My Uncle Elmer

I must have 16 or 17 years old when I first learned that I had an uncle who had been killed by a drunk driver. He was only 17 himself, walking home from a movie with a friend when he was struck from the curb.

My dad, who passed away at age 65 in 1999, only mentioned him once in all my life. We were arguing bitterly (as, I'm ashamed to say, we often did) and for some reason or another he brought the subject of his brother into the fight. It rattled him pretty bad just to talk about it, and he never brought it up again. I don't think he even told me his name.

It was Elmer.

My aunt Wanda was giving me some pictures from her countless photo albums when we came across the ones below, which she let me borrow to scan. There are a couple more he's in, but I'll save them for later posts. I've got some other great pictures of my grandparents that I'd not seen before, including the only photo I've ever seen of my great grandfather. For that matter, I'd never seen him OR uncle Elmer at ALL until yesterday.

So it's been a pretty cool weekend.

Click on the bottom image to enlarge and read the newspaper piece about the accident that claimed his life.

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