Couple honors local World War II vets buried in Belgium

When Amber Davis began researching the lives of several Gilmer County soldiers who died in World War II, things got a little “unsettled.”

“When the men first started appearing in my dreams, they came one at a time,” she said of the service members. “They were always silent. The unspoken message they conveyed was that they were at peace, but they didn’t want to be forgotten.”

And as sometimes happens, her dreams began shifting.

“Right before Memorial Day this year the men started appearing in groups, sometimes forming a long line, waiting to be acknowledged and remembered,” Davis shared. “I still feel a little unsettled when I think about it.”

When Davis and her husband, Reinaldo Hernandez, were invited to a wedding in the Netherlands earlier this year, they knew they had to take time to visit Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium, just a couple of hours away. Their mission also involved identifying the local men buried there with more than their names etched into the cross marking their graves like 8,000 other memorial markers —they designed small tiles with their photos, the name “Ellijay” and a 3-cent, violet-colored “Win the War” stamp first issued on July 4, 1942.

Davis, who grew up in Eton and graduated Murray County High School in 1996, has roots in Gilmer County. Her father Joe Davis’ parents were John Waldon Davis and Ellen Elizabeth Ray Davis, and her great-grandfather, John Henry “Pop Sarge” Davis, joined the Army in 1899 right after the Spanish-American War.

“He was born in Ellijay and moved with his family to Texas when he was three years old,” said Davis of Pop Sarge. “When he retired (from the Army), he moved back to Ellijay around the 1930s. So because of my family ties, I’ve been coming to Ellijay my entire life.”

Although Hernandez doesn’t have relatives who fought in the Spanish-American War, both his parents are from Cuba.

“I say I’m made in America with Cuban parts,” the U.S. Marine Corps veteran said with a grin.

Old book stirs curiosity

Earlier this year, the couple was browsing at a thrift store when Hernandez spied a book with the title, “Service Record, World War I and II, Gilmer County,” published by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). There wasn’t a publication date, but some of the business phone numbers were only one digit.

“It’s essentially a yearbook of World War I and World War II service members from Gilmer County,” Davis explained. “After Reinaldo found it, that really kinda set me in this direction of genealogy because my dad’s dad is in there, and all of my uncles are in there as well — there were six brothers from one family who served in the military from Gilmer. So it just kinda spiraled from there.”

She called it “very moving” since her father, Joe Davis — a retired Murray County educator — did not know the book, published circa 1950, even existed. She’s given it to him.

“It starts with the Gold Star boys who were killed in combat and one of them, Charles Glenn Mealer, is buried in Henri-Chapelle in Belgium,” Davis said. “I didn’t know anything about Henri-Chapelle, but I just thought that’s really sad. Then there was another man, Paul Hill, and it said he was buried in Belgium but it didn’t say Henri-Chapelle. So I started looking up all these guys (in the book) and asking where are they now? I made a spreadsheet tracking where they are buried, when did they die, that sort of thing for everyone in the book, living or dead.”

Her thoughts then turned to the men’s families.

“I got to thinking, it would be really sad to be (buried) in Belgium and your family’s here,” she related. “When we got an invitation to a wedding in the Netherlands, I said well that’s right next door (to the American cemetery). I looked at the map and the wedding was literally a two-hour drive to Henri-Chapelle. So we agreed we were going to Henri-Chapelle to do something meaningful — not that the wedding wasn’t meaningful — but it would be wrong to be so close and not go.”

‘Tell him that I love him’

Research began in earnest before the overseas trip.

“I started pulling ancestry.com pages on the men in the book, and that’s when I found out there were four people from Gilmer County in Henri-Chapelle from World War II,” Davis shared. “I started reaching out to the families, asking is there anything you want me to take, a note, take some pictures for them, whatever?”

She also found information on the veterans at the findagrave.com website.

“Some family members have not responded to Find A Grave messages or by other attempts,” Davis noted.

“Paul Hill’s niece (Eileen Hill Ward) actually knew him. She was five when he was killed in action,” she said. “She has given me so much information on him. I have good information on Truman Cletus Parks, but nobody who knew him is still alive. Eileen was the first person to respond, saying take a note, and please tell him that I love him, and pray. I told her, we will do that.”

When the 4-inch by 4-inch tiles were completed, Davis “tested” them by leaving them out in the weather to see if they would hold up to the elements.

“I epoxied them so they would be waterproof, then I put UV protectant on them so they would be OK in the sun,” she explained. “We did one for each of the four Gilmer County men buried there. There’s a map of the gravesites. There’s no rhyme or reason, to me, of how the graves are sorted, but we found them all. It kinda gave me a sense that my dad’s dad knew these guys, because Gilmer County only had about 9,500 people back then in the mid-1940s and everybody knew everybody. I felt very driven to follow up with these families because it felt like a way to close that circle.

“I would want someone to do that for me if it was my relative who was buried there.”

Hernandez believes Davis has helped preserve Gilmer County’s history, as well as honored the veterans killed in World War II — and their families.

“One thing Amber has brought up is how much these mountain communities sacrificed during World War II,” he said.

“How do you have four people from World War II in one cemetery in Belgium?” Davis asked. “The level of dedication and service and sacrifice that this county gave, I can’t wrap my head around it. That’s one of the things the American Legion here does to help us remember that — I have to give them credit where credit is due — in placing the crosses (along South Main Street) before every Memorial Day. It’s just very moving.”

Hernandez added, “I was really glad when we went there. I’m assuming it’s Belgians who work there at the cemetery, mowing the grass and stuff. But I think it’s great that they see Americans care and travel all that way and show up to remember their family members. And as time keeps passing on, there’s fewer and fewer people who remember, so it’s fading from living memory.”

However, from now on anyone visiting Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery from anywhere in the world will see five men from Ellijay who died in World War II are especially remembered.