A Wisconsin G.I.'s death in WWII still echoes

• After Clark's death, his wife gave up their kids.
• A son ran away. A daughter tried suicide.
• A search for answers leads to Wisconsin.

World War II in Europe was over.

German soldiers were giving themselves up by the thousands, and except for pockets of die-hard Nazi resistance, most of the shooting and killing was done. Pfc. Wayne Clark was a scout with the 89th Infantry Division of Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army. He and other soldiers in his company had driven deep into the heart of Germany, and they were holed up “in this little village,” according to a letter he wrote to his mother and family on April 6, 1945. “We had a chance to get cleaned up a little bit and got a nice soft bed in a house.”

Three days later, as Wayne and his unit attacked a machine gun nest in a chaotic skirmish outside of Crawinkel, Germany, a sniper shot him dead. His death was a footnote in the context of the entire war, which cost the lives of more than 15 million soldiers, sailors and airmen, including 416,800 Americans. More than 45 million civilians were dead. But Wayne's loss would disintegrate his family a half a world away in central Wisconsin, creating shock waves of grief and trauma that his children live with today.

Wayne was a 26-year-old father of four who never wanted to be a hero. But when asked, he performed his duty as part of The Greatest Generation. That's a familiar narrative — but what is often lost in paeans to the Greatest Generation are the very personal stories, the way war reverberates in the lives of ordinary people decades after the gunfire stops.

This isn't a story just about history. It's a story about the present. But it begins on a battlefield far away, 71 years ago.

Three weeks after Wayne was shot, the Wausau Daily Record-Herald published a two-line headline, "Pfc. Wayne Clark Killed in Action," over a story that encapsulated Clark's life, service and death in five paragraphs. The story ran below the fold on the front page. The top story of that day, April 28, 1945, was, "Nazi Surrender Offer to America, Britain Reported." On April 30, Adolph Hitler killed himself in a bunker in Berlin.

A year after he died, Wayne's body had been laid to rest at a cemetery for American soldiers in Margraten in southern Holland, nestled between Belgium and Germany. In America, his wife, Beatrice "Babs" Clark, had broken emotionally under the strain and gave up the care of his children. His mother didn't believe, or would not let herself accept, that he was dead. His sister, Delia Green, deep in grief over losing not only her brother but also two of her children to disease, was left to pick up the pieces. She and her husband, Laurence, who also served in the war, had taken in Wayne's three youngest children.

Fifteen or so years after his death, Wayne's son, Syd Clark, at age 16 or 17, ran away from the Green home, feeling frustrated and alone in the world. Nearly 30 years after that day in Germany, his oldest daughter, Leah, then a recently divorced and jobless mother of two, attempted suicide.

Seventy years after Wayne was killed, a Dutch man, Jo Winkens, who "adopted" the grave of Wayne Clark, called the Wausau Daily Herald in an effort to get in touch with living family members of the soldier he considers a liberator of his country. He found Syd and Leah, who have built up lives in the wake of their own personal challenges and traumas, showing the resilience that their father demonstrated in his short life. But Winkens also found people who, despite the years that have passed, live with grief that is timeless.

The cemetery at Margraten

The United States Army sent a letter in December 1946 to Beatrice "Babs" (McCabe) Clark, Pfc. Clark's widow, informing her that Wayne's remains had been interred in a U.S. military cemetery in Margraten, Holland. Located about 10 miles west of Aachen, Germany, Wayne's body was buried in "plot QQQ, row 12, grave 277," according to the letter by Maj. Gen. T.B. Larkin, the quartermaster general.

"You may be assured that the identification and interment have been accomplished with fitting dignity and solemnity." Larkin wrote. "Please accept my sincere sympathy in your great loss."

The Army also offered Babs a choice. At government expense, Wayne's body could be shipped back to the United States and interred in a cemetery here. Babs declined that offer. Today, Clark is one of 8,301 Americans at rest in that cemetery, their graves marked by a sea of pure white markers spread in perfect rows across 65 acres. The cemetery is administered and maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, based in Washington, D.C.

Winkens, 54, of Vaals, Holland, has cared for Wayne's grave for more than a decade without knowing much about the G.I. He "adopted" Wayne's grave through a nonprofit Dutch organization that ensures all the graves of the American soldiers receive care and attention. Winkens was able to track down a copy of Wayne's obituary. That story told him Wayne was born in Mosinee in central Wisconsin, was married to Beatrice McCabe and was the father of four children, David, Sydney, Leah and Arletta. But Winkens was stymied as he tried time after time to learn more about Wayne's family.

A ceremony is held at the Netherlands American Cemetery each year on Memorial Day. The loved ones of the fallen converge on the place. There are speeches and music. It's an emotional day. The day after Memorial Day on 2015, Winkens picked up the phone and called the newspaper in Wausau.

Finding Private Clark

Winkens speaks fluent English, but his words are sharpened by a Dutch accent. He patiently explained how he had been caring for Clark's grave. He has no connection to Clark in any way; Winkens was performing an act of generosity for a stranger, and that stranger's family.

"I feel very obligated to these guys," he said. "We owe our freedom today to them."

What Winkens does is not unique. Thousands of Dutch volunteers have adopted the graves of the fallen soldiers. Generations of family members have taken on the task of caring for the sites and remembering the men who lie in them. There is a waiting list of more willing to take on the work if someone stops performing the duties.

Winkens feels as if he's a custodian of not only Wayne's gravesite but also his memory. That's the attitude the adopters take toward the cemetery at Margraten. They don't want the world to forget.

At the same time, there were so many questions: Who was Wayne Clark? Why was he in the Army? How was he killed?

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin newspapers reported on Winkens' effort to connect at the end of May 2015.

A few days after that initial story was published, Winkens had been in touch with Syd Clark, 74, of Ashdown, Arkansas, and Leah Woods, 73, of Lehigh Acres, Florida. The story's focus shifted from one about a mystery — who was Wayne Clark? — to one of deep grief and enduring sadness. But as facts began to unfold about Wayne, his family and his children, the more the story also became about resilience and a particularly Wisconsin strain of everyday, stubborn courage.

Wayne had overcome plenty of hurdles in his life. His father was an alcoholic who eventually would be committed for the disease, his family poor in the Great Depression. Wayne pulled himself up from that background and was working as a trucker when he was drafted into the Army. He fought across central Europe as part of the liberating Third Army under Gen. George S. Patton, which helped end the war. But it all was sacrificed with one shot.

The continuing sacrifice

Today the 200 block of Grand Avenue, just south of downtown, contains apartment houses and small commercial strip malls (including the office of U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy). Traffic steadily streams by.Wayne's wife, Babs, and his sister, Delia, and, most likely, their children, lived together in the 200 block of Grand Avenue in Wausau when Wayne was killed. Details of what kind of home or apartment they occupied are now lost. (Syd Clark and Leah Woods, and their cousin, Nancy Kayhart, the daughter of Delia and Laurence, have no recollection of living in Wausau.)

Wausau was smaller, quieter in 1945, and the newspapers of the time reflect a sense of optimism as the war wound down. But no one would have felt happy. Page through the editions of the Daily Record-Herald of 1945, and you get a sense of this bittersweet dichotomy. Amid stories of the major battle breakthroughs and quieter pieces of everyday life such as weddings, visiting friends and card games, there were streams of stories about Wausau-area military men being wounded, going missing, being found, getting medals, dying. Gold stars were posted in windows, a symbol that the family had lost a soldier to the war.

Babs and Delia likely read these stories, saw those stars in the windows. They both must have felt a sense of hope, but it would have been accompanied with thick dread and anxiety.

Babs and Wayne had been married for five years and had three children when Wayne was drafted into the Army in May 1943. Wayne was 22 and Babs was 18 when they were married. Babs spent most of the marriage pregnant and caring for babies. Wayne was working when he was drafted, and one can imagine that he would have been feeling good about the steady job and income.

But the war was very much in doubt in 1943, and legions of unmarried, younger men had already joined the military in a wave of patriotism after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The draft, which at first bypassed married men, widened. Wayne could not have avoided service. "Wayne, in the months before he was drafted in 1943, had jokingly said many times, 'I'd rather be a live coward than a dead hero,'" sister Delia would write later.

Delia also was married, to Laurence Green, who, like his brother-in-law Wayne, fought in the war. He was a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne. Laurence likely joined the Army from grief over the loss of his two oldest children, his daughter Nancy Kayhart said.

No one in the family knows for sure how long or why Babs and Delia lived in Wausau. But it's clear their world crumbled when the news of Wayne's death reached them.

'I had no mother'

Babs Clark, a vivacious, pretty, dark-haired woman, was not emotionally equipped to raise her children on her own after Wayne was killed. She gave up care for them soon after Wayne's death. It would have been a difficult decision, but perhaps she felt she had no other option. Post-war jobs for women were hard to come by as returning G.I.s  were often given priority in a world where women were still expected to stay home and care for children. Help, too, would have been scarce, as hundreds of thousands of families across the country faced the difficult task of moving ahead after the loss of loved ones.

David went off to live with Babs' parents. (David died in 1999, he was 58.) Delia and Laurence Green, who would eventually have 10 children together, took in Syd, Leah and Arletta. It was not an easy situation. Laurence and Delia had already lost their two oldest children to whooping cough, and that grief was compounded by the loss of Wayne and Laurence's experience in the war, family members say.

They all lived in a small, two-story house on a farm near Waupaca in rural southern Portage County, where all the children were expected to work hard doing farm chores and keeping the home tidy. As the oldest, Syd was expected to do most of the barn and field work; Laurence also drove a truck and was frequently on the road, Syd said.

Both Syd and Leah say they are grateful for the care they received from the Greens, but they also say they never felt truly part of the family. Syd would end up running away from the home when he was 16 or 17, going to work on a nearby farm, and eventually joining the Army himself, partly because the father he never knew also served. In a way, it was an effort to get closer to his dad.

"My decision to run away was made within 10 seconds. I wrote a short note, and walked away," Syd said. "And I never looked back."

Despite his differences with his aunt, Delia, Syd Clark understands the tragedies Delia had to face and admires the perseverance she displayed throughout her life.

"I talked to her later (when he was an adult), and I apologized to her (for running away). I told her I didn't know why I did what I did," Syd said.

Delia returned to college as an older adult and at age 54 earned a degree in social work.

"It's like she found herself," Syd said. "And as I got older, I could not imagine what she went through."

He would eventually reconnect with Babs, as well, he said. But she was more like a family friend, one who would drop by and visit from time to time. "I had no mother," Syd said.

Leah stayed with the Greens after Syd left, but there always was tension in the house. She craved information about their father, but no one talked much about Wayne. And while she tried to work out the loss of her dad, she also struggled to come to terms with the fact that their mother left her and her siblings.

"She was my mom in name only," Leah said.

Leah would get married right after completing high school and have two children. But the relationship fell apart. In the early 1970s, after she had just been through a divorce with her two young children, and struggling to make ends meet, she half-heartedly tried to take her own life by swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills.

"I thought to myself, 'I can hardly feed my kids. They'd be better off with their dad,'" Leah said.

She was living in Oshkosh at the time, and when she woke up in the hospital, her mother, Babs, was sitting in her room.

"I asked her, 'Why did you give us away?' And she said, 'I thought it was best,'" Leah said. "That's all she said."

Leah said although she and Babs did see each other fairly frequently when Leah was an adult, Babs never spoke any more about the past or why she could not keep her children.

Leah would recover. She landed a job with Continental Airlines, working in the baggage handling department. She married two more times, both again ending in divorce. She's a small, thin woman but she has an air of toughness and capability about her. She speaks directly about her father and mother, but she holds no grudges. She let the past go.

Still searching for closure

Winkens' efforts to find Wayne's family opened the door to days long gone for Leah Woods and Syd Clark. Dredging up old memories does not come naturally to either one, and doing so hasn't been easy. For their youngest sister, Arletta, the past is so painful she did not want to talk about it for this project.

Syd always focused on what's in front of him. But he's been thinking about his father, and the impact of Wayne's death has given him new perspective. Telling the story, Syd said, is important because "we weren't the only ones. This isn't about us. There were a lot of kids like us."

Leah agrees. She and Syd both believe that their father died for a purpose, that his sacrifice was worth it. "But we have to remember to take care of the soldiers today," Leah said.

Leah has visited her father's grave before, but she would like to go again. She would like to meet Jo Winkens.

For a long time, Syd never wanted to go to Margraten. But now he would like to go to the cemetery, too.

"It would give closure," he said.

Keith Uhlig can be reached at 715-845-0651 or at keith.uhlig@gannettwisconsin.com. You can read more from him at http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/staff/14865/keith-uhlig/ and find him on Facebook or on Twitter as @UhligK.

Help the Honor Pvt. Clark Fund

Wayne Clark lost his life for a cause, and in a sense his children, Syd Clark and Leah Woods, sacrificed their father. One way to show gratitude for their sacrifice, spinning off the ethos of the Never Forgotten Honor Flight program, is to send Syd and Leah to Margraten, Holland, to visit their father's grave for Memorial Day. On that trip, they also would be able to meet Jo Winkens, the man who cares for Wayne Clark's final resting place and works to ensure that the memory of Clark endures.

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin is raising money to pay for Syd and Leah's travel expenses, with a goal of $5,000 for round-trip airfare and hotel costs. If the effort raises more than that, the excess money will be donated to Never Forgotten Honor Flight.

We've set up a bank account titled "Honor Pvt. Clark Fund" at Peoples State Bank in Wausau. People may donate to that fund to help honor Clark and his children at any Peoples branch. Checks can be sent to Honor Pvt. Clark Fund, care of Jaci Kell, branch manager, 1201 Sixth St., Wausau, WI 54403. For more information about the effort, call  715-845-0651.

— Keith Uhlig, reporter, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Read the blog

Since the end of May 2015, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin reporter Keith Uhlig has been writing a blog that explored who Wayne Clark was and the long-lasting impacts of his death. That blog can be found at www.wausaudailyherald.com/blog/findingprivateclark/.

The Netherlands American Cemetery

Dutch people who live near Margraten decided in 1945 that they wanted to honor the Americans who fought and died while driving the Nazis from their homeland. They formed a nonprofit, volunteer group known today as the Foundation for Adopting Graves American Cemetery Margraten. The mission of these volunteers is essentially to honor the sacrifice of the men buried at Margraten, and work to ensure they are never forgotten. For more information on the foundation, log on to www.adoptiegraven-margraten.nl/en/. The group has also put together a website honoring the fallen soldiers at Margraten at www.thefacesofmargraten.com. 

The Netherlands American Cemetery is operated through the American Battle Monuments Commission. Its website can be found at www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/europe/netherlands-american-cemetery.

The Rolling W

Pfc. Wayne Clark died as a soldier in the 89th Infantry Division of Gen. George S. Patton's Third Army. For more information about the division, known as the "Rolling W" or "Patton's speartip," go to www.89infdivww2.org.

Listen to "Route 51" explore Wayne Clark's story

Wisconsin Public Radio's "Route 51" host Glen Moberg spoke to Syd Clark and reporter Keith Uhlig about the lasting repercussions of the loss of Pfc. Wayne Clark in World War II. You can listen or download the show at  www.wpr.org/programs/route-51.