He was killed in Southern France in February 1945. She was 11 months old at the time. She had been trying to locate it for quite some time and had been running into brick walls.

      She got on GITrace and they referred her to me. I was in the same squadron, the 522nd squadron of the 27th Fighter Bomber Group. I did not know him as he came into the squadron after I had returned from combat. She then contacted me through my website.

      She sent me the very small amount of information she had. It indicated that his remains had been repatriated, probably to Hidalgo County in Texas. So I Googled Hidalgo County and then Cemeteries. There were 46 cemeteries, only half of them documented. It did not seem this was going to be a fruitful avenue.

      I decided to go the publicity route, so I Googled Hidalgo County and tried to get the major newspaper in the area. This turned out to be "The Monitor" in Edinburg TX.

      I called one of the higher ups, probably the City Editor as I recall. I gave him the human interest angle to her quest and he bought it. He assigned it to one of the reporters, Sara Perkins. She made a number of telephone and e-mail contacts with me and with Loraine. Then she wrote a nice story.

      Later we heard the story about Mike Fabian and his wife. She was reading that issue of the Monitor, encountered the article and read it. She hollered to Mike in the next room saying something to the effect that the story sounded like it was talking about his uncle Billy! And so it was. From then on it unraveled rapidly.

      It turned out they knew where the grave was and there was a Texas bunch of cousins!

      She was eager to fulfill her quest and perhaps a little nervous about coming alone. We had been corresponding on e-mail so she flew to our home for a preliminary visit.

      My wife and I took her on a little trip, first to Yosemite National Park to see the Big Trees, etc. Then we took her to San Francisco since she had mentioned that her husband had enjoyed Fisherman's Wharf before.

Yosemite and San Francisco

      Time to bite the bullet. Loraine and I flew to Laredo, rented a car and drove down to a small town by Harlingen called San Benito. We were royally treated by the cousins. I wore the uniform to make Billy's presence a bit more solid.

      They took us out to the cemetery at Raymondsville. Loraine finally had her contact with her father's grave and at long last had a bit of closure! We accompanied them to one of their homes and had a great gabfest and she spent a time going through their scrapbooks and photo albums.

      Loraine has sent me two pictures she took while we were in California. We took her to one of our mega-discount warehouses, Costco. And there was a piano and I've never seen a piano that I didn't want to try out!

      And in Texas she took a picture of me with one of her new cousins, Becky.

      I have received the names in the picture along with the Russell genealogy which I place here. The numbers show the location of the people in the picture.

                                       And Loraine, here's your new family!