Almost Forgotten July 18, 2019

Copyright © 2019                               John F. Oyler 

July 18, 2019

Almost Forgotten

It was my privilege recently to attend a presentation in South Fayette’s “local authors” series which featured my brother, Joe, and his book, “Almost Forgotten”, a record of the men from the Bridgeville and South Fayette area who lost their lives while serving in the military.

He began his talk with an explanation of how the project that led to the book began. In 2004 he attended a Memorial Day weekend service at Bethany Church in which the pastor focused on honoring our ancestors. Joe commented that it would be appropriate to mention the men from the church who had lost their lives while in the service and volunteered to come up with a list of their names. The next year and every year since then these men have been remembered at Bethany on Memorial Day on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. 

While researching this group of casualties Joe quickly turned up information on numerous other local men who deserved to be honored, and he decided to extend his project to include everyone from the general Bridgeville/South Fayette area and to record their stories in a book. The book was completed in 2011 and self-published through “Author House”.

The original book includes the stories of 107 men ranging from the Civil War through the Vietnamese conflict. Since then he has learned of nine more men; they are discussed in two addenda. The book is still available for purchase at the Bridgeville Area Historical Society.

The main body of “Almost Forgotten” is divided into six sections – Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, and Vietnam. In each section the author records all the information available about the specific individual and his death, supplemented by his personal experiences interviewing family members and friends. 

Nine of the eleven fatalities in the Civil War were members of Company D, 149^th Pennsylvania Volunteers. This company was organized in the Robinson Run area in August, 1862, and performed in distinguished fashion throughout the war. Similarly Company K of the First Pennsylvania Cavalry was organized a year earlier in Bridgeville and had an equally distinguished war record. Two of the local area fatalities, Richard Lesnett and Thomas Boyce, were members of Company K;  Lesnett losing his life in the Cold Harbor Campaign and  Boyce losing his life during the  Siege at Petersburg.

The story of Company D is recorded in an excellent book compiled by one of its veterans, John W. Nesbit, published in 1906. Company K’s story also deserves to be told – it would be a constructive project ; there is considerable information available.

Twenty two area men lost their lives in World War I. For me the most poignant tale is that of Roy Purnell, a young African-American man who left his wife Viola and baby Amy and went off to France. He died there, probably from the flu epidemic, and is buried in the Oise-Asne Cemetery. After the War, the Gold Star Mothers pressured the U. S. Government to send survivors to France to visit the graves of their loved ones. In 1929 the program was approved and nearly 6,700 widows and mothers made the pilgrimage.

Unfortunately African-Americans were not included in the initial program. Enraged, Viola’s employer, Dr. Fife, responded by volunteering to pay for her passage. The photograph of her at her husband’s gravesite in France is extremely touching. Their baby grew up to become Amy Perkins, a well-known Bridgeville resident who became a Centarian before dying last year.

World War II produced sixty-two more deaths. Among the ones Joe highlighted in his talk was the very first one, Alexander Asti. He was a seaman on the USS Juneau and perished along with the five Sullivan brothers, when it was torpedoed and sunk at Guadalcanal in November, 1942. His photograph on the cover of “Almost Forgotten” is an excellent prototype for all the young men immortalized in the book – what a tragedy that they were deprived of the opportunity for a long, happy life.  

Nine men died during the Korean War. Hardest for us to accept was our childhood friend and neighbor Amos Jones. He was an airman on a Navy Neptune patrol bomber that crashed in Iceland on December 17, 1953, while searching for Russian submarines. The bodies were recovered twenty-eight years later and interred at the Arlington National Cemetery. 

Six men lost their lives in the period between the Korean and Vietnamese Wars, a period Joe designated as “the Cold War”. Included are two more personal friends – Dick Johnson and Sam Patton – both of whom died in accidents. In some respects illness and accidental deaths are even more tragic than those occurring in combat. Every time I see the pictures of Dick and Sam, I lament the waste of two fine young lives.

Another six young men lost their lives in Vietnam. Joe showed a Cy Hungerford cartoon that could have applied to any of the 116 men in Joe’s project. A somber Uncle Sam, hat in hand, is looking at a cross on which is inscribed “Killed in Action, Cpl. George Verdinek of Bridgeville, Pa., Age 19”. That never fails to make my eyes mist over. Uncle Sam’s comment “No teenage delinquency here!” could well be the theme of Joe’s entire project. 

The entire project is extremely emotional. I am impressed that Joe is able to get through a presentation like this without breaking up. I suspect that the saving grace for him is the positive reactions he has experienced from survivors who are grateful to him for his efforts keeping the memory of their loved ones alive.

Evidence of the effectiveness of his project is the fact that this recent presentation was attended by three Lesnett descendants. It is heartwarming to realize that Richard Lesnett, who died on a hospital ship en route to Washington, D. C., from wounds received on May 28, 1864, in a large cavalry battle at Haws Shop, Virginia, is still being remembered by his kinfolk.

Joe has made a major contribution to local history by his scholarship in researching this extremely relevant subject and recording it in a book that is peppered with interesting anecdotes about the folks he met along the way.