At the Worth County Alumni Reunion Sunday, Dr. Dan Weddle of the Class of 1974 talked about his mother and her life in a German Prisoner of War camp during World War II on the eastern front.
The Class of 1964 donated the drinks and the gold plated service for the Class of 1974. Tucker Owens, a member of the Class of 2023, performed some songs. Richard Williams opened with a prayer.
Weddle attended North Harrison through the fifth grade; then, his family moved over the line and he attended Worth County the rest of his school years. He said the two biggest role models of his life were his dad and Coach Don Reece. He said that Reece always taught his boys to do your job, do your best, and be a gentleman whether you won or lost. Weddle said he would look up Reece afterwards.
At Northwest, Weddle roomed with Ron Walker, Doyle Fisher, and Bob McNeese and met his wife, Kristy, there as well. He then went to vet school at Mizzou, married Kristy along the way, and graduated from there in 1981. Along the way, he met Steve Goff and partnered with him before starting a practice in Mount Ayr. Weddle, Ken Hunt, and Keith Miller partnered and Dr. Goff joined them in 1988, opening an office in Grant City that he ran until 2006.
In 2020, Weddle sold his practice, but is still working. He had two children, Janice and Katie along with two grandchildren.
But it was his mother that Dr. Weddle wanted to talk about. She was born in the former Soviet Union and grew up in Mariupol, scene of some of the most brutal fighting between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 in the current war. One of her relatives was sent off to the gulags by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, but when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, she joined the Red Army and became a sniper. She was wounded and captured in front of Stalingrad, but before she was, she had assumed the identity of a nurse.
She was taken to a factory in Poland, where she was forced to make ammunition for the German war effort. Conditions were horrible, with prisoners issued one loaf a week, along with a daily ration of thin soup, cabbage, and possibly a potato. Sometimes, prisoners would eat the whole loaf of bread by the time they got back to their barracks. Typhoid fever and other diseases were common.
But the Soviets started fighting back and Weddle’s mother was transferred to Dachau, where there were other Russians, Jews, and prisoners of war that the Germans had captured. They were liberated in 1945 by the Americans. It was Earl Hardy’s unit who liberated the camp; he was the father of David Hardy.
Weddle’s dad, meanwhile, had participated in the D-Day invasion and wound up in southern Germany, where she met. Dr. Weddle’s older brother was born there in 1946, and they returned to the US in 1946. Weddle’s mother was fluent in French and several other languages, but didn’t understand English, which meant that conversations around the household were in French when they were first married. Subsequently, they started a farm near Hatfield.
Weddle’s mother tried for many years to restore contact with her Russian family, but the Iron Curtain descended over Russia and Eastern Europe following the war, and it was difficult to get mail through. Finally, she got a letter back from her mother and uncle, who had moved to what is now Moldavia following the war, and they corresponded in Russian until her death in 1974, when they lost contact.
But in 1991, a letter came from Russia to the Grant City Post Office, and Loretta Rinehart, the postmaster at the time, went out of her way to get it forwarded to Dr. Weddle, and he was able to get some of his wife’s relatives sponsored into the US in 1992, and they subsequently got their citizenship.
“My dad always told me I was half Russian and a half wit,” said Dr. Weddle.
Carolyn Jones, who was in attendance, said to Dr. Weddle, “Alice Miller told us all about your mom. She told us she was one of the smartest people she ever met. She said that if certain boys would go to Russia for two weeks, they would come back and say, ‘God Bless America!’”
Around $369 was collected Sunday to cover expenses and award scholarships. The Alumni Association is looking for people to serve. Carolyn Hardy, who emceed the reunion, marked her 40th year of service to the Worth County Alumni Association.
Scholarships this year went to Autumn Cousatte and Brylea Rush. There were 38 people in attendance and six guests. Barbara Stephenson was the oldest person in attendance, from the Class of 1953. The Hardy family had four members present. David Howard of Jamestown (NY) came from the farthest away, around 1,000 miles. The class with the most people in attendance was the Class of 1974, with 11 present out of a total of 32 members.
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