Editor’s note: Four or five days a week, I walk in Greenwood Cemetery. As a result, I am very familiar with the place. I notice new graves and headstones. I was puzzled when I found new markers in the newest section of the cemetery for a Navy pilot killed in action in 1943.
I reached out to local historian Tim Turner who was equally puzzled by the grave of Earnest Duke Williams. I wanted to learn his story.
It is one of sacrifice and patriotism that is timely as we prepare to celebrate Veterans Day Friday.
By
Walter Geiger
Suzanne Forster has a vivid memory of a visit to Arlington National Cemetery with her grandmother, Pauline Witherspoon Williams. Pauline gazed out at row upon row of white tombstones and said, “I will never see my son’s gravestone.”
Her son was Earnest Duke Williams.
This was a family of patriots. Pauline’s husband, Earnest Wright Williams, served in World War I.
Suzanne’s parents, Bill and Gaie Pittman, are buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Bill was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army and served in China in the Pacific Theatre in World War II.
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