Sister returns to view display at Veterans Center
By Pete Wicklund
Journal Times | Posted: Saturday, October 11, 2008 12:00 am
RACINE - Mary Jacobs remembers well the day her mother received word that Mary's brother - Maj. John L. "Jack" Jerstad - was shot down and reported as missing in action in Europe in World War II.
A girl had come to the family home in Racine to deliver a telegraph. After Jacobs' mother, Alice, read the telegraph, she grabbed at her heart.
Jacobs, then 21 and watching from a distance, at first could not understand why her mother would show such shock. She thought it was just Jack wishing his parents a happy wedding anniversary.
"If I had only realized they weren't sending those types of telegrams back then," Jacobs said.
Jacobs, now 86, was in Racine on Saturday with her four children to view the new historical display that pays tribute to Jerstad and Marine Pfc. Harold C. Agerholm at the Racine Veterans Center. Jerstad, 25, a bomber in the Army Air Corps, and Agerholm, 19, who was killed is Saipan in the Pacific Theater of World War II, were both awarded the Medal of Honor for their fateful acts of heroism in the war. Jerstad-Agerholm Elementary and Middle Schools on LaSalle Street are also named for two.
Jacobs brought with her some mementos of her brother's life to share with the volunteers who are assembling military displays for The Legacy Museum and Veterans Center, a planned expansion at the current veterans center at 820 Main St.
The current display on Jerstad and Agerholm, and another for perished space shuttle astronaut and Horlick High graduate Capt. Laurel Salton Clark, are the first displays for the future Legacy Museum.
Among the cherished items Jacobs brought to share was the encased flag that draped Jerstad's casket when he was buried at Ardennes Cemetery in Belgium and a bust that Jacobs made of her brother in sculpting class.
Jacobs said she burst into tears when she thought that her sculpting her brother's likeness might have been a jinx that resulted in his going missing. Her teacher, renowned Danish sculptor Christian Petersen, assured her nothing could be further from the truth. The bust does closely resemble portraits of Jerstad.
What might have tipped fate, some wonder, is that Jerstad was shot down flying a plane nicknamed "Hell's Wench." That came after numerous safe missions in a plane nicknamed for Jerstad - "Jerk's Natural." Natural referred to the numbers in the plane's serial number adding up to seven and 11, a natural in a dice game. In fact, a pair of dice were painted on that plane.
It took seven years before the Army called Jacobs' parents, Art and Alice Jerstad, to let them know remains had been found. The long period of time and countless tributes to Jack Jerstad prolonged the grieving process for the family. Among the tributes was the ceremony at Racine's Holy Communion Church where the family received Jerstad's Medal of Honor.
Deb Patton, one of the Legacy Museum volunteers and a secretary at Jerstad-Agerholm School, is working with the Army to secure a duplicate Medal of Honor for use at the museum display. Publicity the volunteers received when they received a duplicate Medal of Honor for Agerholm helped put the Jerstad request on the fast track, Patton said.
Jacobs said her brother was an achiever. He attended Northwestern University and, while he was in college, ran a summer camp in Racine for local youths. In his teen years, Jerstad was a drummer, Boy Scout, Eagle Scout and Sea Scout.
"He was do-everything and he was not afraid to try anything," said Jacobs, who was born four years after her only sibling. "I always knew he was better at everything than I was and I never begrudged him because of that or was ever jealous of him."
Jacobs said her brother taught school in Missouri for one year before enlisting in the Army. She said Jerstad loved to fly and she often wonders what he might have ended up doing with his life had he lived.
Jacobs moved to the Janesville area after her marriage to Harold Jacobs, who taught high school in Janesville. She taught art in Milton. The family moved in the 1970s to Humbird in western Wisconsin where they began a second career as farmers.
Jacobs' mother lived into her 70s. Her dad, a 29-year employee at Horlick Malted Milk, lived into his 90s.
With Jacobs at the Veterans Center Saturday were her children: Scott, a family counselor from Spring Valley; Jeffrey, an inventory specialist with the Chanel perfume company in Las Vegas; Connar, a kindergarten teacher from Humbird; and Peter, a farmer from Humbird.