By Tina Lesher
Several weeks ago, our daughter Melissa received a message through Facebook from a Deborah Townsend who asked if Melissa was the granddaughter of Christian Lesher, who was killed in February 1945 in the Philippines.
Melissa immediately replied that indeed her father, my husband John, is the son of Christian C. Lesher who was killed in battle in Luzon during World War II when John was 16 months old. Christian Lesher, who died on his 29th birthday, never had a chance to see his only child.
Deborah is married to my husband John’s first cousin, Gerry Townsend. In September, Gerry’s mother, Georgia Lesher Townsend, passed away at age 98. She was the younger sister of John’s father.
The Lesher family resided in Reading, Pa., where John was born in late 1943. But he and his mother moved out to other Pennsylvania towns when John was young and his connections to the Lesher side of the family plummeted over the years So he really did not know his Aunt Georgia or her children.
Deborah Townsend was in search of John’s contact numbers to inform him that Aunt Georgia for years had been in possession of the American flag given to Christian Lesher’s family after he died in the line of duty. Now his cousins wanted John to have that flag.
John was a bit flummoxed as he recalled that the government had presented his mother with a flag shortly after her spouse’s death. She gave that flag to St. Joseph’s School in Ashland, Pa. when John was a student there in the early grades. The flag flew over the school.
So how could there still be a flag, wondered John.
Then he remembered that, at the request of the Lesher family, his father’s body was disinterred and brought back from the Philippines for burial in Reading. John was about 4 years old at the time and has vague memories of being at the cemetery for the ceremonies. No doubt the casket was covered with a U.S. flag that apparently was given to John’s grandmother, Anna Brennan Lesher. When she died, the flag wound up with her children, eventually in the hands of her daughter Georgia, and after the latter’s recent death, with her offspring.
Indeed John was thrilled that he would have the flag that represented the sacrifice made by his father, who served in the Medic Corps and was helping others when he lost his life.
Thus, earlier this week Melissa and I accompanied John to the Hotel Bethlehem in Pennsylvania where three long-lost cousins---children of Aunt Georgia—hosted a luncheon and presented John with the flag that they had encased in a traditional triangular box. John brought along some memorabilia that he had inherited from his late mother, including medals and a letter from a chaplain who knew Christian Lesher. The cousins gave John photos of his dad and a book detailing the history of the military unit in which he served. They all swapped stories they knew about the family, too.
John was grateful for the chance to reconnect with cousins and to receive, 73 years after his father’s death, such a special flag.
Since we have a 25-foot flag pole outside our Westfield home, John plans to fly that flag on appropriate occasions like Memorial Day or Veterans Day, in memory of the father he never knew and the many thousands who have died for this country.
No doubt it will be the lone 48-star flag flying in town.