A Short History of Two Extraordinary Lives

This project came together through a compilation of family genealogy, Kathleen's memoirs, old family letters, notebooks, calendars, photographs, and oral history interviews that uncover the story of Henry and Kathleen's lives. Their lives began in the late 1920s, when they lived out their childhoods during the challenging Great Depression. As the outbreak of World War II began, their families survived more hardship, loss, and grief that led both to their service in the Second World War, one as a factory worker in a defense plant and the other as a Private in the U.S. Army. Finally, as WWII ended, fate brought them together, and they began to forge a beautiful family and life together, resulting in a fifty-eight-year marriage that left an enduring family legacy and tells of the hardships and endurance of these two members of the Greatest Generation.