(click on photo for larger image)
Greenwood Cemetery / Montgomery, Alabama
Section 6, Lot 91, North Center Space
Initially there was a discrepancy as to where in Europe David had been buried. The Captain of David’s company wrote to Louise that it was near the German town of Ittenbach, which is on the Rhine river near Bonn. Rip had been told by the Red Cross that it was nearer to Breuna, in the vicinity of Kassel. In as much as they would have been temporary interments, either or both of these sites might be accurate, but we do know with certainty that David’s final resting place in Europe was at an American military cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands, in the southeastern province of Limberg, just west of the German border and the city of Aachen. He was there until the late fall of 1948, when he was returned home to Montgomery and his family. He was re-interred at Greenwood Cemetery on December 7, 1948. Had he survived the war, he would have turned forty on January 2nd of the following year.
During David’s time in Holland his grave site was tended by a young Dutch girl named Mary Ramaekers. This simple kindness, whether performed out of a sense of civic duty or as an act of gratitude and compassion for one of her fallen liberators, was of great comfort and solace to David’s mother. They apparently became good friends and corresponded for many years.
I have tried to find news of Mary, who would have been in her mid to late teens in 1945, and if still alive today, fast approaching 80. So far though, no information has been discovered.