The photo was in the boxes of my grandmother’s papers that my aunt had inherited, but wisely not gone through. Two weeks ago I drove up and collected the last of my aunt’s things. Grandma’s “papers” were two bins, a small suitcase, and two small boxes of it. The rest of the van was filled with Christmas stuff. Aunt L lived for Christmas.
But back to the picture. On the back is the name Harold Workman. That would be Grandma’s nephew, Aunt L’s cousin, and my second cousin. And I’ll be damned if I can make out which one is him.
So if anyone else can identify a relative or themselves in that picture, and they’re interested, I’ll mail it to them. It will come in a tube because it’s been in one since 1945 and will only stay flat if forcibly held that way. The only catch is that you have to pick out who your relative is and show a picture that looks like a reasonable match.
You might ee if that unit has a website for its alums, I know that several of my Dad’s units do. Check with VFW/AmVets, they might be willing to publish the picture in their magazines.
It may be very difficult to ID them, most WW2 vets are actually dying off at a fast rate. I think there is only another 5 guys left in my Dad’s original boot camp unit.
Yeah, my wife’s grandpa ‘Bud’ would have been passing through S.D. on his way from boot camp to the Pacific front around that time, but I don’t see anyone in that photo that looks like him. (Which would have been quite a coincidence, given the number of young Marines pointed that direction then.) And he and his wife both passed away–Joy just last year–so I don’t have him or a contemporary to ask.
I second the idea of checking for some sort of alumni group…but I disagree that it would be so hard to ID them. The vets themselves may be hard to find after almost 60 years, but their families are still around. My dad would have been through San Diego at about that time, and if he were in that picture I certainly would have recognized him. I’m sure somewhere someone would love to have a photo of dad or grandpa and his platoon.
That’s a good idea and I’ll make it my next check. I’d try keeping it in the family, but all of the cousins that I know about have died. So it would be a search either way. The veterans search will have less potential to step into huge family drama.
Yeah, Suburban Plankton, I’d probably have been able to pick out my Dad, but a second cousin that I only saw occasionally as a small child - that’s not gonna happen.
