Mitchel Boley

My family was never guilty of labeling photos. Mama kept them in her cedar chest along with such things as the hospital bill she and Dad had paid for my fractured elbow in 1952. There were several pictures of this lad throughout her collection but, for years, I had no idea about his identity.

In the mid 1990s, I began scanning the lot and storing them on one of my early computers. Mama sat and watched as the images slowly emerged on the monitor. By this time she was so deeply into the throes of Alzheimer's Dementia that she could not make a complete sentence, but, as this one appeared, a large tear ran down her cheek. I asked her who he was but she could not say.

The next weekend, I took her to Newport to visit her sister Grace and I showed her the photo.

"Oh," she said, "That was Mitchel, your mama's first beau. He died during the war."

She went into a closet, brought out a big box, and gave me this newspaper clipping:

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