorway of the old frame house, opened the door and the screen door beyond it, and stared out into the night, hoping to see Dad walking toward the house. Disappointed, yet still hopeful, she turned on the porch light, and let it shine through the night.
Dad was permitted to come home unexpectedly in late May 1944 when his mother, Eva Marie, died suddenly at the age of 52. Dad was home to provide support to his father, William Smith Coleman, as well as his siblings, and to serve as a pall bearer at his mother's funeral. He remained at home for a few days (fortunately for me as I was conceived during his brief reunion with my mother) before he had to depart again for training. Mom once again walked him to the train depot, hugged and kissed him, and sadly said goodbye to him. Dad leaned out of the passenger car window as he waved back to her, and continued to do so until the train was out of sight. Mom returned home (she had moved back into town to a small apartment on Maple Street), and once again renewed her nightly ritual. Before bed she opened the front door, looked out into the darkness, closed the door again and turned on the porch light.
Dad wrote to her regularly over the next ten months or so as he completed training at Camp Blanding, Florida, and departed for service in the Pacific area. He traveled by train from Florida to California, and passed through Wyoming in the meandering process. He fell in love with the West, and mentioned it often in his letters to Mom. In the back of his mind, a dream formed that he would one day have the opportunity to move to Wyoming.
He crossed the ocean via troop ship, stopping for a period of time in Hawaii. He was an experienced swimmer, and loved the short period of time he had to enjoy the beaches there. He wrote that he loved the sweet smell of the air, heavily scented with the fragrances of flowers. He marvelled at the twin rainbows which generally appeared in the Hawaiian skies after the gentle rains, and at the lush, green foliage which covered the mountain peaks.
He was assigned to Company H, 185th Regimental Combat Team, 40th Infantry Division, as an infantry scout. Equipped with an M-1 carbine, he trained extensively upon his arrival at New Britain, near New Guinea. In January 1945, he boarded his troop ship as part of the invasion force which landed at Lingayen Gulf as part of General Douglas MacArthur's pledge of "I shall return" to the Philippine Islands.
After the landing, he participated in the drive from the northern point of the island toward Manila. In the area of Bamban, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with "V" device for bravery under fire. In the weeks which followed, he also earned three Purple Heart Medals for wounds received in action. I was born on February 23, 1945, the very day that a contingent of Marines raised the flag above Mount Suribachi, on Iwo Jima. Mom wrote to Dad immediately with the news, but her letter had not yet reached him when another friend from North Lewisburg, Jake Evans, linked up with Dad in the Philippines to tell him he had a son. A couple of photos taken that day show both men, smiling for the camera.
Tasked later with the duty of participating in the invasion of Panay Island, Dad fought there until he was wounded for the fourth time in early March 1945. Unconscious, he was evacuated by hospital ship to Tripler General Hospital, Honolulu.
The War Department advised Mom of his most recent head wound. He was in a coma, and the prognosis looked bleak. She maintained hope, and each night walked to the front door, checked the darkness, and turned on the porch light.
Dad died on May 7, 1945, at the age of 32. He was originally buried at the Old Post Cemetery, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, with full military honors. He was postumously awarded his second Bronze Star Medal and his fourth Purple Heart. Burnice Hill, telegraph operator at the old train depot in North Lewisburg, was given the unpleasant task of delivering to my mother the official telegraph from the War Department announcing Dad's death.
Mom's sadness knew no bounds as she struggled as a sole parent to maintain a family life for four children...three from her first marriage and me. Although she knew it could never come true, she went to the door each night and turned on that old porch light, hoping against hope that Dad would someday appear at the door. She petitioned the War Department (now known as the Department of Defense) for a number of years, hoping to have my Dad's body disinterred and brought home for burial in Ohio. She finally gave up the fight in 1948 when she was informed that a new, National Cemetery of the Pacific was to be dedicated in Honolulu, in an old, extinct volcano crater. Dad was to be reinterred there with full military honors. He rests there today under the beautiful Hawaiian sky, in Plot O-480, with more than 20,000 other comrades.
I never knew my father. It was thirty-five years from the time of Dad's death until my mother died of cancer in 1980. Although she had remarried in 1950, by force of habit she still maintained her nightly vigil for the balance of her life. She opened the door, looked out into the night, and turned on the porch light before closing the door once again.
In the years since my father's death, I have gone from baby, to toddler, to boy, to teen, to man. As I grew older and more understanding of my past, I maintained some old, ingrained customs and traditions. Even now, at the age of 65, each evening before I go to bed I cross to the front door, open it to peer out into the darkness, and turn on the porch light - hopeful, ever hopeful, that one day that door will open and my Dad will stand there.
