Fitting Pieces Together: Collection of mementos helps preserve father-daughter bond

When she was growing up, Shirley Epperly knew her dad only through a few memories and a small box full of photos and letters. Reece Cummings was killed in 1945 fighting the Germans when she was just 5.

Though her mother remarried after the war and Epperly came to love her stepfather very much, she never let go of her desire to know more about her biological father.

"It's Shirley Cummings Epperly," she replied sweetly when asked to spell her name for this column. "That's my dad's name and I am determined to keep it all my life."

As the years passed, she never grew tired of asking questions about him, and zealously guarded the mementos of him that her mother and grandfather passed along to her through the years.

After she retired in the late 1990s, she used her newfound free time to renew her quest to learn more about her father. She was able to run down U.S. Army records about his service thought lost, saw that he was awarded medals he earned long ago and collected any information she could find.

When she was helping her mother move in 2007, Epperly came across a letter dated Jan. 20, 1947, mailed by an Army buddy named Eddie L. Jones, whose life her father had helped to save.

"I've tried and tried to find Mr. Jones or somebody related to him," she said. "So far I haven't had any luck."

Few concrete memories

Reece Cummings was 24 and had a wife and young daughter when he was drafted in May 1944. He went off to Alabama for training and came home for a short visit that fall.

Epperly doesn't recall much -- she was too young to have many concrete memories -- but she does remember the visit because she was sick.

"I remember hearing his duffel bag hitting the floor when he came through the door and me asking him to scratch my chicken pox," she said. "That was the last time I saw him."

After that, memories blur. She remembers the telegrams her family received from the Army, and her grandfather taking the unusual step (for the time) of seeing that his son's body was returned home from his military grave in Holland. She also recalls attending his funeral and reburial more than a year after he was killed on March 24, 1945.

Her mother remarried, to a close family friend named Howard Rule, who also had fought in Europe. Rule completed the nuclear family, and provided a father figure. Soon Epperly had siblings, and life inexorably moved on.

"Howard was a wonderful man," she said. "I don't think I could have loved my dad any more than I loved my stepfather."

Treasured keepsakes

Epperly married and moved to Roanoke, Va. She filled a box with her father's things and kept it close through the years.

She has the last letter her dad mailed home, and a typewritten translation of a letter sent to her family by a Dutch girl who had tended her father's grave in Holland before his body was returned home.

Epperly kept the leather wallet her dad had with him when he died. It's extra special because Cummings carried a family photo and a locket of his wife's hair -- treasures Epperly keeps just as they were found.

She added to the collection after her retirement as she collected Army records and overdue military honors and medals -- including a Bronze Star awarded in October 2005.

Her biggest discovery came by accident when she found the letter from Eddie L. Jones of Washington Court House, Ohio. He had written to Cummings' family in 1947, but Epperly said her mom didn't remember the letter and probably forgot about it after stashing it in a drawer.

Epperly found it under the lining of a drawer while helping her mother move.

In it, Jones described Cummings as his closest buddy and a brave man. He told how Cummings had helped to carry him more than a mile to safety after Jones had been shot the morning of March 24, 1945, near the Rhine River.

"We all knew ours was coming, but never when," Jones wrote.

Jones was sent to a hospital in June 1945 and didn't learn until 1947 that his buddy had been killed later the same day that he'd been wounded, a fact that prompted him to write.

"I would like a lot to see his little girl," Jones wrote. "If there is anything I can ever do for her, please let me know. I know he would for me."

Preserving a bond

After finding the long-lost letter, Epperly knew that she had to try to find Jones or his family. She did some research and found a phone number for somebody at that same address in Ohio but not much more than that.

"I've sent letters to that address and a copy of a photo of them together," she said. "I call about once a month now. Somebody finally answered (Wednesday) but she wouldn't hear me out."

According to computer records, a 68-year-old man from Washington Court House, Ohio, named Eddie Jones died in March 1987. No exact date of death is listed, and Epperly can't locate any other obituary information. It was long before obituaries were recorded online. (Computer search and people-finder technology we have here didn't turn up much, either.)

Epperly figures that Jones has been dead for some time but she can't rest until she knows more. Another line in that same letter keeps her at it.

"You see, I have a boy that is 8 yrs. And 4 mos, myself," Jones wrote. "If you care to answer, please do."

All these years later, Epperly is trying to do just that. She knows she's not likely to succeed, but continuing to try helps preserve a bond between father and daughter that's still strong more than 64 years after Pfc. Reece Cummings was killed in action.

■ Scott Sexton can be reached at 727-7481 or at ssexton@wsjournal.com