Historian and author Joy Neal Kidney discussed her latest book, “What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers” (Legacy Press, 2023), Saturday at the Perry Public Library on Veterans Day, fittingly honoring her three uncles killed in World War II and who are now immortalized on the Dallas County Freedom Rock in Minburn.
Neal Kidney’s latest offering is a companion volume to “Leora’s Letters: The Story of Love and Loss for an Iowa Family During World War II” (2019), which tells the story of her own journey of research into what happened to the three Wilson brothers who never came home.
Besides sifting through casualty and missions reports, Neal Kidney corresponded with veterans who knew one of the brothers and with the burgermeister of a German town where one of them lost his life. She and her husband, Guy Kidney, accompanied her mother and her aunt to visit the American cemetery in France where one of her uncles is buried.
Neal Kidney’s grandparents, Clabe and Leora Wilson, moved to an acreage just south of Perry the fall of 1944, and most of the terrible telegrams conveying their sons’ deaths were delivered there by the Perry postman, Oscar Daniels.
“We must never forget these three brothers,” said Marcus Brotherton, historian of World War II and New York Times bestselling author.
Clabe, Leora and one of their sons are buried in Violet Hill Cemetery. One stone cenotaph in Violet Hill commemorates the two other uncles who were killed in action (KIA). All five brothers are remembered on the Dallas County Freedom Rock.
Neal Kidney has now written four books in four years: “Leora’sLetters” was followed by “Leora’s Dexter Stories: The Scarcity Years of the Great Depression” in 2021 and “Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots” in 2022.
Autographed paperback copies of “What Leora Never Knew” are available at Beaverdale Books in Des Moines and the Urbandale Machine Shed Restaurant. Paperback, hardback and ebook editions may be purchased from Amazon, as well as the audiobook of “Leora’s Letters,” narrated by Paul Berge. For mail order, call 515-279-5400.
