Veterans' Day: Norman Riley

I have already well documented here on the blog, Norm's service.
You can find the links by looking for his name on the right.

Great Resource for Akronites -Wingfoot Clan

I never ceased to be amazed at the resources available on the web.  Today I found a site called Summit Memory.  They have SEARCHABLE copies of the Wingfoot Clan, a weekly newspaper put out by Goodyear for their employees (first published in 1912).  This site has complete copies available for editions published 1939-1946 (plus issues of the Aircraft Edition.  It is fun to look through them, tons of news and facts.  It is a great resource for genealogy.  I searched for my grandfather, Sid Riley, and found that he received his 10 Year Service Pin in October of 1943 (Wingfoot Clan 11/3/1943).  Now I know that he started at Goodyear in 1933.

There was a mention when he went to visit Norm in the hospital in New York (2/7/1945)

Family Picture Friday: Pictures from Norm's Memorial in August

Norman Riley's memorial was held in August in San Jose.  I don't have a lot of pictures to share.

David and Ron Riley

Joseph Riley (Norm's Grandso)
Eric Riley (Norm's son and Joseph's father)

Ray and Nori Riley
I forget who they told me who the man on the left is

Bella Savon (Norm's Great Granddaughter)
James Savon (Norm's Grandson)
Henry (Norm's Great Grandson, grandson of Cheryl)
Amy and Kyle (Henry's Parents, Amy is grandson of Norm)

Today is the Anniversary of the Birth of Norman O. Riley

Sid and Selma's eldest son, Norman, would have been 86 today.  You may remember that he passed away in February of this year.


My Uncle David sent along this memory to share:
Norm went to the Summit County Fair, threw a baseball attempting to knock over the milk bottles.  Instead he hit the side of the shelf on which the milk bottles stood.  The proprietor, being a sporting man, challenged Norm(hit the side of the shelf two more times and I'll give you the prize).  Norman, in the best spirit of his penny pitching days heaved a second ball hitting the side of the shelf.  On his third try he hit the shelf again and claimed his prize.  I, David, was astounded thrilled and filled with admiration for my older brother Norman.


Thanks David for sharing this with us.

Norm's Nickname

While Ray was getting ready for his trip to San Jose for Norm's Memorial Dinner, he was talking with his brothers about "Norm Stories".  Norm was named after Sid's beloved brother, Norman.  Norman had died just five years before Norm was born.  Norman was just 18 years old when he died.  Sid always called Norm "Buster".  I surmise that it was still too painful for Sid to call him Norman.    Buster had become popularized around the time of Norm's birth due to the Silent Film Star, Buster Keaton. 

Film Released the year of Norm's birthday (1925)

The Riley Boys

This picture of the Riley boys was taken just before Norm left for the service.  Ray, Dave and Ron will be traveling to San Jose next week to join with Norm's family and friends for a Memorial Dinner in honor of Norm.  They are looking forward to sharing their memories with Norm's children and grandchildren.  

There is a funny story about this picture.  Ray stuck the bow tie on as the picture was taken.  No one knew he had done it until the picture came back from the photographer.

The Riley Boys and the Spelling Bee

Some of my readers probably don't know about the Riley boys and the Akron Spelling Bee.  In case you missed it, the finals for 2011 were on ESPN last night.  The winner was a  fourteen year old girl named Sukanya Roy. She cinched the win by correctly spelling “cymotrichous,” which apparently means “wavy hair.


The winer  For some reason, lost to time, Selma wanted her boys to be competitive spellers.  The eldest son, Norm, made it to the National Spelling Bee in Washington DC in 1939.

Mason School Children organized a Parade honoring Norm's win of the Akron City
Spelling Bee.

David was the runner-up in the Akron City Bee in 1941.

 Tom competed in 1948.

Family Picture Friday: The Rileys

I want to share this picture of Sid and Selma,  It was probably taken in late 1930 or early 1931 as the baby is Mark Andrew Riley, born in October.  I wonder what the occasion was, maybe Mark's baptism?  The boy on the left is David, right is Norman.  Sid is holding Ron and Selma is holding Mark.

1930 Census Sidney Riley

Sidney and family were living on Harcourt Drive at the time of the 1930 Census.  Here is a recent picture of the house:

He was listed as a Department Manager for Auto Bodies.  The house was listed as owned by them with a value of $8800 and that they did not have a  Radio Set.  He was listed as having worked in the last 12 months and was a veteran.

Norm's WWII Honors

Norm's recollections that I have shared included a small notation that his unit received recognition for their service in the Vosges Mountains.  It appears that his Regiment and Division received  Decoration (see below).  Norm never mentioned in these recollections that he received the Purple Heart for Wounds Received in Combat.  He did receive the award and is listed on the Honor Roll of 100th Division Web Site along with many, many, many others.  It is quite staggering to look at this list of one Regiment  and to think of all the men in all the Regiments during WWII that were wounded.

Private First Class Norman O. Riley, Company A, France

399th Infantry Regiment

Lineage

Constituted 24 June 1921 as 398th Infantry Regiment, allotted to Organized Reserves, assigned to 100th Division, 5th Corps Area, and organized February 1922. Ordered into active military service, less personnel, and organized 15 November 1942 at Fort Jackson, S.C., as element of 100th Infantry Division. Inactivated 29 January 1946 at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey.

Campaign Streamers

Rhineland

Ardennes-Alsace

Central Europe

Decorations

Under the provisions (UP) of War Department General Order (WDGO) 103, 1946, all companies of the 1st Battalion are entitled to the Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) embroidered RAON L'ETAPE.

UP 100th Infantry Division GO 209, 1945, Headquarters Company entitled to Meritorious Unit Citation (MUC) embroidered EUROPEAN THEATER.

Coat of Arms

Shield. Azure, A Kentucky flint-lock rifle in bend with a powderhorn suspended therefrom all or.

Crest. That for the regiments and separate battalions of the Army Reserve: On a wreath of the colors (argent and azure) the Lexington Minuteman proper. The statue of the Minute Man, Captain John Parker (H.H. Kiston, sculptor), stands on the Common in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Motto: I am Ready.

Nichols General Hospital Louisville Kentucky

I know I said we were finishing Norm's story on Saturday but there are so many other interesting aspects.  When researching his rehabilitation hospitals, I wondered why he was sent to Louisville.  Again, the internet is an wonderful thing.  Nichols specialized in Nerve Repair.  It is amazes me that, in the days before easy communication and the volume of wounded men, that individual soldiers got the appropriate care at the right facility.


This is from a web site on Kentucky women and the Civil Rights Movement as part of an oral history project:


 Constance Cline Phillips of North Carolina dropped out of college and signed up for the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in February 1945.  After attending six weeks of basic training at Fort Des Moines in Iowa, she spent  four months in X-ray technician school at Camp Atterbury in Indiana.  Then, she was stationed at Nichols General Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky from August 1945 to March 1946 when it was closed.

In her interview, Phillips talked about the Nichols General Hospital in Louisville where her work as an X-ray technician was part of medical experimentations using wounded veterans.  She remembered Nichols General as a “nerve center” where soldiers whose injuries made them into paraplegics.  Many of them, she said, had extremity nerve injuries – some had been wounded quite a long time before – and the surgeons were experimenting with ways to rejoin the nerves.

X-Ray staff at Nichols General Hospital, 1945, Louisville KY

“…they used tantalum wire, is something I remember X-raying to see how close something was getting to something to rejoining.  But I think that was where some of the first paraplegics were kept alive. I don’t believe they understood the technology to be able to do that. So that was very interesting. And of course, most of our patients were male. Very few females. Which, of course, at twenty I thought was cool.

Remembering Norm Riley Part V

Today, I am finishing up Norm's War Story.  I hope you have enjoyed it and again, we need to thank Lisa Riley Savon for preserving these memories.  

In a few days  I was sent to Nichols Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.  During my stay at Nichols the war in both theaters ended:  Europe in March and Japan in August.  Nichols Hospital had many celebrity visitors such as Benny Goodman.  I have an autographed picture of Joan Edwards, "The Hit Parade Girl.  In June 1945, the powers that be decided to renew the Kentucky Derby which the war had put on hold on.  As you know, the traditional date for this race is the first Saturday in May, but in 1945, it was held in June.  It is the only horse race I have ever seen.  It was won by Eddie Arcaro on Hoop Jr.

At Nichols, I had two attempts to suture the radial nerve in my arm.  These were mostly unsuccessful.  The second of the attempted radial nerve suturing was on VJ Day 1945.  I got a ninety-day furlough then which I used to enter Akron U.  Before the semester was over I was called back so I could be transferred to Percy Jones Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan.  This transfer was completed swiftly enough that I could finish the semester.  I was given another ninety-day furlough which I used for another semester at Akron U.  The second ninety days didn't quite cover the semester but I was allowed early exams.

When I returned to Percy Jones Hospital it was determined that nothing more could be done to improve my arm.  I'd had enough furlough to finish two semesters of college.  The reason for this is they waited for radial nerve recovery.  They talked about reversing the tendons to correct the problem  Just before I was medically discharged, I was able to weakly raise my wrist but it never improved anymore than that  To this day that is all the recovery I have.  I also have an extra funny bone spot.  Last year (2003), I thought I had had a stroke but the doctor said it was the radial nerve acting up....I was discharged in June 1946, in time for the summer semester.  I was discharged as PFC Norman Riley at a salary of $54 plus $10 of combat pay.


On one of my furloughs I met on the train my old battalion Commander, I recognized him and he saw the 100th Division patch on my arm.  He was very affable which, of course, he wasn't to Private Riley before.  He told me that we had been given the Presidential Merit Citation for breaking through the Vosges Mountains.  This was confirmed when I received it later at home and in a history of our Company which was sent to me at home.

During this time I didn't dare hope that 60 years later I would be around to write about it, or that I would father seven children with a lady I hadn't met yet...

Remembering Norm Riley Part IV

We left Norm's story at Part III at the battlefield hospital....


This was my first experience with sodium pentathol, used to put me under.  This and penicillin were new drugs that only combat causalities had access to.  Anyhow, when I woke up the next day I was swathed in plaster but fingers were sticking out the end.  The X-rays that I saw the next hospital showed a complete break with bone and shell fragments in between.  The wound on my head was superficial but to this day I do have a small scar over my ear.


On Thanksgiving Day we were moved to an old hotel requisitioned as a hospital.  Before leaving I had Thanksgiving dinner and when I got to the new hospital I had another dinner....


....I was at this hospital through Christmas.  On Christmas Day, Brian Aherne and Katherine Cornell gave a performance of "Barretts of Wimpole Street".  Also at this hospital packages arrived put together by my family including a nice watch.  The packages had been shipped before I was wounded (editor's note:  The packages were packaged and shipped after they heard he was wounded)   I didn't know they knew of my being wounded until arriving back in the States.  They knew but I didn't know that they knew.  After Christmas I was moved by train to a hospital outside of Marseilles.  From here I sneaked into town where the picture was taken that's in the photo album (editor's note:  I don't have this picture but will share it if one of his kids has it).

Brian Aherne and Katherine Cornell

I also engaged in the illegal money trade.  US currency wasn't given until departure dates were set.  I got those that had some to let me exchange for Francs.  I gave them 100 Francs and kept 50 for myself.  The official exchange rate was 50 Francs to the Dollar.


Also in Marseilles I watched Laurel and Hardy parading around talking French and Fred Astaire singing "Shorty George" being interpreted as "Petite George".

The train boxcars in France were labeled:  40 Men or 8 Horses.  The commodes used by the towns people of Marseilles were pits you stooped over.


Because I was obviously out of place with my heavily bandaged arm, I was stopped by the OSS (the forerunner of the CIA).  However they didn't bother me after initial questioning.

Accommodations on the hospital ship  back the way I had come were much superior to the inbound trip.  1) Fresh water to shower with instead of salt water.  2) An individual bed instead of being piled 5 deep. 3) 3 meals of great food without standing in a long line.  4)A different movie every night.

We got to New York on January 26, 1945.  Treatment at Halloran Hospital on Staten Island was fantastic.  Returning wounded soldiers from a war still raging..I called home and for the first time I was able to discuss what had happened more than two months earlier.  Dad hopped on Greyhound bus and came to see me and we walked around Manhattan for two hours before he got back on his bus and I went back to Halloran.




As a mother of son's, I can understand Sid's need to get to see Norm in the flesh.  It must have been quite a hardship for Sid to drop everything and spend the money and the time away from work to get to Norm.  The whole family needed the first hand report. 

Letter from Ray to Norm about his service

Dad and I were talking about Norm's story the other day.  Mom remembered she had a copy of a letter Ray wrote Norm about this and with his permission, I will share it with you today:


March 19, 1997


Dear Norm:
The other day while traveling and listening to Public Radio, I came across an interview of the author of the enclosed book.  (Editors Note: The Short Life of the ASTP by Francis Inglehar)....


....I am not sure if you were involved in the same field of battle.  The timing and Vosque Mountains seem to connect..  In any case reading the book brought back a flood of feelings and memories, an appreciation for you and the others who went through hell for us.


Nori and I discussed at some length (as best as we could imagine) what it must have been like for a barely 19 year old who had limited life's experiences, never held a gun, never traveled more than a days drive, never had been away from family to be faced with and be a part of that war.


For one who has never missed a meal, had a serious health problem, had empty pockets or threatened in any serious way, it may be hard to imagine the real effects of your experiences on you.


No day in my pre-adult life holds more memories than the day we found out you were wounded.  A very small, kindly man came to our door with a telegram that contained the news.  My reaction, my brothers, my classmates and most of all Dad's are clear to me.  I can still picture Dad sitting a small wooden chair in the middle of the living room staring at the telegram for what seemed like hours.  He was also and helpless to know more or to anything for his injured son.  This was the only time I ever saw Dad in a position of helplessness.  He showed the depth of his love and from that moment,I was always sure that I could count on him to be there for me if needed.


This was truly a family crisis......
....Love, Ray

Remembering Norm Riley Part III

Today I am continuing Norm's WWII story in his own words  We have his daughter Lisa to thank for making sure these memories were recorded.


From November 1st 1944 to November 19th 1944 I had nineteen days of WWII combat. After 60 years many memories of that nineteen days are still with me.  The first day when we took over from the 45th Infantry Division we were bequeathed a dugout shelter.  It was nice except that it leaked.  It rained or snowed almost all of the nineteen days.  Nearby was a large unexploded shell, ours or theirs, I don't know.  A dead German was nearby.  On him was a picture of him and his lady.


The 1944 Presidential election was held during my nineteen days of combat  We learned of FDR's victory via The Stars and Stripes several days later.


During all of the nineteen days the sound of gunfire or shell explosions was constant.  We got to hear their machine guns zzzth versus ours that went putt, putt, putt.  It was then I saw how slowly sound travels.  We overlooked an area being shelled.  We saw the explosion and later heard it.  Being a defensive machine gunner, I didn't have to go on scouting missions on enemy lines.  However, defensive positions were targeted often.  I remember seeing a direct hit on one of our rifleman's head.  I remember laying flat in the foxhole with machine gun bullets ripping through the branches above me.  I remember listening to shells roaring overhead.  We learned quickly that if you heard it, it missed you.  The night before our assault in the opening through the Vosges Mountains the air was pierced with a wounded soldier somewhere screaming for help, but we couldn't give away our position....


...The day of the important assault we ascended a slope nearly straight up.  This approach was selected on the theory that it would be least heavily defended.  When I got to the top our captain, very distraught, said get the machine gun set up.  On the top there were dead of our company and dead Germans.  I dug my foxhole and we dug a machine gun position.  We could hear German chatter below us.  The occupation of this hill took place on November 15th.  From then on we were continually a target of mortar and artillery and two of us were on the machine gun at all times.


So on Sunday afternoon, November 19th I was in my foxhole, standing up reading a letter from home when a mortar shell hit a tree next to my foxhole and fragments came from the ground up under my left arm and steel helmet.  The helmet was knocked off my head with a hole in it.  I couldn't move my arm.  I called over to Shuman, the other man not on the gun at this time, if he was wounded.  He said no and I told him I was.  He led me back to Company Headquarters which was located between two large mounds, the safest spot, of course.  I remember thinking as the shelling went on; Maybe I can get out of this.  This is when Lt. Landus remarked "I hope you never come back, isn't this hell, Riley?"  When the shelling stopped the company jeep driver took me back to the aid station where I had the first coffee I had ever drunk and a splint put on my arm.  Later a truck moved me and other wounded men back to an operating tent hospital (probably the forerunner of MASH).  I was gurneyed back to an operating room where a doctor whose name I will never know, saved my arm.

ASTP and the 100th Division

As mentioned in Norm's recollections, he was a member of the !00th Division, 399th Infantry Regiment, Company A:

From the Website on the 100th Division

Greeting Center for the new member of the 100th, Spring 1944

The 100th was thus "backfilled" with thousands of replacements from a variety of sources. Air crews and other personnel from the Air Corps filled the ranks, as did soldiers from antiaircraft units and service support outfits. Ironically, the largest single source of replacements for the men who shipped out to join other units already in combat was the ASTP, which was broken up in early 1944; the Army needed riflemen more than it needed Hungarian radio intercept operators or chemical engineers. That they were especially bright (the ASTP required a 115 general technical score for admission; Officer Candidate School required a 110!) was an added bonus in the bargain for all concerned. The challenges of the modern battlefield required using every possible advantage.

Grenade Training for the 100th

Additional  roadmarches toughened the new infantry physically and mentally while bonding
the new men with their veteran buddies

 Thus, the 100th Infantry Division embarked on a "Supplemental Training Period" designed to assimilate the new arrivals, while building on the experience already gained by the vast majority of the Division's soldiers since late 1942. The chain of command instituted an especially vigorous physical regimen as well, not only to toughen the ASTP men, fresh from college campuses around America, but to help psychologically weld them together with the "veterans" who were already present. A strong intramural athletic program only added to this effect.


Throughout the Division's tenure at Fort Bragg, rumors abounded regarding the Division's ultimate role in the war. The temporary issue of camouflage utility uniforms led some to believe that the Division was bound for the Pacific; ranger training made some believe the outfit was headed for Norway. Some hopeful few believed the emphasis placed on physical conditioning and drill -- actually a coherent attempt to build discipline and cohesion -- indicated that the 100th was really only a "show division." This latter rumor was reinforced by numerous visits by dignitaries such as the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, and dozens of generals, senior businessmen, and the like. The participation by a select provisional battalion of the Division's smartest marchers in the Fifth War Loan Drive in New York City did little to allay this rumor of nothing but stateside soldiering in the 100th's future.

Nothing could have been more untrue. On 10 August 1944, the Division was alerted for deployment to the European Theater of Operations. The words of the Story of the Century say it best,

To the accompaniment of martial strains from the 100th Division van, first elements of the Century, carrying full field packs and horseshoe rolls, boarded the long line of waiting Pullmans and flopped onto prearranged seats. For several moments the inspiring tunes, which had paced our steps on uncounted reviews across the drill fields of Bragg and Jackson were drowned in the cacophony of grunts and curses as we shifted duffel bags in an effort to make ourselves comfortable. Then, noses and foreheads pressed to windows, we watched Fort Bragg hide behind a curve in the railroad.

By 30 September, the Division had closed on Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, where preparations were made for embarkation in New York. Final passes were granted, essential classes were taught, and the staff and chain of command made last-minute plans and adjustments. On 5 October, the Division loaded aboard the George Washington, George Gordon, McAndrews, and Mooremac Moon. The convoy, which also included the entire 103d Infantry Division and the advance party of the 14th Armored Division, set sail the next morning, bound for Marseilles -- and combat.

Remembering Norm Part Two

I am continuing Norm's war story:


On October 5th evening, we were loaded on our ship of demarcation.  The next morning, my nineteenth birthday, while we were asleep, we were off to where we didn't know.


It turned out to be Marseilles France. What I remember most about this were the two times I got sea sick and the passage through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea.  The Mediterranean Sea was one of the two times I was sea sick.


We landed in Marseilles October 20th, 1944, which had been recently liberated.  We marched for ten miles through the outskirts of the city to a bivouac area.  That night was the first of many cold rainy times to come.  After nine days, including a four-hour pass to the city, the divisio headed for the front in open trucks stopping overnight in Valence and Dijion.  


On the night of October 31st arriving behind our front line, we heard artillery for the first time.  it was our artillery, but we didn't know that.  The next morning, November 1st, we relieved the 179th Infantry of the 45th Division.  We met the veterans of infantry combat; the beaten up dog faces that we were to become.

The position was astride the small village of LaSalle France in the Vosges Mountains.  On November 3rd we marched into the town of St Remy where we slept in basements while the town was being shelled, causing casualties.  At dawn we moved to a ground facing the enemy.  I had my first experience in sweating out being shelled by 88's.  The 88 was the German all purpose Artillery and Anti-Aircraft Weapon.  They produced a terrifying whistling sound, while cowering in a just dug foxhole.  On November 6th the company launched it's first attack taking the objection which was two small woods.  It was here I learned a lot of the trouble comes when you have won the position.  I lay prone as I could get with enemy machine gun rounds whistling over me.  Another company relieved us the next day

German 88 capture Sarrebourge France November 1944

On November 10th with snow covering the ground, our company attacked a high hill in the Baccarat Woods.  Again, after taking the hill the position was heavily shelled.  On  Novembe 13th we spent the night on little shelves hacked out of the side of the cliff.  The next day was the operation that earned our battalion the Presidential Unit Citation.  The Seventh Army to this point had been stopped cold the German winter defensive line in the Vosges Mountains.  So on the morning of November 14th a skirmish line was formed at the base of the hill nearly straight up in places.  When the tops of the hill's knobs were reached terrible fighting occurred.  These casualties were incurred by our riflemen.  I was a machine gunner so I was lugging up the machine gun behind the action.


The gateway through the Vosges Mountains had been won.  Our machine gun was set up defensively to protect against enemy attempts to retake the hill.  From the time the hill was taken until I was wounded, November 19th, the shelling was continuous.  It was during a respite I was standing in my foxhole reading a letter from home when the mortar shelling resumed.  I was hit by a ground burst with fragments coming up under my left arm and helmet.  The helmet had a hole blown in it.  I only had a scratch above my ear but my arm was shattered, I thought.

Remembering Norm

Since Norm and his family lived in California, I didn't know him.  With his daughter Lisa's help, they wrote a short biography several years ago.  I will excerpt it here over the next several days.  What I remember most was hearing about his experience in World War II and getting injured.  I heard about it from Dad's perspective on the home front.

Here it is from Norm's perspective:

The story of my military experience starts with an examination given country-wide to seventeen year olds to determine their qualifications to enlist for the opportunity for two years of college.  This program came to be known as the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP).  I learned later that Henry Kissinger was in this program, but he somehow escaped combat.

I was soon notified that I had qualified and should report for a physical and swearing in until further instructions.  When these instructions came I was told to report to the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY where I would be a student until passing the age of eighteen.  Eighteen at time was legal Army age.  I spent thirteen weeks there after which I had fifteen days at home.  My status at UK was that of a cadet with room and board and schooling provided.  At the end of this term I spent fifteen days at home before reporting to Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio for active duty.  There I became Private Norman Riley; allowed to wear the military uniform and use free mailing privileges, receiving a salary of $50 a month.

The contractual arrangement in the ASTP program was to receive thirteen weeks of basic infantry training and then back to college to complete the two years.  From Fort Hayes I was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia for the basic training.  The ASTP attracted many Jewish boys  In Christmas Day the Jewish boys in our basic training company volunteered to do the KP chores. It was here that I saw for myself Jim Crowism with water fountains marked for coloreds.  While at Fort Benning, they just reneged on the contract by discontinuing ASTP.

I was not good at soldering; just barely qualified on the M-1 rifle, as well as just getting by on the other army tasks.  I did though qualify well on the machine gun.  Which is why I was machine gunner when basic training ended.

From Fort Benning I went to Fort Bragg North Carolina to join the 100th Infantry Division where I was assigned to the 399th Infantry Regiment Company A Weapons Platoon Machine Gun Squad.  While at Fort Bragg with the 100th Division until the division was shipped to France.  While there I got two ten-day furloughs home (What a delight wartime furloughs were).

After D-Day June 6, 1944, the demand for infantry replacements was huge and many in our division were scheduled to go as replacements.  I was on the original list only to be pulled off at the last minute.  I've always suspected the Lt. Landis pulled me off the list.  I remained there with the 100th Division.  In late September 1944, the 100th Division moved to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey.  In a few days there, we were given a twelve hour pass to New York City.  This was on  October 2nd, my Dad's birthday, I called home and wished him a happy birthday and let him know I was going overseas.

We recently found out that Harold Bischoff was also part of the ASTP program.  We will pick up later after Norm gets to France.

Sad news....

Norman O. Riley died yesterday (2/3) in San Jose, California.
He was born 6 Oct 1925 in Akron.  He was the eldest son of Sidney Riley and Selma Brueggeman.
He and his wife, Louise, were married 62 years and have seven children and many grandchildren.


It is ironic that today's Friday Family Picture is of Norman O. Riley, the uncle that Norm was named after.  I wrote that post over a week ago to be posted today.


As more details become available, I will post.


Keep Louise, the kids, and Norm's brothers in your prayers.

Family Picture Friday

I received this wonderful picture from Theda Hill.  It is Norman Riley (the youngest son of Thomas and Lizzie Riley) who died at age 18.  Every time I look at this, I cannot help but smile.  The writing is from the back of the picture.  I have never seen a picture like this before.