On May 4, 1945, the USS Morrison, DD560, a U.S. Navy destroyer was on duty at Radar Picket Station No. 1 just off Okinawa. Early that morning, she was hit by four Japanese kamikaze aircraft. The ship sank so quickly only one crew member from below decks is documented as having escaped and survived. One hundred fifty-five other Navy men lost their lives. One of those men who was listed as MIA (Missing In Action) was Frederick Arthur Raycraft, WT3, USNR. Petty Officer Third Class Raycraft was born in 1917 to the George William Raycraft family of Bend, Oregon. He was the eighth of nine children born to George and Florence Raycraft. His younger brother Charles died and was interred in Bend in 2003. Petty Officer Raycraft's name is on a Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii.
We've had a couple of tupperware buckets full of old pictures around the house for more years than I want to say. Actually, it's since my dad passed away in 1994. One bucket was pictures my mom had saved from her mother and father's collection when they passed away. The other one was from mom and dad's closet and friends and family they had. I've been working on scanning in these photos, cleaning them up, trying to see who is who and putting captions on them. I got all of my grandparent's albums scanned and loaded onto the family website in September 2010.
This past week, Deb sat me down and handed me the bucket from my folk's closet. So, first I sorted them by family groups, with the hope that after they have been scanned in I can take them to the family picnic this July and return them to the appropriate families to be distributed. Keep in mind some of these photos go back nearly one hundred years. One of the photos was a U.S. Navy Petty Officer Third Class. On the back of the photo, written in pencil was the following, "Fred Raycraft, missing in action Christmas 1945." Not a lot to go on. I won't bore you with the details of the search, but after some digging, I was able to determine Water Tender Third Class (WT3) Frederick Arthur Raycraft, from Bend, Oregon was aboard the USS Morrison DD-560 and was one of the one-hundred fifty-five sailors lost that day.
Fred was born to George William and Florence O. Raycraft in 1917, the eighth of nine children. They lived on Kingston Street in Bend, and a couple of the family members worked for Shevlin-Hixson Company there. I was able to find out the parents and the youngest brother's funerals were conducted by Niswonger Reynolds Funeral Home in Bend. It's still there. I've mailed a copy of the story along with Fred's photo to Pastor Jim Carmichael with the funeral home and asked him to try to get the photo back to family members. It's the least one can do for someone who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. Fred, it's sixty-six years after the fact, but I salute you. Thank you for your sacrifice to this country, and those of us who live here. VR.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
It's Not Always Just About Us.
Next Monday I'll be getting on the road to ride the bike over to Wilder, Idaho. Not a long trip mileage wise, but a long trip in that it will bring together a family, and photos of their ancestors from ninty-three years ago.
On October 10th, 2010 we uploaded 105 photos we had scanned in from my maternal grandmother's family photos and put them into an album on our Family Tree Website. One of the photos was captioned, "1918 in Almira, Washington." On the back of that photo my grandmother had identified the fourth gent in from the left as Wellborn. The corner was torn off the picture, so we didn't have a first name. Doing a little research on a website called Find A Grave, we eventually found a grave in the Almira, Washington Cemetery belonging to a John Leonard Welborn. It showed DOB as 17 Sep 1885 and DOD as 30 Sep 1935, but that was it. Continuing to search, we then found a cemetery transcription on Interment.net. There, John Leonard Welborn with same dates of birth and death had the following additional information: "WWI, Co F Inf"
So back to the photo album--there were several photos of WWI Army members from Company F out of Camp Lewis (what subsequently became Fort Lewis and is now Lewis McChord). We knew John wasn't a family member, but apparently he and several of the other people from some of the camping pictures in the album were friends of my grandmother's family and friends. We then began a search online to see if we could find anyone researching John Leonard Welborn or who had him in their family tree. We found a public tree with John in it. I used Ancestry.com to send a message to the gent maintaining the tree to find out if this was a relative of his. The tree owner, of Reno, Nevada wrote back to let us know John Leonard Welborn was a brother to his grandmother--his grand uncle.
As we've scanned in all the photos and have them in digital format on the hard drive and also backed up on another drive, we offered him the original copies of all the photos with the soldiers/gents in uniform in them. To say the least, he was very pleased and will make sure they get to the appropriate family members. It turns out he and his wife are headed to Eastern Washington to visit next week. I will meet them in Wilder, Idaho as they travel north and be able to personally hand him these photos. What a great feeling it is to know that we've had these photos in our family for ninty-three years and they are finally getting returned to family members of the individual. So, while building the tree, and learning about our own family is really an inspiration and great experience, it's deeply gratifying to know that it isn't just about us. Sometimes we are able to help others discover their roots as well. Life is truly GREAT when that occurs.
On October 10th, 2010 we uploaded 105 photos we had scanned in from my maternal grandmother's family photos and put them into an album on our Family Tree Website. One of the photos was captioned, "1918 in Almira, Washington." On the back of that photo my grandmother had identified the fourth gent in from the left as Wellborn. The corner was torn off the picture, so we didn't have a first name. Doing a little research on a website called Find A Grave, we eventually found a grave in the Almira, Washington Cemetery belonging to a John Leonard Welborn. It showed DOB as 17 Sep 1885 and DOD as 30 Sep 1935, but that was it. Continuing to search, we then found a cemetery transcription on Interment.net. There, John Leonard Welborn with same dates of birth and death had the following additional information: "WWI, Co F Inf"
So back to the photo album--there were several photos of WWI Army members from Company F out of Camp Lewis (what subsequently became Fort Lewis and is now Lewis McChord). We knew John wasn't a family member, but apparently he and several of the other people from some of the camping pictures in the album were friends of my grandmother's family and friends. We then began a search online to see if we could find anyone researching John Leonard Welborn or who had him in their family tree. We found a public tree with John in it. I used Ancestry.com to send a message to the gent maintaining the tree to find out if this was a relative of his. The tree owner, of Reno, Nevada wrote back to let us know John Leonard Welborn was a brother to his grandmother--his grand uncle.
As we've scanned in all the photos and have them in digital format on the hard drive and also backed up on another drive, we offered him the original copies of all the photos with the soldiers/gents in uniform in them. To say the least, he was very pleased and will make sure they get to the appropriate family members. It turns out he and his wife are headed to Eastern Washington to visit next week. I will meet them in Wilder, Idaho as they travel north and be able to personally hand him these photos. What a great feeling it is to know that we've had these photos in our family for ninty-three years and they are finally getting returned to family members of the individual. So, while building the tree, and learning about our own family is really an inspiration and great experience, it's deeply gratifying to know that it isn't just about us. Sometimes we are able to help others discover their roots as well. Life is truly GREAT when that occurs.
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