Author and Historian Kevin Callahan, right, presented a medal to honor the sacrifices made by the Trimmer brothers during World War II and the Korean War and by their mother Anna Trimmer White to White’s granddaughter Karen Griggy, left, during a special presentation which shared their stories at the Memorial Building Thursday. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

SALEM — The sacrifice of a pair of Salem brothers killed while serving in World War II was honored in a presentation at the Memorial Building Thursday.

The presentation saw author and historian Kevin Callahan highlight the stories of Salem natives Earl and Stanton Trimmer who were killed in battle in September 1944, and their mother Anna Trimmer White. Callahan also presented a medal to honor the family’s sacrifice to Karen Griggy, the granddaughter of White, and Earl and Stanton’s niece.

Earl and Stanton are buried side-by-side at the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial in Saint-James Normandy, France. While it was common for brothers fighting in World War II to be deployed far from one another, Earl and Stanton were killed only nine days and 50 miles apart. When they were later buried, rather than having their bodies repatriated and buried in the United States at no cost to the family, White opted to instead have them buried overseas, believing that “the money the government would spend sending her sons back could be better spent on other needs.”

“Stanton served in the 202nd Engineer Combat Battalion building pontoon bridges across rivers and breaching fortified lines in the [Allied Forces] march toward Germany. Earl, the youngest Trimmer brother, served in the 157th Infantry Regiment’s 45th Infantry Division first in Italy and later in Southern France,” said Callahan.

Born to English immigrants in East Liverpool in 1889, Callahan said that White’s “family described her with one word — durable.” White married Charles Trimmer, a coal miner from Pennsylvania who was 15 years her senior, and with whom she had had five sons before he was confined to a sanitarium. After her marriage to Charles ended, she would marry Carl White, a truck driver from South Carolina with whom she had a further three children — another son and two daughters.

“During the 1930s they moved all over Ohio. Their house in Kent burned down, and after moving to Berlin, Ohio Carl hit the road, this time for good. In the heart of the great depression Anna Trimmer White was left alone with eight children. She ended up in Salem, Ohio,” said Callahan.

Callahan said that White lived in Salem until she “was nearly 98 years old… adored her African violets and enjoyed crocheting, knitting and quilting,” and occasionally hosted boarders. Callahan also said that when she was asked by a local newspaper about losing three sons in two wars White said that “naturally, I feel deeply that they are gone, but if the sacrifice they have made will keep liberty alive, not only in this country, but in the rest of the world as well, their lives were not wasted.”

While Earl and Stanton made the ultimate sacrifice, their brothers Charles, William, and Paul also served in World War II, and White’s son with Carl, Carl White Jr., who enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school, was killed in action during the Korean War in 1950. Callahan said that “because overseas burial was not an option during the Korean War, Carl Jr. was returned home and buried in Arlington National Cemetery.”

“All five Trimmer boys served in World War II. Charles, the oldest, was a marine; William served in the army; Paul served in the merchant marines and was part of the fleet supporting the besieged troops on Guadalcanal,” said Callahan.

Callahan’s book “Brothers in Arms” chronicles the stories of the more than 700 sets of American brothers who fought and died during World War II and were subsequently buried side-by-side in one of 12 American military cemeteries across Europe. He said that he was inspired to tell the story of those brothers by a 2019 visit to the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial in Nettuno Italy with his sons, when he saw a pair of grave markers with the last name side-by-side, which he learned were a pair of brothers from Iowa.

mahart@mojonews.com