HUMMER, Anna M. – (1924-2006) Anna was born in Milford to Floyd and Anna Hummer, and was living at 5 Twelfth Street in 1942.
One day a troop train, pulled by a steam-powered locomotive, stopped for water at the elevated tank just north of the porcelain factory, and the engineer sounded one long blast of the whistle. That was the signal for residents to come show support for the soldiers with encouraging words or refreshments or by mailing letters for them.
Anna responded to the train's signal, and a G.I. asked her to mail some letters for him. He was Cleo V. Griffith (1923-2010) from Coleman, Texas. He'd been a laborer in a gravel pit before the war, and was a citizen-soldier in the Texas Army National Guard. In 1940 those troops, along with Oklahoma guardsmen, became the 36th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army.
Cleo and Anna exchanged addresses (probably through the train window) and maintained an increasingly friendly correspondence as his division fought its way through Italy, France and Germany. Cleo won five Bronze Stars, indicating that he did considerably more than carry a rifle through Europe.
In 1945 Cleo returned to Frenchtown and married Anna. They started their family on Twelfth Street, later moving to Holland Township. They had six sons, and were members of the Frenchtown and Milford Presbyterian churches. Cleo belonged to the Milford VFW and the Orion Lodge of the Masons and drove trucks for Chemical Leaman Tank Lines of Nazareth, Pa., for 30 years.
The Griffiths' sons would give them 15 grandchildren, and there were nine great-grandchildren by the time Cleo's obituary was written. It also noted that Cleo was not entirely reconstructed – he remained a Dallas Cowboys football fan to the end, although Anna's allegiance was to the Philadelphia Eagles. But they made it work.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
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