Two years later, his mother wrote about the life and death of her son that was published in a local newspaper.
It reads in part: “Today, they have come the medals of honor my dear boy won on the battlefields over there. As I hold them in my trembling hands, a picture passes through my tears, of a boy entering manhood with the eager look of youth upon his face.”
Later in the piece, she writes: “No letters from home to cheer him, no Red Cross aid, just hope to sustain him. Finally, starvation, with its grim hand of death, silence earth’s horror and war’s wild scream.”
In ending, she said: “Give light to them that sit in darkness, and guide their feet in the way of peace. And as background for this prayer, come the silent voices of our sons beneath their crosses, row on row: Remember.”
Years later, the area where Carl had fought and was captured was still dangerous. Land mines and unexploded ordinance being removed sometimes killed the people whose job it was to clear the area of mines.
Their mother really never recovered from Carl’s death, Marjorie said.
His parents donated a stained glass window to St. Joseph’s in Carl’s memory. “The window symbolized the sacrifice of God giving his son (to the world), and mom and dad gave their son,” Marjorie said. “She always said she understood the pain the Blessed Mother had and knew her sorrow.”
Carl’s mother died at the age of 101 in 2001.
“I still think about Carl,” Marjorie said. A small insurance policy he left to his mother “helped me get through college.” She taught kindergarten in East Alton, Ill., until returning to Cobden to live.
She planted roses at the family graves in Cobden a variety, she said “would bloom all summer.”
Marjorie described Carl as a sensitive young man, always willing to help others. She remembers one day going out to the mailbox at the farm without her shoes. The gravel driveway was hard on her feet. “Carl came out and carried me back to the house,” she said and smiled at the memory.
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His kindness was described through correspondence sent to the family after he died.
“God works in different ways,” Marjorie said. “If Carl had lived, the tragedy he experienced in war may have haunted him for the rest of his life.”
She said she thinks about the young men who are serving in the military today, especially those in war torn countries.
With young men suffering through so much pain and loss, she hopes and prays they will receive the care they need to recover from their injuries — both physical and emotional.
“I’m praying that a lot of young men with shattered nerves and injuries who do not receive solace from the world will turn to God and change this world through their spiritual battles.”
Posted with permission from The Messenger, official newspaper for the Diocese of Belleville, Ill.