Marian's Index           Index to Pages by Date 
 2004 Index of all Names in Book
Wounded in Action       Prisoners of War
Killed in Action
Special Features and Tidbits

Marian Whitney’s husband, Bill, as owner and editor of  The Sunbury News kept track of all the men and women in the service from the readership of the newspaper.

As Bill received data from parents, the war department, and letters from the service personnel, he passed the information along in his column, ”With Our Boys in Service.”   As Bill got address, each local person in the military was sent a free subscription to The Sunbury News.  Through the column, the people kept track of the locals serving their country and the military personnel were able to keep track of each other as they were moved around the world.  They also got to see what was happening on the home front.

People began asking Bill for servicemen's addresses so he published this explanation

It appears that in the newspaper of May 13th Bill erroneously changed the rank on one of the servicemen from sergeant to corporal.  Apparently if was time to stop relying on his memory and call on his wife to assist.

To help Bill keep track of all the men and women, Marian pasted the weekly columns into a notebook from May 1942 through October 1946 and indexed them by the soldiers’ names. Many of the special features about the servicemen and their families are also in the notebook.

After most of the men were home, the notebook was set aside.  

Around 1976, Marian decided to pitch the notebook when she was cleaning out her files.  Her daughter, Polly Horn, grabbed the book for the Community Library where it has resided in Burrer Family Memorial Room.   Some may find the language of the 1940s not politically correct for today but readers are urged to remember we were at war and times were different.

The book was never meant to be seen by the public so when pasting there was no need for neatness - a point Marian made when Polly told her what the staff wanted to do with the book. However, the war history and facts about those serving our country are invaluable.  Letters from training camps, bases throughout the world as well as links to families with multiple sons and daughters serving are in these pages.

Staff members of the Community Library helped Polly make the book available to all on the library website.  All of Marian's 350 pages and a name index are available for those searching for information about the veterans.    Marian's original index showing the pages on which the soldier appears is available for viewing.  Polly is making a second index of every person in the book

Bill died in 1970 but Marian, 94 years old in 2004, worked with the Community Library staff to bring her book to the public. She hopes it will bring an important part of our community’s history alive to the readers.   Community Library is located at 44 Burrer Drive in Sunbury.   

Perhaps some day we will have time to locate the earlier columns are add them to Marian's collection.  Unfortunately the microfilm copies of the paper are not as clear as these.

Thanks to all the Community Library staff, especially Margaret, Georgann and Grace, for helping make these pages available.

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