21Country: Woodburn WWII Veteran celebrates 102nd birthday
WOODBURN, Ind. (WPTA) - Most newscasts are made up of stories about crime, world leaders, and celebrities, but it seems genuine history is written by people whose names will soon be forgotten by the world.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to build a town. It takes people who work hard, raise their families, live quiet lives, never get rich, and are usually forgotten in history like the kind of people that built Woodburn, Indiana.
In 1922, Melvin Ehresman came into this world. The son of a Woodburn farmer, Ehresman spent his childhood planting and plowing fields by horse.
In 1942, he was drafted and sent to Europe to fight in World War II. Ehresman says he spent about three years in war-torn Britain. His last sight of Europe was from a B-17 bomber flying over the destruction and chaos below.
Ehresman returned home from the war and eventually raised a family of his own before spending 35 years delivering mail and helping usher his hometown, through good times and bad, into the 21st century.
He said he had seen many things change in the world and firmly believes the younger generations will see even more change in their lifetimes.
Melvin Ehresman turns 102 this summer, one of the last of a generation that saw the world change in ways most people today cannot even imagine, and did their best to give those of us who followed a fighting chance.
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