A Story about Acceptance or Rejection

In searching Ancestry.com for descendants of James H. and Sarah Lyons through their many children, I found a woman in Minnesota whose husband was descended from James and Sarah’s daughter, Ophelia Kathryn. Through Ancestry.com, she had entered data to build a family tree to trace his Lyons ancestry. Through emails, she provided me with needed information about Ophelia, as well as helping to find and verify other members of the James H. Lyons family. She related that her husband, after learning of his connection to a Black family, “found it interesting.” I sent her the stories of Benjamin Lyons and son James H., which she appreciated.

In an email she told this story: “My husband (a descendant of Benjamin Lyons through his son, James H and Sarah (Forsythe) Lyons and their daughter, Ophelia Kathryn Lyons), had no idea about his colored ancestors until we received a call from the husband of his first cousin, asking if he was interested in receiving a box of WW II memorabilia.

His cousin found out about her colored ancestry through the Lyons, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with anything related to the family. She was going to throw everything into the dumpster. We met her husband and received a box filled with photos and medals that my husband’s grandmother, Maud Fetter (daughter of David Fetter and Ophelia Lyons) had saved when her son was killed in 1944 during World War II over Germany.

I made a website in 2004 in memory of my husband’s uncle, whom he was named after. In 2007, I was contacted by the family that had adopted his headstone in a cemetery in the Netherlands for this unknown soldier, after finding my website. They only knew him by name and that he was from Minnesota. I corresponded with the family through Facebook. This all happened shortly after my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

After his death, my daughter and I went to the Netherlands and stayed with the adoptive family for ten days, visiting his uncle’s gravesite in the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial.”

This memorial cemetery covers 65.5 acres, has a listing of names of 1,722 missing in action and 8,288 graves for military dead. For this Swanson family, to learn of a relative’s service in the United States military was an honor – not to be dismissed because of his race, but to be respected as a citizen, regardless of skin color. We all have a choice to be open or not in learning about different races, whether through reading many of the good books available, media sites or in actual conversations with family and friends.

The website created for this Lyons descendant, buried in this Netherlands Cemetery, gives this information:

1st Lieutenant Sidney David “Tino” Swanson

Born 20 Oct 1922; Maple Plain, Hennepin Co., MN, USA

Death 24 Feb 1944, age 20; Uffeln, Kreis Herford, Nordheim-Westfalen, Germany

Burial: Netherlands American Cemetery & Memorial; Margraten, Eijsden-Margraten Municipality, Limburg, Netherlands