Lisa Elzey: 0:02

I could feel the joy they felt because they knew he said in the, in the narrative he said we knew it was a big deal, we knew this was a big invasion. And he said, and I wanted to get in on that, you know, I could feel that like all right, let's go boys, kind of you know mentality that Memphis Bell, like let's do this kind of thing.

Crista Cowan: 0:19

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as the Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. Well, this is a treat. The first time ever we are having the same guest back to back, because really today is part two of the story you heard last week. So last week I was joined by my producer, Lisa Elzey, and her mother, Nadel Day, and they made a big DNA discovery. Well, today you're going to hear from Lisa about the rest of the story from that DNA discovery, and it's really a testament to persistence and to the importance of understanding who the people are in your ancestors' lives so that you can learn more about them. Enjoy my conversation with Lisa.

Lisa Elzey: 1:24

Lisa, you're back, I'm back. Did I ever leave?

Crista Cowan: 1:29

True story. So last week we got to talk to you and your mom about the new discovery about your new grandpa, and you have now spent a couple of years diving into his life, but really over the last six months or so trying to learn more about him, and I'd just love to know, like what was the impetus really for that like wanting to discover more about him?

Lisa Elzey: 1:52

Yeah, so my grandfather, that I was raised with my grandpa Claire, that my mom that raised my mom, he was a bombardier on a B-17 during World War II in the Pacific. Bombardier on a B-17 during World War II in the Pacific. So when I was researching about my new grandpa I found a newspaper article that told me he was on a B-17 in the European theater of World War II and I thought, oh my gosh, this is such an interesting, you know, alignment of grandpas essentially one side of the world and the other side of the world during the war and I just really wanted to know about that military history. I felt like it would give me a really good sense of who he was as a person. He met my grandmother while he was in the military. She had a type she really loved boys in uniforms. So I wanted just to know a little bit more about his time there because I feel like that really would have shaped his personality.

Lisa Elzey: 2:46

I know my grandpa Claire's personality was very much shaped by that time. He went bald very early in life because of the stress. Apparently he had hair, a lot of hair, like I've seen pictures of him, and when he came back he lost a lot of hair because of the stress. So I always knew him as like a bald grandpa, so I just knew that it really of the stress. So I always knew him as like a bald grandpa, so I just knew that it really affected his time. So I wanted to know more about my new grandpa.

Crista Cowan: 3:11

I love that. How old like you have some basic like we all start with some basic like biographical facts about people when we start researching them or trying to learn more about them. So you know how old was he when he met your grandma, where was he from? What was his family like?

Lisa Elzey: 3:27

So he was 20 when he met my grandma and she was 16. And so I mean, I know that sounds like crazy, but I think that it was a different time. Back then, you know, he was a young soldier and all of that. He was born in Bangor, maine, so way far away from me in California and far away from my grandmother in Spokane, Washington. So from Bangor, maine. He joined the service in July of 1941. So he was over training and doing things and then so he came to Spokane around 1942 to be trained on B-17 bombers. So they met sometime in 1942. And my mom, you know, was conceived around that time when they met, in the fall, because she was born in July of 1943.

Lisa Elzey: 4:12

He had one brother, a younger brother named Roland, and that's it, and his, his father was Harold Emery Lansbury, senior, named after his father. But he had a rough life. His father was an alcoholic, his mother divorced his father when he was young, when Harold was young, and so I suspect that really affected him. There was a newspaper article about his life when he was 13 or 12 or 13,. He ran away from home with a buddy and it was in the newspaper. They're looking for him. He ran away with two buddies, actually with two kids, they suspect it's also with so-and-so, and they ran away from home and I don't think it was on a lark, I think it was probably. He had a really rough life and so his mother divorced his father and she remarried and I think that he liked the stepdad.

Lisa Elzey: 5:06

I have a picture that I got from a family member, from my mom's cousin that we discovered, and it's with Harold, his brother, roland, his mother and his stepfather and they're all smiling, and so I think the stepfather was more a part of his life. I think that he cut out his actual father, so that's rough. And then we learned later that Harold, my new grandpa, was also an alcoholic. So you know, I don't know if that's rough. And then we learned later that Harold, my new grandpa, was also an alcoholic. So I don't know if that's because of genetics, what he saw his father do, if the war had an effect on that.

Lisa Elzey: 5:34

But with his death certificate they listed it as suicide because he died of alcohol and pills, and so I don't know if it was a purposeful overdose, if it was just pills, and so I don't know if it was a purposeful overdose, if it was just so. He was self-medicating maybe because of his life growing up, maybe because of the war on top of that, it could be a lot of things. But that was super interesting to me and I think that's why I wanted to know more about his experience, because when someone is self-medicating to that degree, there's something going on there. They've had a rough time in their life. So I thought I should look into that military experience and see what I find.

Crista Cowan: 6:09

Yeah, and it's interesting because you know I've been with you through a lot of this journey and watching you uncover this, and you kind of uncovered it in that order, right, which is, you know some basic biographical facts, some history about the family, the way he died, some information from some of the cousins and some of your mom's half siblings, and the war was almost just like a footnote in his story as you were collecting that information initially, but at some point you decided to really dig into his time in the war.

Lisa Elzey: 6:39

Yeah, I did, and it's interesting because no one really knew about this experience in the war and I think that's super indicative of the time and of that generation. They just didn't talk about it. My grandfather, claire, that I grew up with as my grandpa, he never talked about the war. In fact, after he passed away, my mom and dad found a book that was written about his squadron and they read it and my dad had said, if we had only read this when he was alive, we probably would have understood him so much better. And I never forgot that.

Lisa Elzey: 7:11

My dad said that when I was a teenager and so I just wanted to understand him better and I thought how better to do that than to understand his military experience. So I just was searching and trying to figure out you know where, where did he serve? And then I wrote for his NARA National Archive Service Record. Now, in 1973, was it 73? The records in the St Louis National Archive that hold all of the service records for the military. I think 80% of the Army service records were destroyed in that fire in 1973. And so I just, you know, I wrote hoping that I'd find something, and sometimes they like piece together what they have, and I got nine pages. That's it.

Lisa Elzey: 7:56

And that's a lot because I know some people get zero pages. But that nine pages gave me information about what he did on that B-17 bomber and it told me when he enlisted. It told me all of those things and I got his military service number before to order that record from Ancestry on the Veterans Memorial application for a headstone. And if you flip the page over because the front, I was like oh, there's his death date, you know there's nothing there that's going to help me. It just says Army because he's Army Air Corps. But I flipped the page over and there it was his service number so I could take that service number. And then I ordered the record from NARA and that gave me some more information. And then I'm starting to put the pieces together, you know, because you need that data to put the pieces together. And then I did a Google search, because Google's awesome. I searched through Google on his military service ID and I really wish you know how you do things on Google but you don't remember what the search terms were. But you found something and you're like, what brilliant search term did I put in there? I didn't remember, but anyway I found this site. It was about the 351st Airborne and it had the 508th and the 509th squadrons and it was this man that had put together all of the records of these two squadrons, all of their missions, their mission records, like the navigation, where they go, where the targets were, like it was incredible. It was this amazing site. It was like someone's life work that they had put on there and they had a search box for crew and I'm like I'm just going to put it in, maybe Harold will be there, I don't know. So I put in Harold Downsbury in the search and bam, it popped up and there he was with his service number. So I put in Harold Downsbury in the search and bam, it popped up, and there he was with his service number. So I knew it was him 33 missions that he had flown in Europe, all 33 missions dates, time or places where their target was. And then you click that mission and it shows who was on the plane, it shows the crew of each mission. I was flabbergasted, I just stared at the screen, I couldn't believe it and that really, to me, was a way of saying, okay, you need to research this, this is amazing information and you need to figure this out. And something that really caught my eye was the dates are shown and there it was, 6 June 1944. My new grandpa had flown on D-Day and I don't know.

Lisa Elzey: 10:32

There's just something I've always felt super connected to military. My dad was in the Navy during Vietnam. He was on a submarine which saved his life, I'm sure, because he was doing recon, but a submarine. I mean that's crazy. My grandpa Claire was doing recon, but a submarine. I mean that's crazy. My grandpa Claire was in World War II. I have many, many Civil War veterans on both sides of that conflict. Just the military is kind of in my family, my mom's I always kid around because my mom in the basement of their house it's like patriotic central They've got you know like eagles and flags and you know my just amazing stuff. So I've just grown up in that kind of environment and so really seeing this crew that I knew flew on D-Day and my grandfather was there, I just felt inspired. I needed to know more. I needed to know more.

Crista Cowan: 11:19

And God bless the person who put that website together.

Lisa Elzey: 11:25

Right and I found out he there's also a book, so he's put a book together. Anyway, it's just I, you know, I feel like that's happens a lot in genealogy. There's some person that's like you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to collect this thing and I'm going to put it in the world, and I cannot tell you how many discoveries I've made because of those people. Not every discovery is on a big ancestry site. Sometimes you're on this little tiny thing from a little tiny town and it's somebody's life work.

Lisa Elzey: 11:50

Yes, and it was so, oh gosh. So thank you, Thank you. Thank you whoever that was. No, I know who it was, but thank you.

Crista Cowan: 11:57

So now you have this list of every mission that Harold flew and the crew that he was with, and the dates and like. What do you do with that information? What is it that you want to know? Or how do you dig in more Right Like?

Lisa Elzey: 12:10

what do you do with that? I'm like, okay, and some of the names okay, my favorite name on there, the first name I looked at because you always want to find the most unique name, teddy Smagira. Okay, okay, teddy Smagira. And I was like, okay, teddy, where are you from? We got to find this, because how many Teddy Smagiras could there be in 1944 on a B-17? And so I searched for Teddy Smagira. He came up rather quickly and there was photos of him on Ancestry that someone had put his wedding photo and his uniform looking all smart.

Lisa Elzey: 12:40

And I thought I could probably do this. I could probably find each of the members of the crew and find out where they're from and who they are. And that's really what I wanted to know was where are they from? Because I've always been fascinated by people being thrown together in a conflict from completely different environments, from all over the world or all over the country. And my grandfather was from Maine. And here you've got Teddy Smagira. He's from like Brooklyn, right? So like can you imagine, you know he's from New York. So you've got this Brooklyn, new York kid with this Maine kid, you know.

Lisa Elzey: 13:14

And then I found out later there's an Arkansas guy, you know just this whole group of people. So I thought I want to research the people, but I didn't have a place to like do it. I didn't have a place to gather the information. So I'm making like a spreadsheet or you know cause they're not in my tree, they're not on my family tree, they're not not related to them, but I had to collect the data Right. So I'm like collecting web links on ancestry to remind me where things were and and it was really frustrating. It was a frustrating endeavor of like where do I put the data? But I kept going, I wanted to keep researching and so I just started putting two and two together and some of the names are really difficult, like John Smith, like difficult because they're common.

Lisa Elzey: 13:57

Yeah, John Jones right, john Henry, john H Jones and Harold Jones. I'm just like I'm never going to find them. You know, I kind of resigned that I'm probably not going to find everybody, but I could find a few, but I just didn't have a place to gather the data. And that's what I was needing to find and why, like why were you?

Crista Cowan: 14:15

why do you care? Why do you care about the other men that he flew with?

Lisa Elzey: 14:18

Right, good question. I think I cared because I thought if I researched the people he was with, maybe they had a photo of maybe the crew. Like that was really the thing I wanted the most was this photo of the crew, of his experience. My mom kept saying do you have him in uniform? Do you have a photo of him like with, you know, with his people in the military? And I was like, no, I don't have that. And so I really wanted that.

Lisa Elzey: 14:43

I also thought if I research his people he's with, maybe I could get stories about the experience, because I didn't have that with Harold. I just had a small newspaper article that I'd found that said he'd shot down three Nazi airplanes over his time on his missions. He'd also received the Distinguished Flying Cross Now, that's one of the highest honors you can receive aside from like Medal of Honor and I wondered what did he do? Like what happened? And it said he received on 22 February for the mission on 22 February in Bergen. And I looked at the list and there it was 22 February and they went to Bergen and it had the list of the crew and it was.

Lisa Elzey: 15:24

It was a little different from the crew on D-Day, but not by much, by like two people. It was a little different from the crew on D-Day, but not by much by like two people. So I thought, you know, maybe if I research the people around him maybe I'll find out more of the story. I don't know, I just felt like it's kind of a fan club idea and if you're a genealogist you know you should always research friends, associates and neighbors around your ancestor, because maybe you'll find information. And that's kind of what I was doing. Right, it was like I'm going to see what they can find, but I didn't have anywhere to put things and it was really frustrating until until recently.

Lisa Elzey: 15:58

And we have a new tool on Ancestry that helps me out.

Crista Cowan: 16:01

Yeah. So it's interesting because I think we all kind of approach this in different ways for different projects. But the fact that you didn't grow up with this grandfather, you didn't know his stories, I think there was more of a need to want those stories, and so it makes sense in your genealogy brain to like go research all the people. But I think that doesn't. That's not something that a lot of people automatically think to do, and so I think this is just a beautiful illustration of how important it is to start to look at the people around them, to understand their experience. Now you have these missions, you have these flight crews. You said that the crews stayed fairly consistent, with just a few change outs over time.

Lisa Elzey: 16:42

Yeah, he had like maybe I mean he flew the most missions with a pilot named John L Nall N-A-L-L Nall. He flew most of his missions with him, but I think they changed up crews here and there because people were injured, people got lost, you know sick whatever.

Lisa Elzey: 16:59

So he did fly with other folks, but this particular crew that he flew with on D-Day was the crew that he kind of flew with the most. In fact, two of the guys in that crew he flew with on his very first mission, so he'd been with them for a long time so he would have known them really well. So I really thought that was a good place to start.

Crista Cowan: 17:18

So you have this kind of fixed set of people that you're researching and you're trying to throw them in spreadsheets and figure out how to manage it all. So we've been working with people at Ancestry for about five years yes, trying to explain to them that this is the kind of research that we need to do to get the stories and the photos and the information that we crave about our ancestors, but we need a place to put it.

Lisa Elzey: 17:45

We do because the family tree is not the place right. I mean the construct of ancestral family tree.

Crista Cowan: 17:50

Of a pedigree chart. A pedigree chart.

Lisa Elzey: 17:53

They don't connect in right, they're not related. Usually they may be, but not this time. So yeah, we've been asking for that, and the amazing people at Ancestry have finally delivered what we wanted them to build.

Crista Cowan: 18:04

Yeah, so we call it Ancestry Networks, and it allows us to have a place inside of our family tree container right not connected to a family tree chart to be able to start to collect photos and stories and web links and documents and all of these people that are connected to, in your case, your grandfather and his time serving in the military. So you've now got a place for Teddy Smagira and John Nall and all of them, and what else do you start collecting in the process?

Lisa Elzey: 18:39

What else do I start collecting? I mean, I was so, first of all, so excited to like put them in right, to like enter them into a place that was their place. I got really emotional about it because I finally had a place to put all the data in one united. I don't know how to describe it. I just felt it was amazing that I could go to, I could add to. So the first thing I did was put all their names in, but I realized there were two people that I hadn't really researched well, and those were the Joneses, because hard names, I know.

Lisa Elzey: 19:10

Harold Jones and John Jones. And so I was like I've got to research the Joneses and so you watch this happen at Ancestry, because I knew that we were going to be presenting this new tool and I'd been asked to present this particular network at RootsTech and I felt like a lot of pressure going oh, I need to find these Joneses because I don't have them. You know, there's nine guys on the D-Day crew and I didn't have these two guys. So I'm like, all right, I'll start with Harold, because he had the same name as my grandfather, harold, so I'll start with him. So I'm researching Harold Jones and Harold L Jones and you think how are you going to find this? You know. So the first place I started was death records of Harold L Jones that were veterans, because we have veteran records in that way, as far as like when they died, et cetera, there were only two. Right, I'm like that's impossible. How are there only two Harold L Jones? But I guess the L was kind of the kicker. Well, and the age and the veteran status.

Lisa Elzey: 20:11

Yes, yes, so there are only two, that kind of followed all the rules of what I needed. So I researched both of them, trying to find their families. And I found the families of those particular veterans and they were from two different places and I'm like, how am I going to know which Jones it is? So I just took one and I'll research this one. He's from Texas and my dad's from Texas. So I was feeling a little kindred spirit and so I was researching Harold L Jones from Texas. Google search again Googled Harold L Jones, texas, world War II, et cetera. Up popped a result it was an oral history interview from the University of North Texas and I was like what, what's going on?

Lisa Elzey: 20:56

And it said Harold L Jones was the interviewee. I was going wait a second. It was 20 to 30 pages of an interview with Harold. He was much older, it was in 1999 it was taken and he died in like 2000 and something, early 2000s and it was an interview of his World War II experience. It was a World War II oral history that the university was collecting all these veteran histories and he was talking about his experience. I was like wait a second. So I'm reading this and I think you were in the office when I found it and I was like what is going on?

Lisa Elzey: 21:31

And I'm just going through the pages and reading as quickly as I can. He's telling stories about being up in the air. He's telling stories about D-Day, about going into the room and they open the curtain on the wall and they show the map of the and they said everyone cheered, you know, because they knew it was the big invasion and my grandpa was there. My grandpa was in that moment with him. He was part of the flight crew. He was part of that crew with Harold Jones and I'm just like it's like I imagined my grandfather sitting next to Harold Jones and Harold Jones is telling me what they're seeing. That's what it was like and again I got kind of emotional and choked up. I couldn't believe it.

Lisa Elzey: 22:14

And then I kept going through this, this, you know, beautiful interview of this experience. Harold Jones talks about his family getting married. He was married before he left, leaving his wife and his wife got pregnant, you know, but right before he left and and not seeing the baby till he got home. It was just this beautiful story. And then I got to the end of the document and they had what they named the appendix, and at the beginning of the appendix. It was Harold's back.

Lisa Elzey: 22:37

Remember the dot matrix computers back in the day it was Harold's dot matrix, like history, that he had typed out, and so they included that as part of the appendix, you know, and it matched what he had said in the interview. But it was just a little more info. But then, right after that little dot matrix print, there was a photo. It was a Xerox copy, really bad quality, but it was a crew photo, and I saw my grandpa. I saw my new grandpa. He was there. I I had just I'm not exaggerating, I had just thought before I'd found this. I just really, I really wish I could just get a photo of my grandpa with his crew. I've researched all these guys, I know who they are, you know, except the two Joneses, and I just wish I could get a photo. I swear it was like I manifested it and you guys said that you're like oh, lisa just wishes, wishes. And it appears on the screen, you know. But it did, and I was.

Lisa Elzey: 23:29

I started crying again. I started crying. I'm like you guys, it's a really crappy photo, but it's a photo. You know, it was a Xerox, and so I immediately was trying to find out how do I get an original copy. But and then in my mind this little thing said beggars can't be choosers. You know, like, don like, you already have a photo Overwishing, I know overwishing, like okay, I really like that. But so anyway, I just I couldn't believe it. So I went from, you know, this small amount of information I'd found an article about John Null and why they received the Distinguished Flying Cross, so I got a medium size information. Then I went to this interview and a photo, I mean I just from the little tiny piece to a big, you know, big, wide open space. It's like kind of like think of it, a cruise ship.

Lisa Elzey: 24:15

I had a really small portal room on the cruise ship when I started just looking out, going, yep, there's a little bit of ocean, and I kind of felt like I went to a balcony room Like it, just this whole idea of like I can see all the story, I can see all the ocean here you know, and it was incredible.

Crista Cowan: 24:35

It was incredible moment, but it was all based on your willingness to start looking into the lives of those other men that were associated with your grandfather.

Lisa Elzey: 24:39

Yeah.

Crista Cowan: 24:40

Yeah, that's such an important, important thing. And I think it's interesting because you know as I think about my own networks, right, like you cannot tell the story of my life without telling the story of the lives of the people that I've worked with closely for two decades, or the people that I worship with, or the people in my neighborhood, like my family is so important to me and like their lives are intertwined with mine, but so are all those other people.

Lisa Elzey: 25:10

Absolutely. I mean, I think about I just went to dinner the other night with my college roommates. Like we just went and you know we get together and there's a lot of them here in Utah, and I was talking to a friend and they were and he was like, well, how do you know them? Like, oh, we were, we were roommates before we were married. It's like you still see each other. Sometimes. I'm like, yeah, we go to dinner and talk about our kids and our kids have all kind of grown up together in some way and and.

Lisa Elzey: 25:32

But if we and we took a picture, we always take a picture, you know, and if someone saw that picture, they wouldn't know who those people are unless I've tagged them or talked about them or they're part of my network and they're part of my life. They're part. They've been there for hard moments. They've been there for lots of different things and that's why I wanted to find out about Harold. They'd been there for hard moments for each other.

Lisa Elzey: 25:52

He served the entirety of the war. He'd served from 1941 to 1945. So before Pearl Harbor happened and after the very last, you know, vj day. So it was a long haul for him and I wanted to know what that was. And so here I had a story of stories, plural, of that time, I mean they weren't about my Harold directly, but he was there, he was right next to that guy. You know, watching the D-Day, you know mission invasion map show up and I could feel the exuberance, I could feel the joy they felt because they knew what he said in the, in the narrative he said we knew it was a big deal, we knew this was a big invasion. And he said, and I wanted to get in on that. You know, I could feel that like all right, let's go boys, kind of you know mentality that Memphis bell, like let's do this kind of thing. And so I wasn't done, though I still had another Jones to do, I still had another one.

Crista Cowan: 26:45

Because you will not quit no.

Lisa Elzey: 26:47

I am very persistent, I persist, but also I felt pressure. I wanted to make sure I had done my due diligence in finding out the whole crew, because that's what I was presenting Now. I mean, I could have just gone and said it's still a work in progress and I'm still looking. I could do that. But I don't like doing that. I like to have everything, I like all my boxes checked. John H Jones I had a middle initial.

Lisa Elzey: 27:15

Again, how do you find a John H Jones that was serving in the military? This one came up with three options. So I was like okay, so you know, methodology in family history is to prove who someone isn't too. It's not always proving who someone is. You know, if you have four or five of the same person, same name, same place, even prove that they weren't your person and process of elimination can help you discover. I'm sure many of our listeners know that, but for those that don't, maybe start with that. So I was proving who people weren't because of whatever reason, like, oh no, they were listed in this squadron. Or you know, I found their military history and it didn't match mine or my, my grandfather's. So that's how I found their military history and it didn't match mine or my grandfather's. So that's how I found the John H Jones that I needed. And so, you know, I kind of do the whole usual suspects research, like you go to family search and look at trees, you go to find a grave, you go to newspaper, like there's all the places that I go and look at things.

Lisa Elzey: 28:17

So after I'd found this John H jones, he or yeah, john h jones he died in colorado, uh and uh, I wanted to know more about his family and so I thought I'll go to family search and see Every single person that was in the crew. I'd gone to family search. None of them had any photos or anything. They had names in there, but nothing that I already didn't know. So I went to family search, looked him up in trees and found him, and, and in the picture that I'd found before there was this guy in the back. He was really skinny, kind of a pencil neck guy, and he had on this like aviator cap and he was so distinct looking I just wanted to know who that kid was. He just had this look, you know.

Lisa Elzey: 28:51

And I opened up the memories tab of John H Jones on FamilySearch and there was this picture of maybe an 80-something-year-old man and it was the pencil neck kid. It was him. It was like that is him. I knew it, I knew it. And this guy is a lot older. Right, I knew it was him. So I look at the memories tab, see that picture there. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. And that was the other thing I wanted to have.

Lisa Elzey: 29:15

If I couldn't find a crew picture, I was trying to get portrait pictures of each of the guys and I've been pretty successful at that. I didn't have one of him other than the pencil neck picture. But now I had this lovely photo of him before he passed. But then there were other things in that. In that tab there were like five other memories and one of them was called quote, quote, a hairy day. Now my maiden name is day and my dad's name is Harry. So I giggled as I saw that and I'm like is this a sign? Like what is going on? And it was because I opened that document and right at the top of that document was another photo of the crew, a different photo, a different crew. A, not Xerox copy. No, it was way better, so much better. And I remember you were there again.

Lisa Elzey: 30:08

Okay, obviously I spend a lot of time in ancestry a lot of time at work and this was for work, this was not my, you know, this was not for personal gain, although it was. But you were there and I think I said, are you kidding me? It's like I'm like, you guys look, and there was a photo and there was my grandfather bottom bottom row, kneeling down left hand side, and it was so clear and I'm like, oh, that is my grandfather, like I could tell. The other one was super smudgy and it was harder, nope, and right next to him, teddy Smagira.

Crista Cowan: 30:40

There he was smiling.

Lisa Elzey: 30:43

I couldn't believe it. And so then I'm like what is this? Harry Day, you know narrative. And so what happened was John H Jones, just before he died. It was a year before his death. He wrote down the narrative of his experience on the mission on 22nd of February over Bergen, where they got their distinguished flying craft.

Lisa Elzey: 31:05

Yes, and it was. It was like you guys, I'm not. It was like Memphis Belle, it was like the whole thing. And they had this whole where the pilot got gravely injured and he got trapped because the way that the flak had trapped him in the cockpit and then the co-pilot, who was John Nall, took over, there was like zero visibility on the little if you've ever seen a B-17, the little windows. It's like tiny little car windows that the pilots are looking out of. I think there was some obstruction. They couldn't see. He was like trying to stick his head out some side thing to see they were under attack.

Lisa Elzey: 31:46

They were the, the, the plane, everything. I mean the flaps weren't working, it was just a mess. And so the electricity, the electric hydraulic was out and one of the wheels was gone. They had one wheel. So they belly land. John Nall belly landed that plane with all those guys in it. No one was injured from the landing. And then afterwards they found out that the plane had over 3,100 flak holes in the plane and he said in the narrative from the size of a pencil to the size of my fist going through. That's how like, from that you know, throughout the plane they all survived. Like this is Memphis belt. Like this is the movie that I grew up watching and my grandfather was on that plane and he talks about him in this narrative. And my favorite part you guys have this narrative my favorite part is he talks about the crew ahead of time and who was on the crew and he has their little nicknames.

Crista Cowan: 32:41

You know how they have their little Flight names. Yes, their little flight names.

Lisa Elzey: 32:45

I was very much a Top Gun fan back in the 80s and Maverick and Goose and whatever, and they had my favorite. So they had the navigator's name. They called him Get Lost yeah, get Lost Henley, because he's a navigator. And then my grandfather was called HD I think for Harold, because I think maybe because there were a lot of Harold's that called him HD. And they called John Nall the pilot. They called him Booster Pump. I don't know why they called him that, but that's what they called him.

Lisa Elzey: 33:15

My very favorite was Cecil Green. They call them Cece. It is his name, cecil, but his nickname was Two Beers and they said we call them Two Beers because that was all it took to get him sleepy drunk. And I was like, okay, I just picture these guys and their bomber jackets coming back and they always talked about when they came back from their mission. They had a shot of whiskey to celebrate and I, just I was a movie in my mind. I could see all the things. And so I went from again the small newspaper article that I had all the way up to two photos of the crews, two different crews, the crews. I was looking for two firsthand accounts of the experience. I, I. I'm so blessed I could not even imagine all of that. All I wanted to do was find out more, maybe get a photo of a crew, and here I have firsthand accounts of what my grandfather went through. An abundance of information.

Crista Cowan: 34:07

Right.

Lisa Elzey: 34:08

And it's just such a blessing and with my research I was able to find descendants of these crewmen. Right, and I talked to John Nall's daughter. He had one child, a daughter. I called her. We talked for two hours. She told me stories I didn't know.

Lisa Elzey: 34:25

She told me about how one time they wanted ice cream. It was so hot. Where they were they were in Polbrook, england, at the base. It was so humid, so hot. They wanted ice cream. So all the guys they got some cream got a metal tin. They got in their B hot. They wanted ice cream. So all the guys they got some cream got a metal tin. They got in their B-17. They just took it up in the air. They took it up above the line, I guess, where things are going to freeze. So they all had their jackets and whatnot stirring the cream. And I guess they came across a Nazi scout at the time and they were worried like oh my gosh, are we in a battle? Like what's going to happen? And they said the scout kind of just left them alone. And they left the scout alone and they stirred the ice cream and they came back down and had some ice cream. So so it just again, I didn't know that story. She grew up knowing that story about her dad, so now that's part of my story too, and so now I get to share with her all of the things I've found and it really becomes a community, this network, and we're sharing information with each other, and now I have a place to put it on Ancestry. I have photos, I have the stories. It's just, it's such an amazing gift. I love this and you've spent.

Crista Cowan: 35:26

I've watched you spend so much time and energy and effort like making these discoveries and having this place to put them all and now making these connections with these family members. What is it that you hope for next? Oh gosh, I hope.

Lisa Elzey: 35:41

I hope well for myself. I hope that I can find more information and more people to share it with, because, just like that guy that put that information on that site, that took all this information and put it there, I was able to make a discovery because of his work. So I want to be able to take what I found and publish it, and someone else can find what I found and make a discovery. I don't necessarily need to give it to them personally, I just want it in the ether so that it can be found. So that's what I hope for myself to give to others. I also hope they'll find me.

Lisa Elzey: 36:14

I want people to find me and find out that I'm in their network somehow, or that my family is in their network somehow, and find out things I didn't even know. I didn't know. I think that the possibilities are endless with networks. I already have like five in my brain that I'm already wanting to work on, but I got to get this one done first and I just hope that people will utilize the tool and utilize the idea, like you said, of what people are around. My ancestor that crafted his life story.

Crista Cowan: 36:46

Yeah, yeah. I love that so much, that whole idea that you can go from knowing nothing about a relative that you just discovered you're related to and slowly build up to have this information that is now such a rich story that you can tell and that you can share with your children and that you can share with the other descendants of those crews For sure, and I did share it with my mom.

Lisa Elzey: 37:08

I read the story of the Distinguished Flying Cross mission on the 22nd and she was crying on the phone because I read it over the phone. She's like, read it to me. And my dad was there too and she was crying and she's just like, I'm just so proud. She goes. I didn't know him, I didn't know this person who was my birth father. She goes, but I'm just so proud of his service and she just was crying like I can't imagine what that must have been like that many holes in a plane, that scared, having no control over anything but having the willingness to go back in the plane. And it meant the world to her and it meant the world to me to give that to her, I love that I think that's a beautiful place for us to end your mom's story of discovery that you helped facilitate for her.

Lisa Elzey: 37:55

Yeah, it was a beautiful journey.