A personal tribute

It is obvious I have never met Josephine. Neither did I meet any relative of her. But thanks to a beautiful thing called social media I am able to get in contact with her relatives.

I met Carolyn Ourso through Facebook, where she asked me to take a picture of her uncle Joseph 'Buddy' Blanchards grave at the Meuse-Argonne American cemetery. I immediately noticed what a friendly lady she is so I suggested I adopt the grave of her uncle since I recently learned about the adoption grave program.

We got to learn to know each other better and I can say that we are good friends by now. She and her family have done massive research on Buddy's life before and during the war until his death on October 26, 1918 and on the journey that Buddy's mother made in 1930 to visit his grave thanks to the Gold Star Mother's Pilgrimage. She even created a Facebook page honoring her uncle and his mother, you can find it here: Josephine's journey.

It is impossible to imagine how Buddy must have felt when he went to war. And how his mother felt when she heard about his death, or when she went to visit his grave, is something we can't imagine too. Their relatives have done their best in recreating their life so we can have a bit of an insight how it must have been. It is fantastic that we have this opportunity to step in their footsteps and I'm honored that I can share their story in this website.

Thank you Carolyn, thank you Blanchard's and Ourso's.