By Owen Wiese, guest writer
When the Legion celebrated Memorial Day the 31st of May, the Auxiliary read the lists of Veterans, who had been in the various wars the United States has been involved in. All those names are of veterans who are deceased. Every year, when I hear those names read, I wonder how much history is passing by, and how can that history be brought out.
Not all veterans write about their experiences in the military. Many do though, and that history is recorded someplace. If the people who were at the program searched through their hiding places such as bundles of letters stored in closets and cabinets and other places long forgotten about. If people who were at the program would look through those hiding places they might be surprised by what they find.
Of course, the stories of the veterans who were all in the Spanish American War and World War I would have to be found in letters written long ago and stored away somewhere because those veterans are all deceased. The stories written by veterans of more recent wars might be easier to find because they might remember them and be able to help bring them to light.
Any work a person does to accomplish this task requires only two things; the person who wrote the letters and the person who reads them. It is true that the old letters from deceased service people may have been found to this point, but there are more to be found.
The opportunity to search for an old letter came to me recently. My Mother was a great saver of letters. In her saved letters, after her death, was a letter from a cousin named Karl Risty. He wrote her a letter about his experience in World War I. There was not very much to go on, but I started a search. Karl Risty lived on a farm on the northeast corner of Sherman. He had one daughter named Rose, who married a man named Al Ramey.
Karl Risty was not listed in the deceased World War I veterans who were listed at the memorial service.
One day, two or three months ago in the Argus Leader, there was an obituary of Bill Ramey who had lived in Brookings. His parents were Albert and Rose (Risty) Ramey. That was the first good clue that I had to go on. I wrote to the funeral home that had handled Bill Rameys funeral. I was put in touch with Bill’s, brother, Mick Ramey, and is also Karl Risty’s grandson. Mick lives in Cottage Grove, MN.
What had happened is that Albert and Rose Ramey had gotten married many years ago and moved to Brookings, and lost all connection with Sherman. There are people locally who remembered Karl Risty, such as Bev Rogen and Don Olson, but did not know where the Rameys where. Also helpful was Bert Risty who found out that Karl Risty had died in 1968 and was buried in Brandon with more Risty’s who are buried there. Al Ramey died in 1990, and Rose died in 2009.
Karl Risty was an interesting person. After World War I he had gone to SDSU to get an education in Agriculture. He was a very intelligent man, but did not seem to be able to apply his agriculture education very successfully to the to the farm. After his death in1968 the farm went to other people.
Since learning what happened to Karl Risty after after World War I, I have had correspondence with his grandson Mick Ramey. I also sent him the letter from Karl Risty to my mother and the picture of Karl Risty that was with it.
