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Looking back at wartime Mancos

I thought I would see what the headlines were at the end of WWII. None!

Oct. 12, 1945

Aboard the USS Minneapolis, Pacific Fleet - at the first awards ceremony aboard the cruiser since the end of the war, Carlyle Hammond Decker of Mancos, Colo., received the Navy Commendation Award for outstanding performance of duty. Decker, a graduate of Mancos High School, has been in the Navy for five years. (Carlyle , Uncle Carl to me, passed away in 1999 and was buried in the Webber Cemetery.)

Gene Halls of the Navy has returned from three years of duty in the Atlantic, where he took part in the Normandy invasion.

Sgt. David Alvin Decker has returned after serving since April 1942 - 31 months overseas. (Al was buried beside wife Sybil in Webber Cemetery.)

Guy Pickens, Jr. on the USS Mount Olympus, which was in Tokyo Bay the day Japan surrendered.

Fire destroyed the granary, calf shed and chicken house on the former Louis Paquin ranch east of Mancos. Dean Bradshaw is occupying the property and lost a calf in the fire. (Dean raised Moravian Malt Barley for the Coors Brewing Co. for many years. He died in 1994 and is buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetery.)

Death came quietly to J.O.A. Fraley last Friday morning. In 1936 he moved to Mancos and operated a farm southwest of town for several years.

Lt. J.G. Clay Bader, USNR, has arrived home . He has been serving as Communicator in the Navy on New Caledonia for the past 18 months. Mrs. Jean Bader will accompany him to his new base at the Great Lakes Training Station near Chicago.

Email Darrel Ellis at dnrls@q.com.