Vickroy: Wait, wait, there’s more to those stories

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Jeffrey Lemon | Supplied photo

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Vickroy’s columns from 2011 at SouthtownStar.com

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Updated: February 2, 2012 8:04AM

A story doesn’t always end where you think it does.

Like all years, 2011 had its share of good news and bad, of heartwarming tales and heartbreaking events, and, of course, memorable people.

We met three couples who’d been married more than 70 years. We chatted with athletes, chefs and animal lovers. And we toured the most fabulous backyard — in some cases front-yard — gardens. Helpful people showed me how to bake a pie, chuck a pumpkin and, consider yourself warned, fire a gun.

Each year at this time I am reminded of how incredibly lucky I am to have a job that enables me to meet so many interesting people and relay their stories to you. But often there’s more to the tale than meets the first run.

Enter the follow-up.

People read and people react, often changing an outcome or filling a gap or simply adding a noteworthy sidebar, and the story continues.

Here are updates to some stories I told you about this year.

April 25 marked the 40th anniversary of the night Flossmoor resident Jeffrey Lemon went missing in action over Laos during the Vietnam War. His remains were never recovered, leaving his siblings to painfully maintain hope, as painful as that would be considering the horrors he would have endured.

Many people wrote or called to comment on the story.

Then, in November, I received an email from Demeter Picciotti. The Delaware resident was watching a Veterans Day special about the Vietnam War on the History Channel when he remembered the silver MIA bracelet he had gotten in high school.

“It is engraved with ‘Captain Jeffrey Lemon — 4-25-71,’ ” wrote Picciotti, now 57 and married. “I wore this bracelet for a long time but eventually put it away after I graduated college and went on with life.”

After the TV special, he Googled Lemon’s name and came across my story. He sent me a note, asking if I could help him contact Lemon’s brother.

“I think that it is time I passed this bracelet on to his family,” he said.

I emailed Kevin Lemon, who now lives in Arizona, and the two have been in touch.

In May, we visited Harry “Bus” Yourell. The local politician, world traveler and recipient of three Purple Hearts during World War II led an amazing life and, at 92, was facing his final battle — caring for his ill wife, Millie, in their Oak Lawn home.

I ran into Yourell a couple of times after my column ran. He kept a usual table at Palermo’s restaurant on 95th Street. Each time he told me he was fine and holding his own.

In September, Yourell succumbed to congestive heart failure, and the man who by his own admission “couldn’t sit still” was laid to rest.

In October, I wrote about people whose vehicles had passed 200,000 miles. I was impressed by the achievements.

So imagine my surprise when I received an email a few days later from Alex Godfrey, of Minooka, whose ’99 Volkswagen Passat had passed 400,000 miles.

In early December, I checked in with Godfrey, who said, “425,000 and still going strong.”

I spent some time this fall with the Homewood-Flossmoor High School fencing team.

One of only two in this area, the team holds its own against north suburban powerhouses.

In November, coach Mark Watman wrote to me saying that since the article, Lauren Murff became the first H-F fencer to win a tournament ever. She beat a New Trier High School fencer who had won every tournament for the last two years.

Go Vikings.

In August, I tackled the Swallow Cliff Forest Preserve stairs near Palos Park and allowed photographer Joe Meier to video the not-so-glorious ascent. (What was I thinking?)

Among the many who called/emailed afterward to relay their stories about climbing the mega-workout mecca was Laura Wodarski, who told me that she and her fellow therapists at the Homewood location of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago used the stairs all summer to train for the Nov. 6 SkyRise Chicago Challenge.

Wodarski reported back in November that all the RIC participants completed all 2,109 stairs in the Willis Tower challenge.

“We all finished in anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes — whew,” she said. “The crazy thing ... we are all in to do it again next year.”

Several local residents have been tirelessly working on behalf of the growing orphan population in Haiti and other Third World countries.

We caught up with John Shattuck, of Frankfort, in December at the Munster, Ind., warehouse where he stockpiles supplies until a cargo container is ready to be shipped out. On Dec. 11, I told readers about his latest quest to collect tools, musical instruments and other items needed to get three new schools up and running in Haiti. He since has received several calls from people offering garagefuls of tools. An owner of a Joliet drapery store told him she is about to close the business and he could have the entire contents of her store.

The mother of 6-year-old Calei Clark, of Lockport, contacted him after she’d collected almost 500 pairs of shoes. We told you her story last week. Since then, several other youngsters have jumped on the humanitarian bandwagon. I hope to tell you their stories in the coming year.

Inspired by the opportunity to engage kids in the giving process, Shattuck said he is continuing to collect tools and instruments.

“They’re so expensive. If we don’t have to spend money on those items, we’ll have more to meet other needs,” he said.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Wisnasky, of Tinley Park, has organized clothing and burial-cloth-making workshops across the Southland. After I wrote about her efforts in November, Wisnasky said she’d received so many fabric donations and requests for more workshops that she expects the mission to continue well into the spring. And, for the first time, volunteers will be able to sponsor a daytime workshop, thanks to Zion Lutheran Church in Tinley Park.

Even before 14-year-old Mary Alice Quinn died in 1935, there was talk of her being a saint. The South Sider was said to have cured the sick. To this day, many believe she is working miracles from her grave in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, hence the piles of statues, holy cards and coins continuously left at her marker. After my story ran Nov. 1, Colleen Kelly wrote to me. Mary Alice was her maternal grandfather’s first cousin.

“A halo is said to have appeared over her head when she made her First Holy Communion, and a sort of veil supposedly appeared over her body at her wake,” Kelly said. “And of course there’s the supposed aroma of roses at her grave at all times. I can recall my mother and her sisters even having ‘relics’ of Mary Alice (another Catholic thing ... small pictures with tiny ribbons attached, ribbons that supposedly had belonged to her).”

We ended the year on a humbling yet hopeful note. First with a column about a Secret Santa who walked into the Orland Park Toys R Us store a week before Christmas and paid the layaway tab for eight people. Among those who benefited was an 8-year-old boy with Down syndrome. I was heartened by the number of people who told me after reading the piece that they felt inspired to “pay it forward.”

Already, 2012 is shaping up to be a good year.

Then, on Christmas Day, I helped Efren Gonzalez deliver free turkey dinners to several people in the Airway Mobile Home Park in Oak Lawn. The meals were supplied by Big Pappa’s restaurant. We made several stops but the most memorable was to a tiny senior citizen named Lillian. She told us how she was about to open a can of soup. Then she began to cry. She hugged me and sobbed for a good five minutes on my shoulder.

“I am so thankful,” she said.

Afterward, Gonzalez and I paused outside her trailer.

“This is what it’s all about,” he said.

Indeed.

On Tuesday, Sandi DiGangi, who co-owns Big Pappa’s, called to say, believe it or not, despite giving away more than 1,000 free meals, she actually had leftovers. The extra food and toys were being donated to Pilgrim Faith Church in Oak Lawn.

Now, there’s a happy ending.