Jesse Adams

By DONNA HUNT

Herald Democrat

Through the years when Pearl Harbor Day has rolled around on Dec. 7, stories have been written about the event that changed the country. Many times a photo of Jesse Leroy Adams has accompanied the article with very little information other than that he was a gunner aboard the U.S.S. Tennessee and was the first Denison son to lose his life when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

For this past Monday's Herald Democrat column I thumbed through my file on Pearl Harbor to put together a tribute to all the men who were at there, including Jesse.

After the article ran I remembered that I had purchased a book published many years ago, "The Men and Women in World War II from Grayson County" a while back. The book was published by the Fourth District of the American Legion. G.A. Blue was 4th District Commander at the time. The book is dedicated to the memory of those men and women to gave their lives for their country, not only at Pearl Harbor, but throughout the war.

At that time T.F. Aston was mayor of Sherman, Joe D. May was commander of the Fred W. Wilson Post No. 62 and E.F. Williams was post commander of Denison Post 2773, American Legion.

On the first page of the photos is Jesse Leroy Adams, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.A. Adams of Denison. Jesse had attended Denison schools and entered the Navy in 1940 and trained at various camps in the U.S. He was sent to Pearl Harbor in August 1940 and served on the U.S.S. Tennessee. He was awarded a Purple Heart posthumously. The picture that accompanied the brief biographical sketch was of a handsome young man that could be a high school student in an area school today.

The only photo that I had seen in the Denison Herald's files was a different photo with Jesse wearing a sailor cap perches on the side of his head.

The day after the article ran I received an e-mail from Coquese Goines of Sherman, Jesse's niece, giving me some additional information about "Uncle Jake" as he was called by his family.

Jesse had four sisters, Mrs. John Jones, Mrs. Jenny Jones, Mrs. Loevia Stephenson and Mrs. Louise Daniels, all of who have passed away. The last to die was Mrs. Stephenson in 1999. He has seven nieces and nephews, two of whom live in Grayson County, Mrs. Linda Jones in Howe and Mrs. Goines in Sherman.

Coquese said they were raised up with the tragedy of Jesse's death. They knew all about him because their grandparents and their parents talked about him all the time. They have been attracted to that time frame, wanting to learn as much as they could, Coquese said. They keep pictures, scrapbooks and mementoes that they have inherited from their parents.

She said several cousins have been to Hawaii to see where Jesse is buried. Coquese wanted the public to know that Jesse has family here that love and care about his memory. She said "He's not a forgotten soldier, we are still here."

Coquese also lost her father, Roy Nichols in the war. He was from Van Alstyne and was shot down off the coast of Africa on Nov. 11, 1943. Both her grandmothers were Gold Star Mothers, having lost their only sons.

Gold Star Mothers was an organization of women who had lost sons or daughters in World War II. It was the Gold Star Mothers who volunteered for many years at President Eisenhower's birthplace in Denison. Monte B. Jones, who brought the fact that Eisenhower was born in Denison to light, was a Gold Star Mother, having lost a son, William Manual "Bill" Bales in the war.

Information in the column brought another e-mail on Tuesday. Bobbie Thompson wrote on behalf of her mother, Nancy Harris Hatch. She said her mother read the article and an item caught her attention.

We talked about Denison women meeting the troop trains at the depot as they passed through going from base to base. Her mother remembered from her childhood that her sister, Christine Harris Shone and her friends met the trains and wrote letters to families of the service men.

One of those friends, Glenna Brigham McConnell's mother was Bobbie's mother's babysitter for a while. Bobbie was looking for information on the whereabouts of Mrs. McConnell for her mother. Any information sent to me will be passed along to Bobbie.

Names of 213 service men and women from Grayson County are listed "In Memoriam" in the front of the Grayson County book.

Another book, "A Pictorial History of Grayson County Veterans" was published this year by the Herald Democrat. That book is available at the Denison and Sherman offices of the Herald Democrat.

DONNA HUNT is a former editor of The Denison Herald. She lives in Denison and can be contacted at d.hunt_903@yahoo.com.