Bedford event takes city back to 1944

As the skies darkened over Bedford on Thursday night, two figures from the past, but very much still in the present, took their places beside a teletype machine from 1944.

The machine sat outside Ivy Ridge Café, which, in that year, had been Green’s drugstore, and the two individuals sitting beside it recalled one of the saddest days in Bedford history.

Now 90 years old, Helen Tankersley was working at her beauty shop above the drug store on July 16, 1944, when telegram after telegram started coming in downstairs, each announcing the death of a Bedford soldier from the D-Day invasion over a month before.

Elizabeth Teass was operating the teletype machine, which brought in nine such tragic messages that day.

“I came downstairs from the beauty shop to get an order of drinks for my ladies,” said Tankersley, “and (Teass), she was crying, and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’”

Teass informed her of what was happening, and Tankersley said she immediately noted changes in the whole city’s atmosphere.

“When I walked out to go back upstairs to the shop, you could have heard a pin drop in this town,” she said. “I went to school with a lot of these boys.”

Tankersley’s story was just one of the stories told at Bedford Museum’s “A Walk Through World War II Memory Lane” on Thursday night.

Organizers estimated about 50 people had walked the hour-long tour along the streets of Centertown Bedford as of about 7:30 p.m.

In addition to the story of the telegrams, participants heard narrations of some letters from war, the contributions of black soldiers, a firsthand account of a Red Cross staff member who was stationed in Burma, and the story of a Polish man who made his way to America after being liberated from the German occupation of his country.

Bo Zaryczny, who said he was only a year old in 1939, when his country was overrun by Germany, related some of his memories surrounding his childhood.

“In 1944, myself … my two brothers … and my parents and my aunt who was babysitting us, were taken by the Gestapo at 2 o’ clock in the morning,” he said.

They were taken to a labor camp, Zaryczny said, from which they were liberated by American troops in 1945.

When they realized the American troops were pulling out, with Russian troops taking their place, Zaryczny said his family elected to follow the Americans, eating scraps, sometimes from garbage cans along the way.

Eventually able to become an American citizen, Zaryczny said he always tries to stay thankful, even when complacency starts to set in.

“This is the best country in the world,” he said.

“Unless you experience hunger, pain, fear,” he said, “you’d better thank God that you’re here, especially here in this wonderful town of Bedford.”

Organizers stressed that, though the D-Day invasion is a huge part of Bedford’s history, people should not overlook the rest of the area’s involvement in the war effort.

“There were 144 men from Bedford that lost their lives in military service,” said Jennifer Thomson, narrating the first scene, in which new soldiers were sworn in.

Walter Johnson and his wife, Ruth, moved to Bedford about four years ago.

Johnson said, for him, a big part of the draw was the history, particularly from the World War II time period.

The D-Day memorial “was kind of the main attraction,” he said, adding that he now spends some of his time volunteering there.

Johnson said he appreciates what went into organizing the memorial walk, and particularly appreciated Zaryczny’s testimony, and how it highlighted the necessity of the war.

“There aren’t any good wars,” he said. “There are an awful lot of necessary wars.”