OUR HEROES
War held horrors, but this GI chose to remember some good things.
Tribute to Uncle Harvey
Four of my Grandmother Margaret’s siblings fought in World War II. One of them, Harvey Hudson, was a truck driver in an engineer battalion. Uncle Harvey’s service began in North Africa, and then he went to Sicily, and later central Europe and England. Notably, he fought at Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge. While fighting during D-Day, Uncle Harvey stopped his truck and got out; the soldier driving the truck behind him pulled ahead into Uncle Harvey’s spot, and was killed by an explosion. He witnessed many other horrifying things during his service, but when he talked to me about his time overseas, he mainly focused on the good memories. He recalled with a smile the people and the wonderful food in Italy, and told me one story of his time stationed in England. He was being served tea in someone’s home in the countryside. He waited what seemed like an eternity before he was allowed to drink his tea, because English tea was steeped for much longer than he was used to at home. Miraculously he and all of his brothers returned home safely, and Uncle Harvey went on to have eight children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His heart was always partly in Nova Scotia, his father’s birthplace, where he owned a parcel of land. He would regale us with tales of the ceilidhs—the traditional gatherings— he attended there over the years. Uncle Harvey was a talented carpenter, and built the kitchen of my childhood home. He was a lover of animals and good food, and was a fantastic storyteller. He told me many of those stories while sitting in his recliner with his beloved pup, Louis, in his lap. He was my grandmother’s last living sibling. He died in 2018, just 22 days shy of his 100th birthday. His passing marked the loss of a great man, and the end of an era for our family. I’m thankful I got to learn about the remarkable life that Uncle Harvey led.
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