By MARY ELLEN KALUZA

My father’s family lived on the Iron Range – my grandfather worked in the mines. The family lived in a “location”, a small community of mining families that were frequently uprooted and moved when the mining company wanted to mine the land under them. Eventually they were moved to Chisholm, which had become a permanent settlement.

Dad would be 104 years old now. He was born in 1922 and died in 1978 at 56 years old. At 13 yrs old, his mother died and he was shipped down to the Twin Cities to stay with his mother’s sister. His 3 older brothers stayed on the Range, two of whom had physical or developmental disabilities from childhood diseases that are now easily avoidable with vaccines.

My dad’s aunt lived in South Minneapolis off of Franklin on Pleasant or Pillsbury Avenue, or thereabouts. He was enrolled in Wendell Phillips Junior High, just across the street from where I’ve lived for 51 years. Dad stayed in Minneapolis to attend trade school. From there he was scooped up into the Army Air Corps during World War ll.

My father was assigned to bombing missions over Nazi Germany. Thirty-five of them. I didn’t learn what that meant until I was well into adulthood. I once showed a friend – a war history buff – the tattered and faded list of missions that Dad kept in his wallet and he said, “Those were serious targets, and you knew the Germans knew your plane was on its way hours before you reached your target.” As a veteran airman on a History Channel show about WWII described it (paraphrased): “It got to the point where you prayed this was the mission you died on.” Twenty-six thousand U.S. soldiers did die in those missions, tens of thousands more were injured or taken prisoner. My father was among the injured. His Purple Heart is housed at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm with other Iron Range veterans’ medals and WWII memorabilia.

The Phillips Oral History Project has made me wonder how many of the boys at Wendell Phillips Junior High were killed or injured in World War II. I think about the terror they must have felt as young men with their whole lives yet to live; their families in a constant state of deep worry, or worse, deep sorrow. And the ones that came home – how did they cope with surviving while they saw buddies die? There were more wars that Phillips Junior High alums would be sent to before the school closed in 1987. (It should be noted that women also sacrificed their lives in WWll. An estimated 543 Minnesota women died in war-related incidents, including from enemy fire.)

Memorial Day this year is Monday, May 25. It is a day to remember our relatives, classmates, neighbors, church members, and others who gave their lives to defend our democracy. No reason to limit the remembrances to a single month – the alley invites you to share the stories of those who died or were injured in war to reflect on and honor them.

Note: Please limit the remembrance to ~500 words. See the alley newspaper for submission instructions.

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