| Notes |
- Excerpted from "The Melia Family" by Kay Melia
"The oldest son of Jessie and Glen was Kenneth, who graduated from Bucklin Hight School, and Kansas State University. Kenneth went into the Army at the beginning of World War II and became a tank commander. He was in that tank on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. His tank was destroyed by the Germans when Kenneth had gotten as far as onshore. He was standing in the turrett to see throgh the smoke and battle explosions, was blown out and severerly injured and subsequently taken prisoner. He regained enough alertness to bury his dog tags so that he would not known to be an officer, and later was moved by boxcar to a prison camp somewhere in Germany, where he would spend the rest of the war, a total of 18 months. At war's end, he returned home, married his college sweetheart, Lavonne, had a couple of boys, and became deeply involved in agricultural education. He was a County Ag Agent in Rice county for awhile, and eventually became involved with the Colorado Agriculture Department, where he would spend many years while living in Ft. Collins. His two sons were raised there, and both of them and their families are still living in the Denver/FtCollins area. Kenneth and Lavonne could be found every winter in the south of Arizona in their beautiful Silver Stream home. Lavonne passed away in 1999, and Kenneth Died in 2001, in Tuscon and lived to be 82 and was certainly a shining example of Tom Brokow's "Greatest Generation."
|
1919 - 2001 (82 years)
: Address
: Location
: City/Town
: County/Shire
: State/Province
: Country
: Not Set