HI John B..More letters coming..Last Updated 03.06.02 1135C Hrs More information and photos needed
Email DH

---

Boeckmann, George Edward, 2nd Lt. 0-721428

---

(A Dot Meacham 3900 Haven Dr. had a glossy print, 1944)

---

Larry and Vi Carpenter , Estes Park CO have been responsible for researching the following information. We are very grateful to them both.

---

	Question	Information
	Last Name	Boeckmann
	Firstname	George
	Middlename	Edward
	Nickname, if any	"Sonny"
	Date of birth
	Month	12
	Day	5
	Year	1923
	Place of birth	Charlotte NC
	Name of parents	Sue F and Edward Boeckmann
	Nationality
	Mother's maiden name	Sue Farlow Read her interesting bio below
	Number of brothers	1
	Number of sisters	1
	His order of birth
	High School attended	Sharon H S Valedictorian
	Year of graduation	?
		North Carolina State
	Year of graduation	? Worked for TVA prior to service
	Date entered service	Exact date unknown He was age 17
	Was Airmen married at time of death	No
	Engaged	Yes
	If yes to either, to whom
	Is this person still living
	How might I contact this person
	Date of marriage
	Were there any children born of this marriage
	Names of children
	Where are they living now
	Names of brothers and sisters	Nancy Kirk and John
	Are photographs of subject available to be copied
	Town where buried
	Name of cemetery	Sharon Memorial Park
	What do you remember most about this man
	Duty stations	Miami FL, SW Uni, Memphis TN, San Antonio TX, Sherman Field, TX Wings, Foster Field Texas April 1944, Bruning Field NE

---

The following Emails, Telephone conversations, Letters and newspaper clippings, contain the stories that creates those great emotions. Feelings that makes one feel good about people, our country and ourselves.
Last statement not very P C, Sorry about that...dh

---

Item
Item
Item
Item

---

Locating and obtaining information from relatives has been accomplished by Larry and Vi Carpenter, Estes Park Colo.

---

---

03.05.02 1300hrs C

---

Telecon John Beckman ? Larry Carpenter
Wed. Feb. 2, 2000
I had left a message on the recorder Sunday telling John of my reason for calling. Other attempts to reach him failed until today.

We talked at length. I learned the death of George "Sonny" Edward Boeckmann affected the family greatly. There had been three children. George was the elder son (age 20 when killed), born ca 1924. Jo1m was 7 years younger than his brother was and because he was the sole surviving son he was spared military service. A sister was 10 years older than John (born ca 1922). .

The sister suffered deep emotional scars that affected her physical wellbeing. John seemed to feel the news of the Naper 28 project would be a wonderful thing for his sister. John himself underwent therapy. It wasn't until just a few years ago, after extensive therapy, that John could speak of his brother without breaking into tears. .

John described his brother as his "hero" whom he felt obligated to live up to. Sonny was very hard working and won a scholarship to North Carolina State. .

Sonny was engaged at the time of his death. His fiance didn't marry for years afterwards, but eventually did and has a family. .

Like the brother of Lt. Sehorn, John stated his brother was ready to ship out for overseas duty. John mentioned that one man, who was ill the day of the crash and wasn't on the flight, was the only survivor of the "squad". According to John this man was the military escort for the return of Sonny's body. .

Their mother lived to be 105 years old he told me. .

John went into broadcasting and meteorology and become one of television's very first weathermen. He is now 68 years old (born 1931). It was upon entering this career that prompted him to shorten the surname. .

John?s email address is: science@1tartcom.net. I informed John of the Naper 28 website. He was most anxious to check it out. .

John will welcome the questionnaire and has photos, letters, etc. of his brother.

---

Email to dh 2.4.00 John F. Beckman
Hartwell, GA
Comments:
My only brother, Lt. George Edward Boeckmann was on the plane which crashed near your town on 3 August 1944.
This is the most information our family has ever had of that tragic accident, although it altered our lives in ways that only we and God know.
My brother was my hero and always will be. He faithfully wrote home to me and my sister and mom and dad throughout his progress to his commmission as a Lt. in the USAAF. He only had one trip home before his death, and became engaged to a lovely girl in Charlotte, NC.
He was only 20 years old when he died 56 years ago, yet not a day goes by that I don't think of him.
Thank you for making this page possible and God Bless you.

---

From: Johnny & Deborah Beckman To: Virginia Priefert bp45356@navix.net
;
Dale Hueske ;
Larry Carpenter
Date: Friday, August 03, 2001 7:40 AM
Subject: memories
Hello, Virginia. I was sitting here thinking that a year ago today I was standing in the field where my brother died in an AAF C-47 plane crash 58 years ago. And I remembered how friendly and courteous everyone was to my sister and I (and our spouses). The word "closure" is getting a lot of play these days, so I don't know if that is appropriate. But I do know that the trip to where my brother died, did put to rest a lot of ghosts which had haunted me all of my life.

As I stood in that field I felt the spirit of not only my brother, but of all the young men who died that stormy afternoon. It was mystical, and something that words can't describe. But since that time I have felt an ease about his death that I never felt before. And you folks played a big part in giving me that peace of mind. I hope you have been well and it has been a good summer for you. My sister and her husband (Bill) just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and we had a big party in Charlotte, NC.

My wife (Deborah) has taken a new position, she is the Principal of the Hartwell Elementary School. It is the biggest school in the county with over 600 students and about 45 teachers. You would like the school. The original part was built in 1921 and has the old "oiled" floors. Lots of buildings have been added to it over the years and it now takes up a whole city block.
I'm still "retired" but keep very busy building and flying radio-controlled model airplanes. Our local club put on a free 4th of July air show for the community, and almost a thousand people showed up for it. We were overwhelmed with the turnout!
Please give my regards to everyone who treated us so kindly on our trip last year. It is comforting to know that some people are keeping alive the memory of those beautiful young men who died in the service of their country 58 years ago today.
With love,
Johnny Beckman
8/3/01

---

March 6, 2002 Email
John Beckman wrote:

Thank you for the phone call last night, Dale. After I hung up, I spent about an hour browsing around your web pages, and you are doing a good job of it. I have a better (quality) picture of "Sonny," and I may have some suitable snapshots which I will email to you after a few days of digging through boxes. When my mom died I inherited a box of letters and pictures of my brother (my mom never threw away anything, I guess it was ingrained from living through the depression).

I'm not sure that you and Larry, and all the Naper folks, can know the depth of appreciation that people like my sister and I feel for you. The government never gave us any details of my brother's death (except for the fact that the C-47 crashed) during the war. And after the war, nobody cared enough to search old records - until you folks came along. It was on the Naper web site that I first learned the details of my only brother's death, and most importantly, that their were people besides my sister and I who still remember those wonderful young airmen who died in that Nebraska field.

The pictures of the new cross were comforting. I thought it remarkable on my visit to the crash site two summers ago that the old wooden cross was still there. Now I know that an appropriate marker will be there probably forever.

My sister and I took a bus trip to visit my brother when he was in training in Memphis. A bus trip during the war was an ordeal. We both stood up all the way to Memphis and back to Charlotte.
But we got to see my brother, and that was what counted. I remember that he had some "demerits" (probably a quarter wouldn't bounce on his bed during inspection) and we stood outside the fence of the college where the boys were stationed and watched Sonny marching off "tours." A tour was carrying a rifle and marching a prescribed length, then about face, and do it all ov er.
Sort of like having to write 500 times on the blackboard, "I will not talk in class." He also took us on a walk around the obstacle course, and showed us how he used the rope to scale the wall.
We only saw him one more time, and that was his short visit home after getting his wings.

I've often thought of how much better my life would probably have turned out, if my big brother had come home from the war. People who have never lost a loved one in such a senseless and tragic way, can never know the pain of those who loved the lost one. And how that pain, which can be subdued, never really goes away.
I am 70 years old now, yet thoughts of my brother are never far from my mind. If politicians could share that experience they might be more reluctant to send the best young men of our country off to war.

Thank you again for your work, and my best to all of you who keep the memory of my brother and his flying buddies alive. And r emember this please. My earliest memories are of my brother building model airplanes. He loved aviation and flying above all else. I know that the days leading up to his death were probably the happiest time of his life.

With kindest regards,

J. Beckman

---

SUE FARLOW BOECKMANN, THE COOKIE LADY, DIES AT 105
Published: Friday, December 15, 1995
Section: METRO Page. 2C
By GERRY HOSTETLER, Staff Writer

Try, for a minute, to imagine life without electricity, automobiles, airplanes, telephones, television or computers. The things we take so much for granted now were things that came of age in Sue Fallow Boeckmann's lifetime.

Boeckmann died Dec. II, 1995, at her UNC Charlotte-area home. She was 105 and a descendent of the Farlow family, passengers on the Mayflower.

Modem hospital computers couldn't register her 1890 birth year, so when she was a recent patient, the pediatrics department questioned why a "5 year-old patient" wasn't assigned to the children's wing.

Her age didn't hamper her habits, and she continued to make the cookies for family and friends who called her the "Cookie Lady." Until three or four years ago, she baked about 400 cookies every Christmas and gave to family and friends' 'by the shoe box full," said Bill Kirk, her son-in-law for 44 years. "She was real good with Moravian cookies, and the ones she made were equal to those sold in Winston-Salem. She also made and decorated gingerbread men and sugar cookies."

Her long life was filled with a passel of various interests and accomplishments. For instance, when her children were in school she always furnished refreshments for classes and was many times a grade mother at Woodlawn Elementary School and later at Sharon School, one of the original 14 county schools.

She was an organizing member and a state and local president of Gold Star Mothers Club, having lost her son, Lt. George Boeckmann, in a 1944 plane crash.

She was retired co-owner of Boeckmann Ornamental Iron Works, which went out of business in the mid-1950s. There; she prepared the iron for the welders, then sanded and painted the finished work.

She spent her 80th birthday in Switzerland and has been on several overseas jaunts to the Holy Land and Russia, with granddaughter Kim Kirk. She made it to 49 states - missing only Alaska - accompanied by daughter Nancy Kirk.

Later in her 80th year and living alone, she built a four-bedroom, two-story brick home. "We told her that was a lot of house and that she didn't need it, but she liked that house, so that's what she built," Kirk said.

She was the oldest member of Dilworth United Methodist Church, where she had taught Sunday school and was a volunteer with the women's group.

For her, there was nothing like the Dallas Cowboys football team. She watched every televised game, and if it wasn't on TV, she wanted to know why. She had a Cowboys blanket and several pillows with their logo. For her 100th birthday, she got an autographed picture of then Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson and a congratulatory letter from him.

She was an "armchair coach," and as she watched a game last year, a player dropped the football a second time. She said, "If he can't play any better than that, I wouldn't let him play."

Survivors are her son, John Beckman of Atlanta; daughter, Nancy Kirk; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren. !!

---

Personal Information from Death Certificates obtained by Dewaine R Erickson from Dept. of Vita Statistics, Lincoln, Nebraska.

---