Veteran’s day always brings to mind two people from my family from long ago.
My great-great aunt Rosie (Vada North Bratton) whose birthday would have been today I believe. And her oldest brother Ray.
William Ray Bratton was born at the turn of the 20th century. He was 17 years old when he joined the army to go off and fight in World War I. He grew up in an age in Charlotte’s history and national history when the streets were filled with streetcars and the air was full of idealistic, naive patriotism. So full was his idealism and craving for adventure, that against his parents wishes he lied about his age (by one year) and went off to war. Their first-born son (their first-born daughter Ruby had died at 2 of scarlet fever) would find himself a mechanic in trench warfare. He eventually was shot in France and died because of an infection. His body was buried in France, and some very kind nurse there took a lock of his hair and mailed it along with a letter back to his mom, Annie Bratton. His body was later moved from France, and it is now in the overflow World War I section of Arlington National Cemetery.
His life…was largely forgotten. Parent’s consumed by grief I figure, and the next eldest sibling Page (a few years younger) I don’t think talked about the brother who had sent the family at least one telegraph seeing how everyone was and wondering how young Page was doing with girls. He wasn’t really remembered until one afternoon sitting in a house off Queens Road in Charlotte. His younger siblings (my great-greats) Paige and Dolly (Johnsie May) had passed away. Rosie (Vada North) was left as we went through and cleaned out the house of Dolly’s belongings. Somewhere in the process a box in a hallway was found….with a 48 star flag. Who on earth in our family would have a 48 star flag we asked? Though I remember it vaguely, I suppose my grandmother and Rosie put together the pieces of the story.
Then came out Ray’s identification wallet, a large oval portrait taken with him in his uniform….and the metal markings from his casket from it being shipped from France to Arlington.
I had the honor of growing up knowing his siblings….Aunt Rosie who always had an amazing sense of fashion and Aunt Dolly who was an incredible cook. his brother Paige who was tall and quiet, but always had a Hershey chocolate bar for his great-great niece. His brother Fred, and Jack who was by far the most amazing great-grandfather I could have ever had and whose love of golf was unsurpassed. But that day…sitting on the white couch that no generation dared get its feet on…I got to know a man I’d never met. Those artifacts from his life drove a passion for history in me, and a passion for oral history so that perhaps another life wouldn’t be placed in a box like his.
I have spent a life time studying war and history and believe that no matter what you believe about war or patriotism, the final cost of war is not just a life that is lost…but generations of lives that are touched from that loss.
If you are or know a Veteren, seek out a local or national oral history project to record their experiences and memories. Or simply find a recorder or a video camera, and ask them to tell their story. Generations from now will appreciated it very much indeed.
