Heroes: the Army
"...'At the time your husband was killed, we were fighting an intense action against a brutal attack by two German Divisions in the vicinity of Meijel, Holland. Naturally, in the face of such an assault, we were forced to give some ground..."
Robert Lee Rutledge. Image taken approximately 1944
Robert Lee Rutledge
- Branch of Service: Army
- Unit: 48th Armored Infantry Battn.,
7th Armored Division- Dates: 1944 - 1944
- Location: European Theater
- Rank: PFC
- Birth Year: 1916
- Entered Service: Atlanta, GA
A Daughter Lovingly Remembers Her Dad
"My paternal grandparents, Walter Cumbie and Fannie Mae Dunaway Rutledge had three children.
John Walter Rutledge, whom I affectionately called Uncle Jay; my dad, Robert Lee Rutledge; and Louise Rutledge Williams, whom I affectionately called Sissy because my dad and my Uncle Jay called her Sis. They lived in Lumpkin, Stewart County, Georgia. They were a very close, loving family. For some unknown reason at the time, my grandparents told me that Uncle Jay and Sissy idolized my daddy. Uncle Jay, being two years older than my dad, purchased a car for him, even before he had one of his own. Sissy was two years younger than my dad and absolutely idolized him. Sissy and my Dad were musically inclined and they "made music" together at all the young people's get-to-gathers in the community. The family always put him on a "pedestal" Gram-mama described him as a special child to all that knew him from the time of his birth until the time of his death because he was always so kind and considerate to everyone regardless of their color, financial or social status. (That sounds just like a mother, doesn't it?) But, as I grew older, everyone that I came in contact with that knew him told me the same thing. Grammama told me that later she realized the reason he was always so special to everyone because he had only a short time to live. I believe that also.
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My daddy married my mother, Marguerite Cannington, on December 25, 1937. My mother was also from Lumpkin, Georgia. They owned a small farm in Stewart County and my dad also worked at the C.P. Trotman Company, a grocery and "dry goods" company in Lumpkin. I was born on September 18, 1939 and my brother, Robert Leron Rutledge was born on May 16, 1941. I have been told |
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that I was a very independent, busy child and my main interest was figuring out a way to go to my Gram-mama and Granddaddy Rutledge's house. My memories of my dad are a little vague, although I have five very vivid memories of him. My brother, whom I call Bubba, has many memories of him even though he was only 2 years old when my dad went away to the service. |
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1) |
I remember meeting him at the end of the drive way when he would come home from work... my bother and I would stand on the "running-board" of his car and he would stick his arm out the car window and hold on to us until he parked the car at our house. |
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I remember being in our yard riding on his shoulders one night when the moon was very big. He taught me to say "I see the moon, the moon sees me, God bless the moon and God bless me" that night. To this day, when I see a full moon, my memory goes back to that night and I say "I see the moon, the moon sees me, God bless the moon and God bless me" silently in my mind. I taught my own children this little poem, but I don't know if it has stuck in their minds as it did mine. |
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I remember sitting in his lap one day (on the floor) after he and mama had made homemade ice cream. He made a tunnel through the mound of ice cream for me and I thought that was really something. |
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4) |
I remember being at my maternal grandparents home for Sunday lunch. The preacher from their church was having lunch with them. At my paternal grandparents home, the children were always fed first and I could not understand why I couldn't sit at the big table with the adults, so I proceeded to crawl underneath the table and my daddy had to get down and pull me out from under the table. That was the first time I remember him spanking me.... he told me that behavior was not acceptable. The spanking hurt my feelings much more than my bottom, but I've never been under a table since. He was a gentle man. |
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5) |
I remember the trips to visit him at Fort McClellan, Alabama while he was stationed there. |
In April 1944 my dad enlisted with the United States Army because World War II was raging in Europe. He was stationed at Fort McClellan, Alabama for seventeen weeks. I remember my mother, my brother, my gram-mama, and my Uncle Jay driving from Lumpkin to Fort McClellan to see him. Sometimes another uncle, C. D. Williams, and my cousins, Betty, Johnny, Frances, Dan & Lucy Williams would take turns going with us. My mother and gram-mama would always pack food to take with us. I was fascinated with the out-door stadium with many, many bleachers. Lumpkin did not have a stadium and my cousins and I would run up and down the stadium steps and play while my daddy, my mother, Uncle Jay and Grammama would sit on the grass and visit and watch us play.
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My brother, most of the time, would sit in my dad's lap and listen to his conversation (I suppose that is why he can remember so much about him). We would sleep in the car because the few motels would have no vacancies (after I was grown, I asked my mother how in the world did we all sleep in the car.... she said we would do anything just to get to see my dad for a few short hours). I suppose we children slept, but I bet the adults didn't! It was so much fun to make these trips, especially if we took some of my cousins to play with. I learned later that gas was rationed and some other family members would give my family their gas "tickets" so we could make the trips to Fort McClellan if we had used all of ours. My brother & I wanted to be a soldier like our daddy so my mother bought us an army suit. I believe she ordered our "army suits" from Sears, Roebuck and Company. |
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Then, my dad was sent to Fort Meade, Maryland where he remained for a short time before being shipped "over-seas" in September 1944. The last time he was at home he asked my mother and grandparents not to worry about him, that he would be back soon. I later learned that he talked with his brother, my Uncle Jay, and asked him to please take care of us if he didn't make it back. My Uncle Jay promised him that he would and believe me, he stuck to his word, because he devoted his life to us. Uncle Jay never married; he was always there for us. I remember very well the day a "man" came to our house to deliver a telegram. The man looked so sad when he handed the telegram to my mother. When she read the "letter" she began to cry. Then my gram-mama read it and she began to cry. When my granddaddy and Uncle Jay came in and read the "letter" they were so sad I really couldn't understand, they didn't tell my brother and me that our daddy was missing in action. I suppose we were too young to understand.
My maternal grandparents, Charlie and Mary Virginia Cannington lived about five miles from my Rutledge grandparents. My gram-mama Rutledge was heart broken when my daddy went away to the war, so to help console her, my mother, my brother and I made our home with my paternal grandparents. We would spend a lot of time with my Cannington grandparents also, so we were well taken care of. I remember my mother and both of my grandmothers writing a lot of letters and anxiously waiting for the mailman to come everyday. They seemed to live for the mailman to come. I didn't understand then, but I do now. If we were at my Cannington grandparents and my mother would get a letter from my daddy, my Uncle Jay would get in the car and drive to their home to give Mama the letter. Everyone would gather around to see what he had to tell us. Every day my mother and my gram- mama would write my dad a letter. They would give my brother and me paper and a pencil to write to him also. Although we could not really write, we would scribble and draw pictures for him. They wrote everyday! Little did I know then that 57 years later that I would have the opportunity to read those letters that I loved taking to the mail box and raising the flag and then running to the mail box to see if we got a letter to bring to my mother that would make her very happy. When there was no letter, I remember the disappointment on her face.
Then one day in March 1945 a man brought another telegram. I remember how my mother and grandmother cried and how my granddaddy and Uncle Jay would just sit by the fireplace with their heads propped in their hands and how Sissy and all my cousins came and my mother's large family and friends and neighbors. I knew something was wrong, but I did not realize the severity of it. I don't really know how long it took for my mother to try to explain to my brother and me that our daddy would not be coming home. He was killed in action in Holland on October 29, 1944. He was 27 years old...would have been 28 on December 20th He was killed 10 days after my mother turned 25 years old on October 19th . We were happy children and playing with our cousins was fun and we really didn't realize the great loss at that time. My grandparents, aunts and uncles really took good care of us and we enjoyed the attention. I remember one time I wanted a pineapple sandwich (1 was about 8 years old) for lunch. There was no pineapple in any store in Lumpkin, so my Uncle Jay drove to Eufula, Alabama to get a can of pineapple for me a sandwich. Another time I remember... my mother, my brother, Bubba, my grammama and Uncle Jay went to Columbus, GA shopping. My brother, who was 4 years old, spotted a bright red tricycle in a store... he just had to have that tricycle. I am sure money was tight because my mother was explaining that he couldn't have the tricycle this time, but my Uncle Jay came to my brother's rescue. Bubba happily peddled the tricycle from the store, down the street to our parked car. These are just two of many, many instances that my Uncle Jay and grandparents kept their word to my daddy. They didn't allow us to want for anything, but what they gave us was with so much love and care that we did not grow up to be spoiled brats. They instilled in us the values we have today.
During my childhood years while running and playing and hiding in closets at my gram-mama's house I would see this big brown duffle bag in one of her closets. I remember looking in it one day and thinking oh, that's just a big bag of letters, which didn't interest me at the time. I never bothered to open the bag further to see who the letters were from.
Five years after my daddy's death my mother married Russell Hamner who also served in World War II. He was 32 and had never been married...he was a wonderful stepfather to my brother and me and we called him Russell. He was very supportive and attended all of our activities while we were in school. He was always there when we needed him, but when I turned about 13 years old I began wondering what my "real" father would have been like. I would think about the five memories that I had stored in my head of him. I would get angry when I would think about him being killed by the Germans during the war. I didn't like Germans...there was a German girl in my class and I didn't want to look at her. I talked with my grammama about this and she told me that the little girl had nothing to do with my daddy's death and she had no control over what had happened during the war. She was a victim of circumstances just as I was. I had to give this a lot of thought and then I realized that the German girl was not bad and knew nothing about my father's death. We became friends on the playground.
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One day when I was about 21 years old I was visiting with my gram-mama in Lumpkin, Ga. She handed me a small-yellowed envelope with "For our Dear Darlings to read when they grow up" written in her |
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handwriting. When I opened it I read for the first time the newspaper articles about my daddy's death. She told me that she was putting these articles in my care now and ask that I take good care of them... |
My mother and grandparents always talked about my daddy to my brother and me and the newspaper articles described him just as they had to us, but I still had a burning desire to know him...to know what he liked and disliked...to know what his favorite food was...what his favorite color was.
Would he have been proud of us when we accomplished a goal? There was just so much I would have liked to know about him. My gram-mama passed away in 1979 and I am still taking care of her newspaper clippings and I have shared them with my children and grandchildren. I have made a copy of these articles for each of my grandchildren so that they will know that their great-grandfather gave his life for all of our freedom.
Before my Uncle Jay's death about five years ago, my brother and I were visiting with him in his home in Lumpkin, Ga. He left the room and returned with that old brown duffle bag that I remembered seeing in my gram-mama's closet years ago. He told Bubba and me that he was putting the bag in our care and asked us to take good care of it just as gram-mama had asked him to take care of it. Uncle Jay was getting old...82 and he was sick.
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He told us he wanted us to have this bag of letters. There must have been 200 letters. I was much more interested in the letters then than when I was a child. I pulled one out to read it and out fell a picture of my mother, my brother and myself in a letter that she had sent to him. It was returned unopened because my daddy was missing in action and never received the letter. I couldn't continue reading it without crying so I put it back in the bag with all the others and told my brother to take the bag with him so he could read the letters first. |
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In early September 2001 Bubba gave me the bag of letters and on John's and my way back home from Moultrie to Statesboro I began reading the letters I couldn't read them fast enough I read for 3 hours in the car. I would cry and I would laugh. When we arrived home and unloaded the bag I sat down and started reading again...sometimes I would read until midnight. Every night for a month when I would get home from work and finished with supper I would sit and read letters. The letters were to my mother from my daddy; to my dad from my mother; to my dad from my Gram-mama Rutledge and Grandmother Cannington; from my Uncle Harold, my mother's brother, who was serving in the South Pacific during WWII; from other friends and family. I just couldn't read them fast enough. I was 62 years old and I was finally getting to know my daddy; his thoughts, his character, his love for my mother, his love and his desires for my brother and me, his love for his family and friends and his love for his country. The letters that my mother and gram-mama, his sister, Sissy; his mother-in-law, his friends and other family members had written to him from November 1944 until March 1945 were returned to my mother unopened. They remained unopened until my brother and I opened them. In this bag of letters was the last letter he wrote to all of us. It was returned with his belongings (see attached copy). He never finished the letter because I am sure that he was called out to the battlefield before he finished it, and he never returned to finish it. It was written on my mother's 25th birthday, October 19, 1944.
From these letters to my dad from my gram-mama, I learned that she tried every thing she could to get him out of the service before being shipped overseas. She even wrote to the President! I also learned from his letters to my mother that he understood how my gram-mama felt, but he had a job to do for his country and that he could not try to get out. He missed his family terribly, but what he was doing was for his family also.
The letter I treasure most is the one he wrote to me on my 5th birthday. From reading a letter that he wrote to my mother, I learned that he had just finished writing to me and that he was on the ship going to Europe when he wrote my birthday letter on September 18, 1944. This letter was written on V-Mail stationery. The letter was addressed to "Little Ginger Rutledge, % W. C. Rutledge, Lumpkin, Ga. and this is what it said:
If you would care to see a
poignant tribute to 
