Beverley (Drayton) Melchior

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Profile managers: Beverley Melchior [send private message] and Audrey Bley-Linn [send private message]

Biography

I first started my Genealogy studies in 1997 and finished a course on Family History the following year.

Over the years have I been off and on with my studies, until I connected to the internet some years later.

I discovered Wikitree a couple of years ago and have been forging ahead and have been reunited with many extended family relatives.

Now my children have grown up, I like to keep adding to my family tree, so that in a couple of hundred years, maybe some family members will come seeking out their back roots.

It is also great therapy since losing two of my sons and my only Daughter from Acute Myeloid Leukaemia on 27th June, 2014.

Sadly my only sweet Daughter passed away after a brave fight...She fought for one year with grace,courage and dignity..She is missed by many, especially her children and is now at peace and I am left with a broken heart.

I have another two sons living. I am a avid reader and love anything Australiana or British and am interested in the Civil War era in America.

Also have many relatives who immigrated to the United States in the early 1920's and beyond.

I am very interested in any Military History, as I have several extended family members who served in WW1 and WW2.

One, Harris Henry "Skippy" Horder, I am very proud of, earned a Purple Heart for his services in the U.S.A. fighting for America in 1942, after he born in New South Wales,Australia in 1900 and becoming a well known Bicycle Champion in both countries.

He joined the American Air Force in 1942, at age 42 years, where he became a war hero as a gunner air fighter and received many medals including the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, for downing many attacking aircraft near New Guinea.

His plane went missing in action on Sunday 8th August 1943 after the plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Port Moresby. I'm not sure if they ever found his body, but there is a Memorial at Honolulu giving Harris's plot number as P row 0, grave 55 located in Honolulu, HI, USA. Harris was Ranked as a Staff Sergeant in U.S. Army Air Forces, 321st Bomber Squadron, 90th Bomber Group,Heavy. The name of the plane was called a B-24D-1-CO "Big Emma".

Harris was also the inspiration for the famous American comic writer "Percy Crosby" who knew Harris in the 1930's and created a red headed comic character called "Skippy",after Percy listened to Harris telling his funny tales of his early life in Australia as a newspaper boy. This comic strip "Skippy" made Percy Crosby a millionaire. What a great man he was in his short life!

I also wrote two stories in 2011 that were published regarding my Uncle Harold Webber's death on the Kokoda Track during WW2 in 1942.

I actually located his two war buddies in 2011, who were with Harold when the mortar bomb exploded back into Uncle Harold's face, killing him instantly and saving these two mates.

These two diggers were still alive in their early 90's, when I located them in 2011 and arranged to meet on Anzac Day 2011. One mate handed me Harold's personal leather pouch, that he had retrieved from the body and kept it safe for some 69 years in the hope of finding a relation to pass it onto them. It was the most fulfilling,emotional moment of my life, that I will never forget!

Sadly this mate passed away in June 2015 aged 95 years.

In 2014, I actually located my Father's youngest sister who was still alive aged 91 years. We had a wonderful reunion on Mother's Day in 2014 and she told me many interesting family stories, one very special,regarding how my Mother met my Father and fell in love...Things I never knew about.

I learnt that my Aunt and Mother attended the same school.

Sadly my Auntie passed away some months later in 2015 just before I was to revisit her again.

So in that light I am very thankful that I had that short time in our reunion and writing letters and sending cards to each other....God bless her.

Queen Elizabeth II of the Commonwealth Realms is 20 Degrees from Beverley Dawn Melchior

Sources

http://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Connection&action=connect&person1Name=Windsor-1&person2Name=Drayton-81

• First-hand information. Entered by Beverley Drayton .
• Edited again in May 2016.

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