A Love Story

My grandparents (my mom's parents) were married May 1943.  Lorena was 29 years old and Henry was 26 1/2.  People called him Hank. They met in Southern California in a cafe. A group of soldiers walked in and she was immediately attracted to him but she thought he looked too young.  Evidently he was attracted to her because they were married 4 months later.  At the time, she was working for Lockheed (building military aircraft) and he was a soldier in the U.S. military.  She was originally from Gallup, New Mexico and he was originally from Buffalo, New York.  Soon after they married he was flown off to Europe to defend our country in WWII.  He was an infantry soldier.

Their wedding photo.

Marriage certificate.

I see why my grandma was attracted to him.  She always said he looked like Paul Newman.

She grew up on a ranch in the middle of no where in New Mexico.  Yes, she could shoot a gun.  Even with that pretty dress on.

A pretty photo of my grandma.  I would love to have that same dress to remember her by.  She was almost 6 feet tall and always thin. (I never got her height.)

She was definitely a cow girl.  

One of my favorite military photos of him.  I have a large one of this matted and framed hanging in my dining room.  He's on the left.

In front of his house with the rest of his family in Buffalo, NY.  Just shortly before he left to go overseas.  He's the tall one in the middle.

This is a photo of one of the locations that my grandfather would have been.  Possibly in a similar situation  since he was infantry.

Here's another photo of a place he would have been.

.....and another one.

And one more at the Arc de Triomphe.  Can you imagine being here and the overwhelming feeling you would have had being among all these soldiers fighting for the United States.  This is amazing history.

My grandfather died shortly after going into combat in France.  This is how my grandma received word of his death.  Through a telegram.  My mom was 9 months old when he died.  He was around my mom, his daughter, for a total of 3 days.  All of the time he was away fighting in WWII (in Europe).  Hank and Lorena were married for just over 1 1/2 years.

He was buried in France among the 1,000s of other soldiers buried there.  A view from the ground and one from a plane.  My mom visited his grave a while back.

He received the purple heart.  My mom keeps it in a safe place.

My mom was born February 1944.  My mom has always been beautiful inside and out.

My grandma in Utah many years after Hank died with some of her grand kids. I'm on the left with my foot in the air and she's holding my sister Courtney. I think she looks so beautiful here. Lorena was married one more time and had 2 more kids, Margie and Dixon.

These pictures were taken from a book that my mom made for each one of her kids.  She is a genealogists and did hundreds of hours of research and copying to put these books together.  They go back to the Mayflower (11 generations) to our day.  This book is a treasure and a price could never be put on it.  Thanks mom for all your hard work.