The recent passing of my Grandmother, Veronica Hoschette (pronounced Ho-Shay), has inspired me to undertake a project I have been postponing for years. Her husband, my maternal grandather, died when I was four years old, and because of this I have very few memories of Vernon. I have heard many stories about Vernon throughout the years, most of which center around his remarkable sense of humor. My father maintains to this day that the two funniest people he's ever met are Vernon Hoschette, and Vernon Hoschette after a few Brandy 7's. My mother maintains that he's one of the kindest souls who ever lived.
Whatever the case, what most interests me about my Grandpa Vernon is his service to our country in World War II. There's a whole host of rumors as to what transpired while he was serving abroad, and many of them conflict. One story has it that he took a flights suit off of a dead Nazi. One story has him holed up in a French castle for months, surviving off of SPAM and rum. Yet another story has him lying on his belly in the mud for months on end, advancing only inches per day through the Italian front. Which stories are true?
Fortunately for me, Vernon grew up during the Great Depression. Born on June 12, 1918 in St. Paul, MN, he was 11 years old on Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929), meaning he was an adolescent when the Depression started. One attribute common to almost all Depression-era children is a universal appreciation for the little things in life. Vernon's family was by no means wealthy, and the Depression taught Vernon to save everything and waste nothing. He kept anything he laid his hands on while he was abroad and brought it home with him. And thanks to his wife Veronica's similar appreciation for all things material, those memories were preserved for close to six decades.
In 2002 Veronica sold the house she had lived in for over 40 years, and it was when my whole family was helping clean out her house that I found these war memories underneath a stairwell. I brought them upstairs to share with everyone, and not a single person expressed an interest. One relative even quipped, "What would I want with a bunch of dusty old pictures? You can have them." So I did just that - I kept them.
Well to make a long story short, I've decided to finally do what I had hoped to eight years ago - I'm creating a digital record of every picture, postcard, letter, pamphlet, etc. to share with anyone who might be interested. My hope is to put everything into a complete volume and print a few copies for friends and family when I'm finished. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, however, I'm also able to share my findings as they happen. I encourage all to feel free to ask me questions or offer useful advice as I go. I'm not a professional archivist, and this project can be said to be amateur in the most generous sense of the term.
