GALVESTON, Texas -- Maxine Olson never met her father, 2nd Lt. Max Kenneth Graham, who died in War World II months before she was born. Her mother remarried, and she lost contact with her father’s family decades ago.
On Sunday, a phone call from a cousin in Galveston would connect her to an organization seeking to honor her father in Bayeux, France.
It also would lead her to members of her father’s family, who had been searching for Olson for years.
"It’s the most amazing thing that ever happened to me," Olson said from her West Virginia home. "I’ve been crying all day."
On Sunday, island resident Eva Friotofson read a Daily News article about efforts of a French organization called The Normandy Association for Air Remembrance to find relatives of Graham, whose P-47D fighter plane crashed after being hit by German flak. Graham died Aug. 13, 1944, at the age of 20. His daughter was born Dec. 6 the same year.
Olson lived in Galveston, at 2419 Ave. P1/2, until she was 6, before moving to Houston. The P1/2 address was the last known address the French group had of the Graham family.
Sunday Call
Friotofson is Olson’s cousin. The two have stayed in touch. Friotofson called Olson on Sunday to tell her about the article and gave her the number of Robert Stuard, an honorary member of the French association, which had been searching for Graham’s relatives for five years.
Olson called Stuard and gave him the name of her uncle — Paul John Sprunck, 88, of Dallas.
Sprunck was Graham’s brother-in-law, married to the late Betty Sprunck, Max Graham’s sister.
Because so many years had passed, Olson didn’t know whether her father’s family wanted to speak with her.
After Friotofson’s phone call, she found her uncle’s address online and called Stuard.
"I said, ‘I found my uncle; now what do I do?’"
Stuard called the Sprunck family, whose members were eager to speak with Olson. Olson and Sprunck family members have since spoken by phone.
"We’re planning to reunite," Olson said.
Terrible Unknowing
The Sprunck family has tried to track down Olson for years, Theresa Sherman, daughter of Paul John and Betty Sprunck, said from her Dallas home.
Until Stuard called, the Sprunck family thought Olson was dead, Sherman said.
"We honestly thought she was gone," Sherman said.
The Sprunck family has a suitcase full of mementos of Graham’s short life. It contains photos of Graham, along with items such as high school yearbooks, which they long had wanted Olson to have.
The family also has stories to tell about Graham, who was a talented musician and who, as a teenager, took flying lessons at Love Field.
Olson never knew much about her father.
What little she did know was sad.
"I had read a letter from his commanding officer, who said his plane had been struck by German fighters that followed him as he was trying to make it to the coast," Olson said. "It was terrible not knowing him."
A Few Faded Pictures
Graham served in the 350th Fighter Squadron of the 353rd Fighter Group in the Eighth Air Force.
He died two-and-a-half months after D-Day, when the Allies invaded Europe in World War II.
A few faded photographs are all Olson has of her father.
Her mother, Anna, 85, lives with Olson.
The issue of her father always has been a sensitive one, and Olson early Monday had not told her mother of the news article or the French organization’s efforts, she said.
To Honor The Memory
Stuard, who lives on Monrovia, Calif., teaches World War II history. He got involved with the association when he visited France in July and met Jacques Paris, its president.
The association has been working since 1994 to "honor the memory of aircrews who fought for our liberty and fell on our soil between 1939 and 1945."
The association is attempting to register all the air losses in Normandy during the war.
It wants to honor Graham’s relatives at a ceremony in Bayeux, where residents pulled Graham’s body from the wreckage of his plane, built him a casket and buried his remains.
In July 1948, the U.S. government repatriated Graham’s remains to Dallas, where he was born and attended Southern Methodist University.
Questions Answered
Mary Henry, another of Paul John and Betty Sprunck’s daughters, said the news article and discussions with Stuard also answered questions about how Graham died and whether his death was immediate or later in a hospital.
"We never really knew," she said.
Olson and the Sprunck family said they would attempt to travel to France to visit a memorial to Graham.
They also intend to send the association photographs of Graham to go with a plaque in his honor.
Being reunited with her father’s family has changed her life, Olson said.
Finding her father’s family fills a void in her life and gives her something more of her father than faded photographs, she said.
"I have a whole new family for Christmas," Olson said.
"I have a past now and a father who was really alive. It just validated me as a person."
This story was brought to you thanks to khou.com's partnership with The Galveston County Daily News.
