Having recently honored our military veterans this past Veterans Day, I thought it appropriate to relate an experience my wife and I shared earlier that week. We were helping a dear gentleman—a WWII U.S. Navy veteran—relocate from Grand Marais to a community near his childhood home in central Minnesota, a turnof the-century homestead acquired by his Swedish grandparents through The Homestead Act of 1862. He recalls with fond memories his formative years and marvels at the timelessness of the setting.
Among his possessions, laying on top of a bookcase in his bedroom, we came across a small New Testament. Inside the frayed cover is the following inscription: THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON
“As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration. It is a fountain of strength and now, as always, an aid in attaining the highest aspirations of the human soul.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
On April 12, 1945, three weeks before Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, ending World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Our friend, three months before his 21st birthday, returned to his boyhood home.
Once again, nearly seven decades later, he returned with his New Testament in hand. At the back of the Testament can be found these words from a stanza of the hymn, “Now The Day Is Over,” penned by the English Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865: “Guard the sailors tossing on the deep blue sea.” Baring- Gould, best known for composing Onward, Christian Soldiers.
Garry Gamble
Grand Marais, MN
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