Finding My Father Who Disappeared 64 Years Ago

By Rex Beach • January 2, 2019

When my parents separated in 1954 I was only 2 years old and I never saw my father again.

My mother and her family kept information about my father and his family a secret from me for over half a century.

In 2010 I began to search for my father through Ancestry.Com. However I learned he had died of cancer on August 6, 1999 in a hospital in Dallas, Texas. When I got my father's death certificate the medical examiner told me because my father had no relatives around the city buried him in a body bag in a unmarked grave in an old cemetery. I knew my father served in WW2 so I decided to work on getting his remains brought back to my state to be buried in our national cemetery.

For over 5 years I tried to get help from government agencies, two governors and the White House but to no avail.

From 2011 to 2017 I kept working on lowering my debt from a divorce and increase my credit score so someday I could get a personal loan. In 2017 I contacted Senator Sherrod Brown.

He conducted a Congressional inquiry and found records even though my father's records were destroyed in a fire in 1973. That certificate of military service proved my father served 43 months in WW2 in the U.S.A. Army Air Force fighting the Nazi's. I still did not have the money though. In July of 2018 a bank approved a $10,000 personal loan so I had a funeral director apply for a permit to exhume my father. After 4 months of waiting I asked Senator Brown for help again in November. Six days after he contacted Texas officials a permit was granted.

On July, 9, 2019 a airplane will land at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport where I will be finally reunited with my father and touch his metal casket and the missing piece of my heart will be restored.

On January 10, 2019 the Ohio Patriot Guard Riders will escort my father's hearse through my home town to be buried with honors in our states National cemetery and one day in January Senator brown will have a American Flag flown over our Nation's Capital to honor my father.

If you never give up one day your prayer or dream will become reality.

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