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| Henry Taylor |
Nick wrote to Olive Tree Genealogy with a very intriguing challenge - help him find the family of a soldier who Nick's grandmother and grandfather hid from the German army during WW2.
Henry Taylor was a WW2 soldier who Nick's Italian grandparents hid from the Germans who had occupied the town they lived in. This was in or near Sulmona Italy.
Shortly after the war, Henry, who was in the British Army, settled in California.
He married but Nick does not know if Henry married in England or in the United States. Henry's wife's name was Gloria and he had two daughters. One was Susanne and
the other was named after Nick's aunt, Natalina.
Nick tells me that "My aunt remembers
when he came [from California] to my grandparent's house in Sulmona, Italy, one
day and in broken Italian he asked for my grandmother, and when
my aunt told him she had died, he was very upset. This would
have been in the early 1960's because my grandmother died in
March 1961 and my aunt emigrated to Australia in September 1965."
Henry made frequent visits from his home in California to
Italy to visit the woman who saved his life.
Letters and cards were
exchanged throughout the years but eventually sometime in the mid to late 1960s contact was lost.
On the right is the second page of a 2-page letter sent from Henry in California to Nick's aunt Natalina (Lina)
Henry's friend wrote the letter in Italian and the names of his family are shown in the signature - Enrico (this is Henry), Susanne and Gloria, his wife.
This is a good clue as the letter had to be written before 1965 when Lina left Italy to settle in Australia. And since Henry's daughter Natalina is not listed, we can assume she was born after 1965.
This is an inspirational story of two families united by bravery. Can you help Nick find Henry's daughters or grandchildren so that his family can once again unite with Henry's American one?
One further bit of information that might help us to find Henry, Nick tells me that the British
army gave Nick's grandmother and grandfather a certificate thanking them for their
help in looking after one of their soldiers. The certificate is
signed by H.R. Alexander, Field-Marshal, Supreme Allied
Commander, Mediterranean Theatre, and the date is shown as
1939-1945.
: 1940 Census Frankfurt, Herkimer Co. New York
