Elmer (Junior) Sherritt

I have a lovely story to record right now. It all came from me asking about a bracelet which I've had in my jewellery box for many years. I knew that someone had given it to me at some point but I couldn't remember who. So I took this weekend up at mum and dads as an opportunity to ask. I love this sort of thing. And this is what I found out.

The bracelet belonged to my Grannie and she laughed when I described it to her. It's made up of thrupences with holes drilled in them and metal links put through.

'There's a funny story to this one,' she said. "It was given to me by Elmer Sherritt - Junior they called him and he got someone in the Works to make it for me."

During the war, Wolverton Works (previously making railway carriages) began to make airplane wings and stuff for the war effort and they also housed a large number of Americans who had just come over to England and were being trained up. 'Railroaders' they were called as they were US signaling corps and all to do with getting railways built and operational. Elmer was one such American. He was around 18 and Gran was 16 and his friends dared him to ask her to dance at one of the local dances.

"He did too," Gran said. "But he couldn't dance very well! He was tall and thin and very very shy, a real country boy from Ohio where they hunted frogs. Mum loved him as he was so quiet and polite"

Apparently he had two sisters, one of whom was called Dotty and Gran exchanged letters with her for quite a while. Gran said that he'd got someone in the Works to make the bracelet for her. In those days this sort of thing was very common to get them made, especially in the Works where they had all the right equipment.

"He died during the war," Gran said. "Well I expect he did as they went over to France before D-Day sorting out the railways and stuff over there and just about all of them died, none came back."

What a wonderful story - I treasure all the jewellery that's been given to me by relatives over the years but this bracelet is even more special now that I know its story and that it was specially made for my Gran. How wonderful!

As an additional note to this story, I've been doing some research today (it's brilliant not working ha ha!) and found the following link to the US WW2 Memorial site where Elmer has been added by Dorothy Martin - who I presume is sister Dotty. I can't make out if he died or not as it seems to indicate that he was a veteran rather than a casualty. I've also searched the lists of missing and killed for WW2 Americans and his name hasn't appeared to me on them at all. So I'm hoping that our Elmer had a happy ending and returned home to Vinton, Gallia County in Ohio. God bless you Elmer.
http://www.wwiimemorial.com/registry/search/plaq.asp?HonoreeID=125173&addhonoreeid=&preview=