October marks the second anniversary of the publication of a Father’s Letters: Connecting Past to Present. Not much sales-wise, but the book has had its moments.
In June of this year my longtime partner Denise and I went to Turckheim, France a small village outside of Colmar in the Alsace region of the country. This was where my father fought in World War II eighty years ago and his experiences are detailed in one of the chapters of Father’s Letters. Turckheim is the home of The Memorial Museum of Colmar and Denise and I visited it and as you would expect, I brought a couple of copies of the book. A young woman Angelique Freydrich at the front desk spoke perfect English and immediately welcomed us and the book. She gave us a personal tour of the museum and promised to show the book to the museum’s archivist Laurent Klopfer.
Angelique said that the museum did not have as much information about the U.S. soldiers as they did the French and German combatants and she thought that my father’s story would be a fine addition to the museum. The way it works is that they curators put a QR code with the soldier’s portrait photograph. Visitors can click on the code and the whole story pops up on their phone. When I returned stateside, I contacted Angelique and Laurent and they made it easy for me to upload my father’s narrative. (Click below)
This experience made doing the whole book worthwhile. And I cherish the thought that my father is enshrined with the men who fought with him in World War II.
September 15, 2025 was my father’s 100th birthday.
murraybrowne.org 
Leave a comment