Part 3 (of 6) of the narrative "What happened to Ace on that day?" Back to the beginning of the narrative Back up to earlier in the narrative

On August 2, 1946, my mother, widowed for sixteen and a half months, married my stepfather, Harry Ashbrook, a local Centralia man she had known for years. Her late husband's mother, my Grandmother Edmands, wrote in her diary: "I'm glad in a way, for the children need a father. . . . Feel as if Allan were mine again."

My new stepfather rescued us--my mother, my sister Christine, and me--out of the turmoil we were living on the Waunch's Prairie chicken ranch and set us up in a home in town. Our lives settled into a safe normality, we found friends in the neighborhood, Christine attended third grade in an elementary school a block away. World War II was finally over for us--nearly a year after the official end of it.

My younger sister, Janna, did not grow up with us, however. Half a year after borrowing baby Janna for a trip to New Orleans and then an extended stay in Laramie, Wyoming, Aunt Janie returned her to Centralia at the end of 1945, staying with her once in a bedroom at the chicken ranch and later in a hotel room in the middle of town. My stepfather was not yet in the picture at that time, and my mother was not yet ready to be a mother to a baby. At three and a half years old, I was enough of a handful for her.

When Aunt Janie asked if she could take Janna with her back to Laramie, my mother acquiesced, presumably signing whatever papers were necessary. All Janna's bonding was with Aunt Janie, who effectively became her mother.(1)

My hardworking stepfather, whom I now refer to as Pop, was the only father I ever knew. Until I was ten, I thought he was my real father.

Yes, I could remember some of my life before he came into it. I was aware, of course, that my surname was Edmands and his Ashbrook. Yes, I realized I had three grandmothers (including his mother) and four grandfathers (if I included my father's father, dead for many years before my birth, my mother's father, dead when I was quite young, my Pop's father, and my Pop's stepfather). Even with all these incongruities--as innocent of critical analysis as a child who believes in Santa Claus, yet is unconcerned with chimneyless houses--I thought my Pop was my real father.

In 1952, when I was ten, my mother told me about Ace, my real father, whom I learned then to refer to as "Daddy Allan," in contrast with Pop, whom I had up to that time referred to as "Daddy."(2)

My mother explained that I was Allan Christie Edmands, Junior, a name to be proud of, a name I would need to live up to. Daddy Allan was a hero, and he had sacrificed his life defending our flag and our freedoms.

From age ten on, then, I had a real father to live up to. Now, of course, I needed to put an enlarged photo of him on my wall, to make him real in my life. There were two photos to choose from, one for Christine and one for me (click either picture to enlarge it). Since I was his namesake, the one who had to live up to him, I was allowed to choose. The picture of the dashing, smiling pilot in his cockpit? Or the picture of the sober officer in uniform looking at the viewer with apparent distrust or disapproval?

To Christine's amazed delight, I chose the serious picture. Why? I saw my name on his desk, preceded by that officer designation. I liked the uniform cap of the commissioned officer. I felt he must be doing something very important at that desk. Living up to this man was pretty serious business. And I saw my name on that desk.

My mother explained that Daddy Allan wasn't buried in a cemetery as my Grandpa Hawes had been, because he had never really been found.

So mightn't he still be alive, then? I wanted to know. She acknowledged that this was a possibility.

What would you do if he came back? I asked. She told me that, of course, she would choose to resume her marriage with him. This statement made me feel very strange, indeed. It implied that somehow her first love, the dashing war hero, was without question preferable to the real flesh-and-blood hardworking husband, the anchor in all our lives.

She told me that the possibility was very small, however, that it was almost certain that Daddy Allan was dead.

Each Memorial Day my mother took me to the Skookumchuck River, which flowed past Centralia, so that I could toss a wreath into it; I imagined the wreath making it all the way to the Pacific and then crossing the Pacific over to Japan, where Daddy Allan was.

In 1955 the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1935, which included Daddy Allan, published its 20-year reunion book, The Lucky Bag, and we got a copy of it. Here was Daddy Allan in a published book, "ALLAN CHRISTIE EDMANDS, Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy (deceased)," with a handsome picture of him. (Click the picture to enlarge it.)

There were also pictures of his three children--a fairly recent one of Christine and me together and a separate shot of Janna taken years before, when she was a toddler. Our names were there on the page, too, with our birth years, although Janna's birth year was incorrect. It was the first time I had ever seen my name and picture in a published book.

The text under the picture referred to Daddy Allan by his nickname "Ace." After reading this page over and over many times, I decided to refer to him as "my real father," and I adopted the name Ace for myself.(3)

Here is the text:

Ace served two years in the WEST VIRGINIA and then went to the BOGGS. After a year he was shifted to the CHANDLER, stayed until July '40 when he went to Pensacola for his wings. His next assignment, to the ASTORIA Squadron, lasted from April '41 until she was sunk off Savo Island in August '42. Then Ace had various billets around San Diego, mostly training carrier pilots, until June '44, when he became the CO of Torpedo Squadron 5 in the FRANKLIN. He saw lots of action at Tarawa and Midway with only minor mishaps until the FRANKLIN was attacked by a Kamikaze 55 miles from Kyushu, Japan on 19 March, 1945. Ace's plane ready to take off when the kamikaze bombs commenced to explode on deck. He was seen leaving his plane and had managed to jettison some of his bombs. He was last seen on the hangar deck when the worst explosion of all occurred.(4)

Ace "was last seen" somewhere. What happened then? An explosion. But that doesn't necessarily mean he was killed in the explosion. Maybe he somehow lived. My mother entertained the remote possibility that he might still be alive. Maybe he will be coming back someday, somehow. Without a body and a proper burial, there is no closure. We can fantasize. All three of Ace's children fantasized.

Janna, growing up in Wyoming, would daydream that this business of being killed was somehow all a mistake. Ace would come and find her in Laramie. She'd be sitting in church, and suddenly this handsome man, having not aged a day since the early 1940s, would come down the aisle and say: "Janna, there you are!"

Christine, in her fantasy (possibly indulged in after a battle with her mother), would be in her bedroom in Centralia. The front doorbell would ring. Since family and close friends never used the front door, whoever was there had to be a stranger. The ghost stranger was a handsome man, having never aged, of course. The image faded as the ghost entered the house.

In my frequent fantasies, Ace had escaped the conflagration on the Franklin and had been captured by the Japanese. These enemy soldiers were not near Japan at all but in the South Pacific, on one of those jungle islands, and they had never surrendered nor did they know that the war was officially over. Somehow Ace had escaped from them, he was wearing his clean pressed Navy blues, and he hadn't aged a day.

Once, during a preteen sulk about having been mistreated by my Mom and Pop, I squinted my eyes, looking toward the mailman two blocks away, in his official mailman uniform. He was walking our way. I imagined him a tall, gallant man wearing Navy blues. He was going to set things right when he got to our house.

Continue with the narrative