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Much progress was made and some avenues had very happy endings. Another one did not, for a family did not want to be involved.

Below is a letter from a woman in the United States who assisted Catherine with her quest:

Hi Marion, yes I remember I told Catherine that she could give you my contact information and I consider her my good friend and grateful to her for taking care of the graves of our soldiers. My father was WWI and my two oldest brothers were WWII, Korea and Vietnam, and WWII; I am the youngest of five, so I have been very involved with our veterans in our community.

 

When Catherine started looking for family members of Julian Melendrez. I was an elected official at the time. She emailed the "City Council" and I just happened to be at my computer when her email came through. "Melendrez"" is a well-known name here in Las Cruces, NM, and I was born and raised here, so I thought it would be an easy task to find the relatives, most of the Melendrez's lived in my neighborhood where I grew up. Very long story short - he was not related to any of them! It took many, many calls to finally find Julian's daughter who lived in California; her older and only brother had recently passed away and neither one knew their dad was buried in Normandy. They were about 3 and 4 years when their father left for WWII, Julian was drafted and she remembered following him outside as he tried to leave that night, and he picked her up and took her back in the house. Their mother, common law wife of Julian, told them he just never came back from the war. It was all very emotional. The newspaper here picked up the story and the entire community knew about Julian and his daughter and her family. We invited them to visit Las Cruces and in the process found other relatives here that she didn't about it, so it turned out a beautiful family reunion.

 

MARION's NOTE: I elected to remove this section for privacy's sake for the Kashula's

 

I think Catherine just wants to be very careful that we don't hurt anyone in our search.

 

Thank you for what you do; you too must have some very interesting stories.

 

Dolores C. Archuleta

Mayor Pro-tem emeritus

City of Las Cruces

It absolutely breaks my heart to think he has no living relatives, no photos, no stories, and the only thing remaining is a name etched on a stone cross.

It absolutely breaks my heart to think he has no living relatives, no photos, no stories, and the only thing remaining is a name etched on a stone cross.

We're talking about him now so I suppose he isn't totally forgotten. It is sad to think about the servicemen who were lost without anyone to carry on their memory.

It absolutely breaks my heart to think he has no living relatives, no photos, no stories, and the only thing remaining is a name etched on a stone cross.

There is a town in France that wants to build a memorial to him and they would like a family member to attend the dedication.

I am a researcher for the Lacey-Davis Foundation, which works with several European organizations to remember the fallen. It is best explained here: http://www.lacey-davisfoundation.org/ansa.html

If you scroll to the bottom of that page, you can see Catherine Meunier and a picture of one of her soldiers.

The French towns are doing this on a local level. Previous memorials can be seen here: http://www.lacey-davisfoundation.org/Pilots-Soldiers-Monuments.html

Right now, we are looking for the family of George Kashula, not only to get a picture for Catherine Meunier but in hopes of having a family member attend the dedication of his memorial.

If a family member can not attend, the foundation will video it and provide a DVD.

I notice that a previous post mentioned removing some information for the sake of the Kashula’s privacy. If this involved family members who do not wish to be involved, please let me know which ones so I can avoid contacting them again.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide

MMG

MMG - I am going to send you Dolores email addy and you can contact her directly.