Willard Randell Becraft
Sex: M
Individual Information
Birth: Cir 1926
Christening:
Death:
Burial:
Cause of Death:
AFN :
Events
• Event, 30 May 2005
I am saddened by the loss of these fine Americans who so much deserve our appreciation for their service. I offer my sincere condolences to all members of their families. Sixty years ago my brother was killed in the Battle of the Bulge. I arrived later in 1945 and so missed combat. Memorial Day is always a sad but special day of remembrance for me. A day to honor the fallen.• Event, Dedication of Bell, 2007 in Frenchburg, Menifee Co, KY
Willard Becraft (San Diego, CA )
http://www.frenchburg-alumni.net/Bell_Ceremony_Becraft.htm
2007 Bell Ceremony Remarks
by Willard Becraft, class of 1943
Greetings and Good Morning to you all! I am honored to be asked to say a few words at this dedication ceremony today.
I'll bet you have at two questions right off; Who is that old man up there?, and Why is he wearing that funny hat?
I'll answer the hat one first. My doctor just did three skin biopsies for me, all benign I'm happy to say, but he told me to keep my big bald head covered when in the sun.
And "That Old Man" graduated from FHS 64 years ago. This is my second school reunion, so I average one every 32 years. I will try to be back in 32 years to keep my average up, but whether I do or not I am sure that this fine bell memorial will be here looking just as nice as it is today.
We owe special thanks to Laveda Claudel, the guiding light for the whole project, to Patty and Merlin Spencer for getting the memorial built so well, to Roberta Daws for helping with the ceremony organization and emceeing, and to Bill Tolliver and Urban Gathman for their participation today. And to James Williams who painted a replica of the window over the main entrance to the school to be shown today. And, of course, to all of you who donated so generously to the construction of the memorial.
The old school bell is a great center piece for a memorial honoring the school and all the teachers who served and all the students who were served during the nearly fifty years. It rang out so many times during our school lives calling us to school, 6000-7000 times for the students who went through 12 years.
We all have many memories of the bell ringing. I remember that the first bell was the "get ready to come in, you have less than 10 minutes to play, to spoon, to skate, to hit a home run, etc. before the last bell" signal. When the last bell rang you should be in class, or in the cluster of students hurrying into the door. As long as there was not significant space between you and the person just in front you could be the last in the door and Miss Courter, from her guard post at the top of the first landing, could only frown at you. You had squeaked by again. You were not late. You were just held up by all those slow people trudging in ahead of you!
By the time I was in high school I remember having calibrated my walk-from-home-to-school times with the bell. Almost no one had a watch so we had to use other means to avoid being late to school. A key "milepost" for me was the "Frenchburg, Pop. 250" sign by the road just above Frog and Elsie Bashford's barn. If I made it to the sign by the time the first bell rang I could make it to the school door by the last bell.
Many times we wanted to be early to the campus, but not necessarily to the classroom. We wanted to play. Remember the cold mornings with snow on the sidewalks that we could pack down and skate on.
People would skate towards the bridge and then run back to get in line for more. When you were around 10 years old it was hard to get a turn and maybe, "accidentally", you might end up in the snow, without your "tokie" on! (Nowhere but at Frenchburg did I ever hear a knitted hat called that. I have since found that one spelling, French-Canadian, is tuque. And why did we use this French word? As Homer Simpson might say, "Well, DUH! You were in FRENCHburg school!")
When the first bell rang the skating intensity would increase and all would try to skate as much as possible. And by the time the last bell rang our mittens and tokies were a bit damp, to say the least. Then it's off to our classroom to hang up our coats in the cloakroom. (A Cloakroom! No one I knew had a cloakroom at home. A wardrobe, maybe, and a few hooks on the wall. And who had a cloak anyway other than some people in the bible pictures?) But now it's time to put our mittens and tokies (tuques, touques) on the radiators, sit down, and start our classes to the smell of wet wool drying.
So many waves of memories flow from the "first bell, last bell" that I was wondering while driving in today past the school (which I don't care to look at now) if we would be able to pick out our bell sound from a "bell lineup" with, say ten bells? It seems possible that thousands of such bell ringings might somehow imprint its unique sound in our brainbox.
Those whom this memorial honors
Each of you has chosen people or groups to honored by the memorial when you made your donations. The nice booklet prepared for today lists all of our choices. I now want to expand on individuals and groups that I deem worthy of special mention and provide some details that may be of interest. I suggest four groups:
1. Founders and Maintainers of the School
2. Teachers and Staff
3. Classmates, Family Members and Friends, and,
4. The Special Group Who Gave Their Lives for the Country.
Founders and Maintainers:
We would not be here today were it not for the Women's Missionary Society of the United Presbyterian Church of North America. These caring and doing women, mostly living in Pittsburgh, searched for an appropriate place for a mission school, found Frenchburg, negotiated with the local leaders and started the school in whose memory we meet today. My father, who was County Superintendent of Schools in the early thirties and, again, during the war when Shelby Kash was in the service, often reminded me that if Menifee wasn't the poorest county in Kentucky in the early 1900s it was a very strong competitor. And so the county had a tax base so low that it could not come close to supporting the building and maintenance of a school. The staffing of qualified high school teachers would also have been nearly impossible.Additionally the Women's Missionary Society established the hospital headed by Dr. Esther Mitchell and named after Jane Cook, a key leader in all matters related to Frenchburg. (Mae Sons told me she remembered Jane Cook coming from Pittsburgh to participate in graduations and often handing out the certificates though she was somewhat infirm and would have to remain sitting.)
These Pittsburgh families helped students in other ways to get into top schools and to host some in their homes. In 1937, and maybe before also, the basketball team was invited to Pittsburgh, traveling and playing games on the way there and back that were pre-arranged by the families. My brother Waldo still happily remembers details of his trip such as the fun they had at a dinner in one home where the hosts had trick glasses, spoons and such.
They traveled in a Cadillac that had been donated by a Pittsburgh family. That Cadillac was the mode of travel for the basketball team up through the 1939-40 school year. After that the transportation was a Country Squire with real wood paneling. It too could only carry seven players and the coach. If an away game was far, such as to Pikeville, our bench would look pretty small during the game \endash only the coach and the two substitute players!
So, all in all, I think we in Menifee lucked out by being in a county that was so tax poor! And as a result we are able to meet today and enjoy the good memories of our fruitful and happy school days.
I think you will agree with me that it will always be hard for any of us to contemplate this memorial without honoring the memory of those women and their families, as well as those in Menifee who helped, for bringing such a sound education opportunity to us and one built on a solid moral foundation.
Teachers and Staff:
Our teachers and staff were mostly college graduates which would have been a rarity in any of the nearby counties though the thirties, and maybe into the forties. And on the whole they were truly dedicated to our education. They came from distances that seemed quite far in the 20's and 30's especially when roads were often quite poor. Some had served at missions overseas before they come to Frenchburg. I had two at least who were in Khartoum before. And they worked for low pay as agreed to with the Women's Missionary Society. My father said the county helped by paying the teachers. He would write checks to each teacher who would then endorse them over to the UP church. The UP church would then prepare a check for the agreed amount for the teacher. Dad was not privy to these exact amounts but he understood that they were less than what he had written.
As with any group of teachers there was a spectrum of capability, some on the quality end and some who we would have been happy not to see the next year. I remember that the low quality ones we did get from time to time were, indeed, sent back to the minor leagues pretty soon.
I think we all had our favorites, most often the easier ones while in school! But I found that as the years after graduation passed (the war years in my case) I became more convinced that my favorite teachers were the ones that had been hard and wouldn't take any guff. For me they included Martha Baird, 1st & 2nd grade, Miss Kester 8th grade, Mrs Cowden, Senior English and Latin, and Miss Courter, math and physics.
Miss Baird always had a sticks, tambourines, and triangles band. If you played well you could advance from sticks to triangle, the 'top rung of musical virtuosity" in the band. She played the piano. This was the first time I ever heard the "Toreador Song" from Carmen or the "Triumphal March" from Aida. Many years would pass before I knew the origin of the music she played. I still think of her whenever I hear that music. She also had a very effective method of shaping you up if you got out of line. She would have you up front and talk to you while holding your chin up with her finger. I can personally vouch for how well it worked.
Miss Courter is certainly the teacher who was most helpful to me in my career. She increased my interest in the subjects and pushed me hard to excel. And I did finish as high as second in one class - but it was an advanced math class with only two students, Mabel Smallwood, our valedictorian and me!
Over the years I have tried to learn more about Miss Courter's history, other than that she was the longest serving teacher at FHS, 22 years. I knew she was originally from Iowa. But that was the extent of my knowledge.
Recently I have learned that she was the seventh child of Peter Courter, who was born in New Jersey after the Civil Was, and Martha Belle Lee, who, to my surprise was born in Mason County near Maysville. One can speculate how they met, married and made it to Iowa. I like to think that he was working his way west to settle and during a stint in Maysville before starting down river again, they met and, as they say, "The rest is history".
Miss Courter was given her mother's maiden name as her middle name. (Mae Raney Sons told me after my talk that her family had learned that they were related to Miss Courter and that she visited with them quite a bit over the years. They kept it relatively quiet because of the potential for claims of favoritism at school.)
Miss Courter grew up on a farm in Winfield Township within 100 miles of Illinois and Missouri. Her sister went to Mt. Pleasant High School so I assume she did too.
The Courters were members of the UP Church of North America and, speculating now, they sent Miss Courter 70 miles north to Cedar Rapids to attend Coe College also established by the UP Church of North America.
The last notice I found of her in that area was of a gathering of family and friends in 1928 to see her off to Cairo, Egypt! Very likely she went for a year or so to Khartoum where the UP church had a mission.
And then, in 1931, she comes to Frenchburg to serve as Principal and part-time teacher for the next 22 years. She retired in 1953 and died in Iowa in 1963. Her funeral services were held in the Winfield Presbyterian Church where she was a lifetime member. She is buried in the Winfield Scott Cemetery. (History buffs will note that General Winfield Scott must have been well thought of around those parts.)
I last saw Miss Courter in 1951 when I took my fiancé to see the school and meet Miss Courter. My wife is from Pike County and is a Berea College graduate. So she went through Frenchburg many times on the Greyhound going to and from Berea. She had admired the campus many times and remembered others on the bus talk about the "college" and wanted to visit it.
Looking back now, admittedly with nostalgia, I think of the meeting as between a very important person in my early life and the most important person in the rest of my life.
Each of us has a favorite teacher(s) to remember and honor. For me Miss Courter was definitely at the highly qualified end of the teaching spectrum we experienced and I shall always honor her memory when I think of this memorial.
Classmates, Family Members and Friends:
It was very understandable to note in the booklet that so many of the dedications made by the memorial contributors were to classmates. We all made so many strong friendships through the school years, especially because of the smallness of the classes and increased opportunity to be together and share experiences.
Our graduating class of 1943 had only eight members. My father said that was the smallest since before WWI. Imagine if you can how difficult it was to find a senior play for eight people, and only eight people. And it had to include five female and three male roles! We did it and I think the play went over OK. I can still remember one line I had, "Go, and never darken my door again!'' Aren't you happy I don't remember more? Well, yes, it wouldn't have been nominated for a Tony \emdash or anything else, probably. But we had a good time doing it.
Of our eight graduating class members, four started at the school in the first grade, Eula Cope, Oleta Cannoy, Buck Lyons, and I. And the other four averaged nearly eight years attendance in the school. Three are no longer with us, Eula Cope, Oleta Cannoy and Vernon Brewer. Buck has honored them by dedicating his memorial contribution in their name.
We try to stay in touch with each other. Recently I was talking to Anna Lou and she commented about how we were, indeed, like a small family. And we further agreed that, like some families, we, too, had a black sheep in our little group, but we promised never to tell anyone his name!
Special Group \emdash Those who Gave Their Lives for Their Country:
The last of the four categories I named earlier, and the one that deserves special consideration and honor, consists of those who fought and died for their country. We lost 44 in all form Menifee during WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It is not known how many were students at Frenchburg School.
I have tried to remember all the students who died in WWII but I fear I may have overlooked some. Forgive me if I did and be assured that any such omissions are sincerely regretted. In such case, please consider these six as representative. My brothers and I were good friends with these servicemen and knew their families very well. I cover them in the order of the date of their deaths.
Among the earliest that we knew to enlist in WWII were the twins, Robert and Paul Cope. They joined the US Navy and, after basic training were assigned to the aircraft carrier, USS Hornet. This carrier left San Diego in early 1942 with 16 Army B-25 bombers and crews on board.
These bombers and crews were the force led by Jimmy Doolittle to deliver the first bombing of Tokyo in April 1942.
Later, in September, the Hornet was sunk in a battle trying to keep Japanese reinforcements and supplies from reaching Guadacanal. The Copes died in that battle on September 26. They are both memorialized at the American Cemetery in Manila.
Forrest Cope was a good friend of our family, as was his whole family. He served in the Army Air Corps in Europe, flying out of England, as a gunner, a S/Sgt, in a B-17. The B-17s were used mainly for the especially dangerous daylight bombing while the British bombers concentrated on night bombing runs. Forrest's plane did not return from a mission in December 1943 and was listed as FOD (flight over due). He is memorialized in the American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands as having been lost on 11 December 1943.
Bruce Amburgey, of the Newt Amburgey family, was a PFC in the Marines and fought in some of the heaviest fighting in the Pacific and killed in action on September 19, 1944. We are not sure of the battle in which he was killed but it is very likely the battle for the island of Peleliu that started on September 15, 1944 and involved two full divisions of marines. Many casualties occurred. Bruce is memorialized in the American Cemetery in Manila.
Clayton Barker and I were the same age and he was a good friend. We played together often when we were boys. He lived over the hill from us on Tolan creek and I could easily walk there when I was 8-10 years old. His father, Alvin Barker, was the only barber in town. Haircut, 25 cents! His door had his name and "barber, etc." but at the bottom was "Come In, U R Next". I thought that "U R" was neat \endash or whatever our word for neat was in the 1930s!
Clayton was drafted into the army and became a part of the Combat Engineers, those men who had to build river bridges so the infantrymen could cross. And while being fired on! He was killed in action in France, after his company had almost made it to Germany, on November 19, 1944.
The last in my list of special remembrances is my brother Walter who killed in action eleven days after Clayton and likely less than fifty miles away. Walter was my next older brother and so we were very close and I looked up to him. His last letter to me, a V-mail letter that servicemen used that consisted of one piece of paper that was ready to fold and seal with the message inside. No stamps were needed. His letter to me was dated November 27, 1944. He was killed three days later.
In that letter he encouraged me to try for assignments other than the infantry, which was his branch. He specifically mentioned the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) that sent soldiers to college to study medicine and engineering because the government was concerned that there would be a severe shortage of these professions after the war because of the total draft.
When I received his letter I was in at West Virginia University where I had just arrived in early December having been chosen to study electrical engineering in the ASTP. I have always been convinced and thankful that FHS prepared me so well, in particular Miss Courter in math and physics, that I was able to do well enough in the tests and so avoid being sent along with my infantry training company that joined the fighting in the ETO just after the Battle of the Bulge. Walter never even knew I had been selected to take the tests that got me into the program. I so wish I hadn't lost the letter.
Walter is buried in the American cemetery in Belgium about thirty miles from where he was killed in a battle trying to cross a small river on the approach to Cologne. I have been able to visit his grave a number of times over the years starting with my first visit in 1946 while stationed in France. These six schoolmates of ours who died so young are representative of all those from the school who died in the service of their country. They deserve, I believe, a special place of honor in our minds when we meditate on this memorial and think of the blessings we received as students of Frenchburg School.
Thank you for having me here today to talk with you. I am honored to be on the program. And it is always nice to be home again!
Parents
Father: Green Irvin Becraft
Mother: Willie Cora Miles 2
Spouses and Children
1. *Pauline Sloan
Children:
1. Lynne Becraft
2. Amy Becraft
3. Myra Becraft
Sources
1. http://www.snowscomputer.com/Close/Generations/Generation5.htm.
2. Findagrave.com, Flora Becraft, wife of Irvine 1892-1967.