Memorial honors a father’s sacrifice, a daughter’s love

The young, freckle-faced man was filled with excited anticipation.

Six weeks before, George E. Frazier had received word that he had been blessed with his first child. His natural inclination was to rush back home to Albemarle County, but World War II was raging and he was in training to help win it.

Weeks dragged by before he held the long-awaited leave papers in his hands. He also had been handed a packet of orders that would send him overseas to serve in the European Theater with the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 301 Bomb Group, 419th Squadron.

Dogwood trees were beginning to bloom when the father arrived home and bounded up the front steps. His wife, Vernia, was so excited to see him that she started to fall as she rushed across the front porch toward him.

Before her knees touched the wood, her husband’s strong arms were swooping her up in an embrace. Then it was time to see the new baby, Ann.

“I was born in March 1943, and I had a cousin who was born that February,“ Ann Townsend recently recalled. “Her mother had red hair and my dad had red hair.

“So the women had laid us both on the bed, and when my dad came in they said, ‘Pick out your baby.‘ He went right over and picked me up and said, ‘I would know my baby anywhere.‘ “

Months later, as the cold wind of winter blew through the stark, leafless trees, a telegram arrived at the rural home. The B-17 Frazier had been serving on as a gunner had gone down in flames over the island of Sardinia.

The message informed Mrs. Frazier that her husband was missing in action. Soon, a second telegram arrived with the dreaded news that the 22-year-old sergeant was now listed as killed in action.

“My dad’s plane went down on Nov. 29, 1943,“ Mrs. Townsend said. “All I know is that the plane caught on fire and all the parachutes [of the men onboard] opened.

“The Army didn’t have a lot of information to give us. My mom got a letter from a mother of one of the other soldiers, and she had heard that an offshore wind had come up and possibly blew them out into the Mediterranean Sea.

“There were 10 crew members, and five were lost and five were found. My dad was never found.“

The last letter Mrs. Frazier received from her husband had been mailed by one of his close friends. The two GIs had made a not uncommon wartime pact.

Each of them had written a from-the-grave letter, as it were, to his wife. Then the men exchanged the letters, each promising that, if the other were to go down, he would mail it to the addressee.

“In the final letter Dad told Mom to wait a year, and then if she wanted to remarry, that was fine,“ said Mrs. Townsend, who lives with her husband, Frankie, in Earlysville. “He also wrote that he didn’t want anyone to ever mistreat his baby, and that has always been special to me.

“Mom remarried—my stepfather, Frank Shifflett, who I called Pop. He died in 2004, and it still hurts.

“I would tell Pop that I knew Daddy could have been as good as he was to me, but he couldn’t have been no better.“

Mrs. Townsend became familiar with her father through the stories her relatives would tell her about him. She learned he had been a kind, considerate man who always put his parents and family first.

When Mrs. Townsend married and had four children of her own, they all learned about their grandfather. And when they had children, the tradition continued.

“When one of my grandsons, David, was about 5 or 6 he would go around calling himself George, after my dad,“ Mrs. Townsend said, a smile brightening her face.

Although Mrs. Townsend was blessed with a loving stepfather, she knew her biological father would have played a very important part in her life. This awareness was keenly felt when she was young and heard other children talking about their dads.

Sometimes, when she was sad or troubled, she would take the photograph of her father off the wall and talk to it. The picture, letters, Purple Heart medal and a few pieces of clothing that had belonged to her father were about all the material things she had to connect with him.

“Growing up I had always wished my dad had a place we could go to honor him,“ Mrs. Townsend said.

“When I lost Pop, I realized how much satisfaction I got from being able to visit his grave.

“That made me realize even more how much I wished Dad had something. Then this past March I was sitting at my desk, and I thought about how sometimes when they cremate somebody they’ll put a little marker in the cemetery.

“I called Holly Memorial Gardens, and the manager there, Daniel Renwick, said I needed to talk to the Veterans Administration. I did, and they said they could send me a marker, but I needed to provide them with information.“

Mrs. Townsend said Renwick took it from there. He not only did all the paperwork for her, he contacted local American Legion Post 74 and asked them if they would conduct a memorial service when the plaque arrived.

The service was held the morning of July 11, complete with an honor guard, rifle volley and the playing of “Taps” by Ernest Cobb. During the ceremony the metal plaque was placed at the foot of the burial plot where Mrs. Townsend one day will be interred.

The plaque reads, “In memory of George E. Frazier, Technical Sgt., U.S. Army World War II, June 8, 1921, Nov. 29, 1943, Purple Heart.“

In a sense, Mrs. Townsend feels as if her father has finally come back home.

“During the service I felt as if this was a closure, and I’ve felt that all this week,“ Mrs. Townsend said. “All these years I’ve wanted somewhere to be able to go.

“I don’t know any words to describe what I now feel knowing that plaque is there, and some day it will be at the foot of my grave. It’s special.

“It’s like that longing isn’t there now. I know he’s not there, but there is something for future generations to see that will show he had existed.“