OF ALL THINGS GREAT AND SMALL

The photograph fell from my hand. It was being placed in an envelope with other photographs to be returned to Edward's niece. So small was this photograph it might have gone completely unnoticed had it not briefly caught my eye while fluttering to the floor. When it landed upside down two names were visible on the backside. Charles and Alfred with a question mark and a line drawn through Charles' name. Originally, the photograph had been in the envelope marked Alfred. It was so small there seemed no room for information on the back, therefore it had never been turned over. Now looking at the face in the photograph, it was clear this was not Alfred, it was Charles! And, he was dressed in the Revenue Cutter Service uniform! He really had been in the Revenue Cutter Service, at least for one season.

There was no information indicating the name of the cutter, but it seemed likely it might have been the Morrill. Now for sure there had been three brothers in the Revenue Cutter Service. Alfred and Charles, following their older brother Edward, most likely aspired to become lighthouse keepers. However, life chose very different paths for Alfred and Charles. Charles was not able to continue in the Revenue Cutter Service the following navigational season because the United States had entered WWI. His journey took him to France fighting as one of O'Ryan's Roughnecks. A victim of the horrors the new warfare would bring, mustard gas, he returned home to a country changed forever. In an irony of twisted fate, his participation in a famous battle liberating the French resulted in a monument built by the people of France to honor the Roughnecks. In the years following the Great War, Charles' journey eventually led him to another city and another monument. This monument, built to honor our nation's first president, a general of the war fought for independence, stands taller then any other structure built to honor our nation's heroes. Charles Herman's path led him to Washington D.C. and the Washington National Monument. Charles became the Head Custodian for the monument, an important position within the National Parks Division. Created shortly after completion of the structure, the Head Custodian oversaw all aspects of the monument's operational activities.

Sadly, Alfred's journey had a different, very tragic outcome.