2017 Northern Florida Genealogical Conference:
Recently, I was invited as a Guest Speaker to the Northern Florida Genealogical Conference. As I pondered which specific subject to speak about it came to me to play a game and get everyone involved. I wrote the barest minimum of information that was given to me, on 3 x 5 cards and handed them out and asked the guest to read to me what was on the card as I wrote the information on the board.
One of the cards simply stated, “Joseph Checcia, WWll.”
I looked at the audience and asked, “What do I do? What does this mean? Where are the clues and how would I find this person- ANYTHING about this person- ANYTHING?” (What would you do?)
This is what I learned about Joseph Checcia:
Obviously, he was in World War II. Upon receiving his war records it was discovered that he died a hero!
Their plane was flying over France and it was shot down-yes, the plane was going down! Joseph was the Jumpmaster. He stood in the doorway of the airplane as he helped each of his unit members, each man jump to their safety, and saved their lives. Finally, Joseph was the last one to jump. As he jumped, with the plane rapidly nose down racing to the ground ready to crash, Joseph jumped. He tried to get his chute opened. He did not have time. Each of his comrades and fellow soldiers watched from the ground mortified, somber, as they landed to safety and as the man who save their life met his untimely death.
It was because of Joseph that these men went on to have a life, come home, marry, and have a posterity, of which the daughter of one such man found me, with the simple name of Joseph Checcia, wanting to find out everything about him and his family that she could so that she could preserve his memory for her own posterity as the hero that enabled her father to come home and have a life and a family.
Joseph is what we would call an unsung hero. A simple 22-year-old young man who joined the Army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor at the commencement of World War II, leaving his girlfriend, his mother and father, with a wave and a smile thinking he was going to save the world and then come home and live a happy life. Little did anyone know, let alone him, that he would save an entire unit which in turn saved hundreds of people that were yet unborn, never to return home again.
Knowing that Joseph joined the war in 1941 and realizing that he was more than likely around 20 years old like the rest of the young men who joined the war, I was able to find him on the 1920 Census as a baby and then the 1930 Census as a 10 year old. I was able to find his mother and father and siblings, and also his mother and father’s marriage record, which in turn gave me his mother’s maiden name, and enabled me to find his mother as a child with her parents on the 1910 Census, as well as Joseph’s father with his parents on the 1910 Census and extend that entire family.
Mission accomplished. Joseph’s memory as a Hero and entire family was found, located, recorded, shared, and preserved.
