Growing Up in Williamsport, Ohio

Denny Jackson
 
Williamsport was a little, big town with people to take care of you from birth to death. C.E. Hill was the undertaker and an insurance agent. Convenient to have an undertaker and insurance agent to be the same person don’t you think?
 
When Betty and I went home from school in the afternoon, we often walked by Mr. Hill’s house which was also his establishment. It was so nice in autumn because he had a buckeye tree hanging over the fence. Some of the buckeyes fell on the front sidewalk. We always picked up as many buckeyes as we could and filled our pockets. Some years later, I had to visit there to see one of my classmates who had met with a tragic death.
 
Denny Jackson was in my class at school. He didn’t graduate with me. I don’t know if he went elsewhere or went into the Army. He was tall, lanky and always happy. He was a fun and loving kind of guy.
 
He joined the army and was sent to Germany. While there, he was crossing a railroad track when a train roared by. He waited for it to pass then crossed the track not realizing that another train was coming in the opposite direction on an adjacent track. He was hit by the train.
 
He was sent to the funeral home in a glassed-in coffin. I went to see him. Half of his face had been reconstructed with wax.  The Army did a good job and he looked honorable and like himself. I was proud to have known him. If you want to pay respect to him this Veteran’s Day, he is buried in Williamsport’s Springlawn Cemetery.
 
As the song by Billy Ray Cyrus goes, “All gave some, some gave all”. Denny Jackson gave all. May God bless and keep all of our military men and women.

©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020
Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck