Published: November 02, 2009 11:57 pm      

Event honors ‘greatest generation’

Cumberland Goes to War kicks off Friday

CUMBERLAND — It started out as a typical college romance. Boy meets girl at Potomac State College; they date and then they go their separate ways.

He graduates from West Virginia Wesleyan with an education degree. She gets her nursing degree from Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Cumberland. In a typical story, that’s where it might end.

But World War II breaks out and James Sinsel Stafford of Grafton, W.Va., enlists in the Army. He becomes a recon pilot.

Grace Weber, a Cumberland native, enlists and becomes a triage nurse stationed in the Philippines.

Lt. Stafford was also stationed in the Philippines and hears that his college sweetheart is at a nearby Army hospital. He makes it a point to find her.

Stafford would fly in to where Weber was stationed, often picking up his brother Tommy, who was serving on a Navy salvage boat in the area. After a fly-in courtship, Lt. Grace Weber and Capt. James Stafford were married in Nagoya, Japan. Grace’s wedding dress was made from the silk of a Japanese parachute by her fellow nurses. Instead of leaving by limousine, they left the wedding riding on a caisson.

After the war, Grace and Jim returned to Grafton, where Jim worked for the Appalachian Power Co. Later they moved to Cumberland and Jim worked for the South Cumberland Planing Mill owned by Grace’s dad, and then Queen City/Old Export brewery.

Grace worked as a nurse, and after their children, Jimmy and Joan were born, she became a homemaker. The love story continued until Jim’s passing in 1986; they were married for 40 years. Grace died in 1994.

Beginning Friday through Nov. 15, Cumberland Goes to War celebrates and honors the lives and sacrifices, both on the battlefield and the home front of our “greatest generation.”

A series of events includes the Andrews Sisters Tribute show; train rides with FDR, the Andrews Sisters and Abbott & Costello; USO Tribute Big Band show; re-enactors’ bivouac at Canal Place Festival grounds; B-25 fly-in, museum exhibits; and more.

For more information and a schedule, log on to www.cumberlandgoestowar.com or call (301) 724-2453.