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Gravestone inspires song for World War II vet
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| | | Singer/songwriter Craig Gleason kneels beside the grave of Ervin O. Jones, a 21-year-old soldier killed in World War II. It was his gravestone that moved Gleason to write a song about this North Georgia boy who died so far away from home and the effect his death had on the young man’s family. Hatcher Hurd. (click for larger version) | |
November 16, 2009
JOHNS CREEK – Singer-songwriter Craig Gleason has written more than 200 songs professionally, and he takes his inspiration wherever and however it comes. But one of the strangest places the muse struck was while he was in a cemetery.
Gleason had taken his daughter to the small cemetery at the intersection of Jones Bridge and Old Alabama roads in Johns Creek. It is notable because it is well-kept and has many names of long standing in the community – Brumbelow (and Brumbalow), Phillips, Garmon, Bowen, Barnes and Jones.
It is also notable for the high proportion of veterans buried there, perhaps a dozen or more, many of whom did not survive their respective wars.
"I was showing the cemetery to my daughter and telling her how you can tell so much history about families by the names, the inscriptions and how the families married into one another," said
Gleason.
One particular gravestone captivated Gleason. It was that of Private Ervin O. Jones, killed at the tender age of 21 at some far-off place called le Shima. Later Gleason found out it was an island off Okinawa, Japan, the site of one those bitter little engagements that is little remembered now. History buffs may remember it as where the famous World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle was killed by a sniper.
"I just felt myself drawn to it in some way. I began to imagine this country boy who probably had never been out of the county until he got caught up in this World War," he said.
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Perhaps it was the startling photo on the gravestone: Ervin's picture in his dress Army uniform with his hat perched at a rakish angle on such a young, cherubic head.
When Gleason got back to his home on Nesbit Ferry Road, he felt he had to write a song about that boy and his tragic fate. The song began to take shape, and later that night he played what he had for his wife.
"I'm a songwriter, so when I write a song, whatever inspired me is in the song. But my wife said she thought I ought to get the true facts about Ervin O. Jones," he said.
She suggested he try to find some of Ervin's family still living who could tell him about the real man.
That is exactly what Gleason did. That Sunday he stood outside Pleasant Hill Baptist Church next to the cemetery and in just a few minutes discovered that Ervin's sister, Betty Jones Nix, lives in Sugar Hill and his younger brother, Curtis, in Cherokee County.
"I knocked on Curtis' door and told him who I was and why I was there. He gave me a funny look but asked me in. He began to talk about his brother, and we laughed and we cried for three hours," he said.
Now Gleason was a man on a mission. He visited Betty and Curtis again to learn more about their brother before he went off to war. He learned it was their grandfather for whom Jones Bridge was named. Ervin's grandfather was a farmer who grew cotton where millionaires now play golf in Country Club of the South.
He learned how Curtis was taught by his older brother to stand up to a bully, and not to worry because Ervin would always have his back. Gleason found out Ervin was a musician, too, who owned a 1937 Stella acoustic guitar and once made his own fiddle out of a cigar box.
Now, the ballad took on more heart and soul, much more than if Gleason simply wrote about that gravestone in small corner of North Fulton county. Atlanta radio station 94.9 The Bull showcases local talent every Saturday night called "Backyard Country." DJ Scott Lindy played "The Ballad of Ervin O. Jones" one Saturday evening and every week since.
"That was a song that just seemed destined to come out. I sent a CD to an Army unit in Iraq. Later I sang it at a gig for a soldier who had just come back from Iraq. He told me he had heard it lots of times over there, that lots of soldiers were playing it," Gleason said.
"I knew this song was special because it kept me up at night. I whittled and worked at it for about a month. It was a spiritual thing for me. I had no idea what effect it might have. The first time I sang it, I got a standing ovation.
"I just connected with him. Here was a soldier lying in the ground, and thousands of cars go by every day without a clue. We just take our freedom for granted," Gleason said.
Sister Betty said the family was thrilled that Gleason had written the song.
"It's wonderful," she said. "It brings back a lot of good memories. Ervin was the oldest. When he died it affected me very much."
She recalled how it was when they got the news. Their father Harmon Jones had seen a news report that Ervin's unit had been in hard fighting at le Shima, and he said then he knew his son had been killed.
"I remember it like it was yesterday. We were out on the field road, and we could see Mr. Maddox driving up. Daddy saw him and he told us, 'Ervin's been killed.' In those days, it was the postman who brought the bad news.
"Mr. Maddox drove up and told daddy, 'Harmon, I've got bad news.' And daddy said he knew already."
Betty said her father relived those days in the early '90s when the first Gulf War flared up and was on the television news for weeks. She remembers him, too.
"What I remember most was how tender and good he was. He looked out for us. Oh, we could aggravate each other, but the rest of folks had better leave us alone, because if you took on one you got all of us," she said.
Betty says she knows why Gleason wrote the song.
"I think it was God talking to him. He said he felt something pulling him. I think God wanted Ervin to be remembered. He was a hero."
And so he was.
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Tags: Alpharetta
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