Family, community in Holyoke ready to welcome long-lost son
For far too many years, the Korean conflict was known as the forgotten war. And for just about all of the last 67 years, U.S. Army Cpl. Jules Hauterman, who left Holyoke when he was barely 19, appeared to be lost, if not quite forgotten, in it.
Two years after her son was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950, during the ferocious battle at Chosin Reservoir, Madeline Hauterman died.
Yesterday, David Stuntz explained he never met his second cousin who perished half a world away, yet he knew that Jules Hauterman’s mom had died of a broken heart.
“As I understood, she never did recover from losing him that way,” he said. “As the years passed, people would wonder. And it certainly took its toll on his mom.”
Jules Hauterman left Jerome Avenue in Holyoke to serve as a medic with the Army’s 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry, 7th Infantry Division in Korea. He would be among the 1,300 U.S. soldiers killed and/or captured during the brutal 17-day epic battle at the Chosin Reservoir.
Madeline Hauterman died two years before a set of remains were unearthed from the East Chosin Reservoir in September of 1954 and sent to a laboratory in Japan. They were marked X-15904.
In 1955, the remains were declared unidentifiable and shipped to the National Memorial Cemetery in Hawaii. For the next 61 years they rested there as X-15904 until technology was able to match them to dental records.
Jules Hauterman was no longer an MIA with only a number to mark his place on this earth. But the three people who were there to bid him farewell went he left Jerome Avenue a lifetime ago, his mother, father and sister, Margaret, will not be there on Wednesday when Cpl. Jules Hauterman finally returns home with full military honors.
In a flag-draped coffin, Hauterman’s remains will be flown to Bradley International Airport in Connecticut and driven to Holyoke where citizens are being asked to gather in the parking of a Save-A-Lot store that overlooks the place where I-391 meets High Street, to embrace a valiant, long-lost son.
“There are still 198 MIA’s from the Korean War,” said Francisco Urena, the state’s Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs, “and we remain dedicated to bringing each and every one of them back home.
“This will be a very important moment,” he said, “not simply for the relatives who are still with us, but for the town and the state as well. Cpl. Hauterman was a true son of Holyoke who made the ultimate sacrifice for the country. He deserves to be welcomed home with all the honor and respect we can give.”
David Stuntz will proudly stand beside the coffin of the second cousin and teenage soldier he never got the chance to know. And along with his mother, they will welcome neighbors, strangers, townspeople who will assure that the courage and sacrifice of the small town boy, who left home so long ago, will never be forgotten.