On her way to a bridal shower in Connecticut, Jani Fox of Athol, MA was already running late When she stopped at Wal-Mart in Hadley for wrapping paper. She dashed into the store, intent on her purchase, yet came to a halt just inside the door because something caught her eye. It was the word "Yorktown" spelled out on a poster in an exhibit of World War II memorabilia.
Although it was before she was born, she knew her great-uncle had served on the Yorktown, an aircraft carrier. She also knew he had been killed in battle, and the family never had definitive information about the circumstances.
On a whim, she asked the man tending to the display, "Did you know Norman Pichette?" Indeed, he did. Peter E. Karetka of Chicopee, who was using the display to raise funds for a World War II memorial, had been a witness to Pichette's bravery and death. Fox and Karetka both became emotional, "I had to turn away," said Karetka of his unsuccessful bid to hide welling tears.
The encounter brought him back to harsh moments of the war, and it gave Fox the sense that her elderly relatives, particularly Pichette's sister, Margaret Walkama, were finally about to get closure. |
