Honoring Dad on Memorial Day 2008

The following is an article written by my Mom last year when she participated in a request for survivors of veterans to submit their stories. I thought this was appropriate to reproduce here on Memorial Day 2008.

I am the widow of Captain Fred T. Cherry, who spent forty-four months serving his country several places in the United States and several countries in Europe.

We were both born in Oklahoma. I was Virginia Pearl Salyer. We met for coffee in my parents’ home in Overton, Texas, where Fred was sent as the new engineer for the British American Oil Company, my father’s employer also. It was in the spring of 1936. That night Fred met me at my place of employment to take me home. We were married in January of 1937.

Fred graduated from Okmulgee High School, an outstanding athlete. He made the all-state football team when only eleven men were chosen. He was also a record-breaking track sprinter on both his high school and Oklahoma University football and track teams. He was The Oklahoman’s football team’s star end for three years, making headlines consistently. He was also in R.O.T.C.

He continued working for the oil company until his superintendent told him he would have to quit “preaching” or resign. Fred was devoted to sharing his faith with all with whom he talked. So, he resigned. During the time of his unemployment our second child was born.

Don McBride, who was employed by Robert S. Kerr, was a good friend of Fred’s. He placed Fred in a filing clerk job at the state capitol. His salary was the same as his high school job as a “soda jerk” in his father’s drugstore. Soon he was appointed to an engineering position with the state’s Water and Resources Division, where he worked until he was called into active duty, leaving me with our now three children.

After a time at the proving ground in Maryland, he was assigned to the munitions plant in Carbondale, Illinois, to be there for the duration. So we moved to Marion, Illinois. In less than a year the age limit was lowered for overseas duty. In less than ten days Fred was gone again. I returned to Texas to be near my family, driving 672 miles in one day. Fred spent a short time in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and another assignment in Needles, California, for desert training. Our fourth child was born during this time.

I traveled by train to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to be with Fred a few days prior to his immediate departure for overseas duty.

He landed in France, was in London during “the Blitz” where he was assigned to a high-rise flat, that was bombed so heavily that had he been there, he might not have returned. His equipment was heavily damaged. He talked little of that year, but spoke of his time in London and Belgium, where he was during the Battle of the Bulge.

Fred was assigned to the Ordnance Corps, the army of supply, which placed him ahead of the troops. He was assigned a jeep and he named it “John 3:16.” He was disturbed that so many American soldiers didn’t know that was a favorite Bible verse. At one point in Belgium he and his sergeant vacated the jeep for the ground beneath it to avoid the strafing of an approaching plane.

Families shipped food to their loved ones, baking favorites. He wrote me of sharing a chicken I had pressured in a gallon bucket and shipped to him in Belgium. He shared it with a priest on Christmas Day in a Belgium monastery.

Fred was assigned to the Army of Occupation following D-Day. He spoke of helping German families with food supplies, especially buckets of peanut butter.

Later, a friend told him he spotted his jeep in a stockpile in Germany.

On his return Fred was appointed Assistant Park Director with the state, where he worked for five years. Churches were inviting Fred to speak. When I asked him what he would do when he couldn’t fill all requests and keep his state job, he said he would resign, which he did, again, with no assurance of employment scheduled.

By then we had four more children. He was already in Arkansas preaching a revival meeting, so he became a Baptist evangelist and preached twenty years all over the United States and up into Canada. We sold our home in Oklahoma City and moved to the country, south of Edmond, into an old log and rock house where I still live.

We had three more children bringing our total to eleven. My parents moved to Oklahoma and were near to help with our one shy of a dozen children.

Fred never required an honorarium for his preaching though he was asked frequently. He told pastors who invited him to just let the people give as they felt led. Only one time did we run out of money, as I remember. I asked our two older children to pray our need would be supplied, and in a day or two we received a check from Fred. In those days churches scheduled two-week meetings. This was the only time a church took an offering midway in a revival meeting. Sometimes offerings only paid his expenses, like one small church in California only gave him enough to pay his train fare.

Fred had a fatal heart attack in Texas during a revival meeting in 1970.

I continue living in our old country home we bought in 1950. It is requiring many repairs, but the children help me with needs. In a few weeks I will be 90 years old. I have 42 grandchildren and 86 great grandchildren. I feel sure Fred would be proud of the family he fought to protect.

As for me, I claim the old saying I heard years ago, “My life is a bowl of cherries.” My bunch is requiring a bigger bowl real often.