JESSAMINE COUNTY, Ky. (LEX NEWS) — Boxes of letters. Old photographs. Dates, maps and handwritten memories frozen in time.
Hannah Currey found herself going through belongings her father had been carefully organizing for years, including hundreds of letters written by her grandfather, a decorated World War II veteran.
"His mother actually saved all his letters and I have boxes and boxes of letters and he used to organize them and sift through them and I never paid really much attention to it. And then when he passed away, my dad started organizing it and putting it in books," Currey said.
But before he could finish the project, Currey lost him too.
Now she is continuing where her father left off, building a book of the letters in order, pairing them with photos, maps and historical context so readers can follow her grandfather's journey through the war.
"My goal is to get this to where you're able to read this and keep up with where he was and what was going on," Currey said.
As she organizes each page, she is discovering parts of her grandfather she never knew.
"He wrote, 'For you know the Italian people were once fighting us, and some of them don't forget. The American soldier forgets so easy, I think. After all, some of them Italians killed Americans, but to look at the other side, we killed them. So what's wrong with forgetting and forgiven? But some don't see it that way. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know,'" Currey said.
Growing up with her grandfather meant watching his later struggles with PTSD and dementia, experiences that inspired her own path. Today, she works at Thompson-Hood Veterans Center, caring for veterans every day.
"You get the World War 2 guys, you get the Vietnam guys, you get, and we're even getting Afghanistan and the generational differences. They all have the same proud patriotism," Currey said.
One day, Currey hopes the book she is creating, and the service she is carrying forward, become part of the legacy she passes on to her own son.
"I take him in there to visit and we go to all the events and I want him one day to kind of have that same inspiration and I hope I can show it to him," Currey said.
