Lest We Forget
Transplanted from Cameron some 49 plus years ago, it took me a while to understand the meaning of the Rosebud High School Memorial Hall in the D Brown Library.
The Memorial Hall was created by Mary Lee and Bryon Stubbs and many RHS exes to house memorabilia the Stubbses saved from the razing of the old Rosebud High School building after the Rosebud and Lott ISDs consolidated and the new high school was built at Travis in the early 1970s.
Additionally, Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs designated the Wednesday Study Club to own and be custodians of the memorabilia.] I was not involved when the room was built and did not know the meaning of the Memorial Board that covered a window from the original library. The plywood board was covered with articles about men and women from Rosebud who had served in World War II.
Even as a member of the Wednesday Study Club, I didn’t truly understand all of the relevance until just a few years ago.
But I kept noticing the Memorial Board darkening with age and the newspaper articles fading and crinkling up. Due to the location on the wall, no one was really able to read any of the articles either. Several years ago, I got the idea to take the board down and to recopy the original articles from back issues of The Rosebud News and then put those articles into an album so they could be easily read.
It took Don Kasner, the husband of Mary Lou Kasner, another WSC member, with a power drill to unscrew the plywood from the wall along with the plaque. I had never read the plaque but just knew it was about World War II.
The plaque reads:
IN COMMEMORATION OF THOSE WHO MADE THE SUPREME SARIFICE FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN WORLD WAR II.
T. P. AYCOCK
GILBERT LEHMAN
LEROY CASEY
WILLIAM L. MOTL
ROBERT GLASS
R. C. ROBETSON, JR.
KENNETH HILLIARD
BILLIE SARGENT
CLAUD W. JONAN
JOHN W. SEBEK
ELVIS KELLY
EUGENE SMITH, JR.
JOE ED KLEYPAS
JACK M. TARVER
JAMES O. WILLIAMS
All along I kept thinking about all the men and a few women too, who had served in the war and thought how amazing it was that so many had served from tiny Rosebud. Linda Bernsen and Barbara Springer, WSC members, read the articles on the Memorial Board in order to locate and write down each serviceperson’s name. Norma Burns, another WSC member, typed up the list alphabetically for easier sorting.
The Memorial Room also has a bound Falls County book that lists many men and women who had served in the war. A number of years ago Joyce Cunningham Tressler, a Rosebud native, donated to the Memorial Room several albums that she created about men and women who had served in WWII from Rosebud. Another donated album was found in the Memorial Room cabinets that was also sorely in need of transferring to archival albums.
Going through microfilm to find the articles from the Memorial Board was a daunting task. But Kelly Hughes, now D Brown Library librarian, was doing community work at the library at that time and several WSC members mentioned to her what we needed done with the articles. Hughes began the task.
Then WSC member Diane Jackson Pagel, who moved to Rosebud in 2007, decided to rework the albums into archival albums, in order to better preserve the contents. Together, Hughes and Pagel were able to find nearly every article on the Memorial Board either in The Rosebud News microfilm or the Tressler albums. Pagel found the article that showed the plaque being saved from the torn-down Rosebud High School and everything started to fit together. This plaque had the names of the fifteen men from Rosebud who had lost their lives in WWII. The Memorial Board was created for them, along with others who had served.
Now the Memorial Room has the beginning collection of albums Showing as many servicemen and women as Hughes and Pagel could find from the Rosebud area who served in WWII, along with a few from the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The albums were on display at the Memorial Room for the recent Golden Years Reunion.
Although many might consider the work done so far to be more than sufficient, for Pagel, the accumulating and preserving of the documents detailing the contributions of our servicemen and women is a work in progress. She is adding additional documentation to each serviceman and woman’s news article, including obituary, picture, and service record as she can find it. Due to the condition of some of our older newspapers, some of our service personnel’s military pictures are unrecognizable. Pagel wants to honor all Rosebud and Falls County Veterans. She would welcome any family who had a war veteran and would consider sharing information to be copied to contact the D Brown Library at 254-583-2328. Arrangements can be made for Pagel to receive that information. She is truly appreciative of any documentation that can be made available. Pagel hopes these albums will be a good genealogical source that will make our Library noteworthy.
Although not originally from Rosebud, I now think back on all the businessmen and others from the Rosebud area, whose paths I have crossed while living here nearly 50 years. Little did I know most of them had served in WWII!! I see their faces from their pictures and think what handsome young men and women they were back during the war. With Memorial Day soon approaching, one thinks how fortunate for our nation that we had so many dedicated local men and women serve our country, thus the fitting title of the Memorial Board, LEST WE FORGET.