War baby – Roger Parr

My grandmother, Florence, met American GI. Francis Allen, in the summer of 1944. Francis was based in St. Thomas , Exeter, with his US Army platoon. Being black soldiers, they were regulated to stay on the south side of the river Exe. They were not allowed to cross the river and mix with the white soldiers on the other side. Military police were positioned on the bridge to enforce this. According to local Exeter residents there were regular arguments and confrontations between the 2 sides. When black boxer, Joe Lewis, the heavy weight champion of the world, came to Exeter to meet the troops even he was denied access to certain buildings and pubs in the city due to the colour of his skin. Yet surprisingly a lot of people were unaware that there was any racial segregation in the city.

A number of local people made friends with the black American soldiers, this included my grandmother. When the US army found out that my grandmother was pregnant Francis Allen was redeployed out of Exeter and put in a platoon in the northern town of Sheffield until the end of WW2 when he was returned to America.

He stayed in contact with my grandmother Florence by letter. After the war ended, as well as sending gifts to my grandmother, his family asked her to come to America. She refused as she already had a daughter in Exeter from a previous marriage. Also, at this time, mixed race relationships and marriage were illegal in many states in the USA, the army had a policy banning black American GIs from bringing their white partners home with them. However this policy wasn’t enforced on white American soldiers who could bring their partners and war babies home to the USA. Soon after this time all contact between the two ceased. My father grew up in Exeter which was tough with a racial element always in play. He was always made aware of who his father was and his mother kept a photo of Francis Allen. This photo was sadly lost around the time of his mum Florence’s passing away.

In 2005 I decided I would try and find my American grandfather. It happened by chance when I came across an organisation called TRACE. Transatlantic Children’s Enterprise. I wrote to Norma Jean Clarke-McCloud, membership secretary at the time. I received a very good reply from her with lots of avenues to try as well as giving me the contact details to write directly to the US military, more specifically to Dr Niels Zussblatt in St Louis. I did this including all of the information I had regarding France’s Allen.

On December 1st 2005 I received a file regarding Francis Allen. It revealed so much more information about my grandfather. He was born 11th of January 1920 in Haddonsfield, New Jersey. He married before discharge from the army to Hilda Lavinia Allen. He sadly died on the 8th of May 1983, still in Haddonfield, New Jersey. And is buried at Evergreen cemetery, Camden, New Jersey, USA.

Armed with this new information, I set to work again. Unfortunately, searches via ancestry.com and other well-known sites didn’t reveal any more information than I already had so sadly I gave up.

15 years later in July 2020 I decided to try again as the internet had moved on a lot with sites like Facebook now more popular. I checked a few profiles, but none matched what I was looking for. That same week in July 2020 my father, Roger, was randomly talking to a relative of his mother’s in Hull about his father Francis Allen. She said that she’ll check on ancestry.com herself and came across obituary for a Mrs Hilda Lavinia COWARD. It stated she had children called Kennard Allen and Marilyn Thomas. I couldn’t believe he had been talking about this the same week as me, 15 years after our original search! So with this new information, I set to work AGAIN. I managed to find Marilyn Thomas on Facebook and messaged her. I got no reply to my messages. So I decided to try messaging the local churches, again I got no reply. I found it very strange that no one was replying to my messages. Determined not to give up, I kept searching. I found a Facebook profile for Kennard Allen Jnr. I messaged him and also a lady who appeared to be his daughter that was in a photo on his profile picture. I explained who I was and that I was trying to contact anyone who may have been related to Francis Allen. 10 days later, on the 23rd July 2020 I received a reply from Kennard Jnr’s daughter, Kendra. I couldn’t believe it,. I’d found them, my dad’s family. Kendra then became a valuable wealth of information. She informed me Francis Alan would have been a great-grandfather and he went by the name Frank. Frank and Hilda had a son called Kennard Snr.

At this point I realised Francis already had a child when he came to the UK. His son, Kennard senior, was 4 years older than my father Roger. This made me wonder about Francis as he was unmarried when he enlisted in the Army, but he had a child out of wedlock at the time, it turned out that when he returned to the US he married Hilda Livinia knowing he would never be with my grandmother due to her not wanting to leave her family and the US restrictions.

Kendra then filled me in on the rest of her family tree, and I was so excited to learn about the rest of MY family. I was updating my father as I went along. On the 30th of July 2020 she informed me that Kennard senior goes to dialysis 4 times a week due to problems with his liver. He suffers slight memory loss. I must add that at this time the world was gripped by the Coronavirus, and visiting the USA was barred. Kennard senior had no idea about my father .In those days, ie. 1945, mixed race relationships especially outside of marriage were very frowned upon. Kendra informed me that Kennard senior was very interested in now learning about my dad Roger. He was surprised that my father was given the middle name Francis after their father. Kendra said she’d never seen any photos of Francis Allen and that Kennard senior doesn’t talk about him . She mentioned that Kennard senior still lives in Francis Allen’s house and has done since Francis died in 1983.

We carried on communicating with Kendra and Kennard throughout the COVID lockdown and on the 1st of May 2021 Kendra, informed us that Kennard senior had end-stage liver failure. The hospital had given him 3 to 6 months to live. This was devastating news as the USA was still not allowing flights in. On the 8th of May 2021 Kennard senior was discharged from hospital to be cared for at home by his family. On the 29th of May 2021 Kennard senior was back in hospital again as his heart rate, when on home dialysis, was very high. Once his new medication was arranged, he was again discharged to home care.

This was a terrible time for my father and me as we felt hopeless being so far away and we were running out of time to ever meet my father’s brother. We continued sending our love, prayers and support to Kendra and Kennard Jnr.

On the 22nd of September 2021, the USA announced flights would be resuming again soon, then on the 27th of October it was finally confirmed that flights would start on the 8th of November. I informed Kendra that we would be flying from London to Philadelphia on the 9th of November 2021, the day after flights started. This was urgent as the time scale given to Kennard Snr was now up. Now just prayers and will power were keeping him alive. The 10th of November 2021 was the day my father Roger finally met his brother Kennard.

We all talked for about an hour, but we could see that Kennard Snr was very weak. Kennard Jnr took us out to eat and we continued our conversation about our search to find out more about our ancestry. Unfortunately, Kennard senior and junior had very limited information about Francis Allen’s parents, apart from them being involved in a school and the church so our search for our earlier family seemed to end there.

On the 11th and 12th of November, my father and I visited a lot of popular tourist attractions in Philadelphia. It was the 45th anniversary of the Rocky movie that weekend and we both got to run up the famous Rocky steps, an impressive feat by him at 76 years old. On the 13th of November 2021, my father and I went to visit Kennard senior again to say our goodbyes before flying home to the UK.

On the 18th, November 2021, just 5 short days after finally being reunited, at 01:11am Kennard Jnr called me to say that his father had passed away. People talk about will power and I truly believe he held on to meet his brother, my father Roger, and to complete this journey of our life. We now have regular contact via Facebook with our American Family.

I’m sad to say on the 12th April 2024, my Father Roger passed away aged 79 years old. My father had a sudden illness. The hospital informed us he had an infection on his brain. 3 weeks before this, he visited me in London for my granddaughter, Inaaya’s, 7th birthday. We had a lovely few days where he helped me with some work, drilling and making cabinets for my camper van conversion, which I have called ‘Dignity’ and dedicated it to my father.

My father was in hospital for approximately 20 days. On the 2nd day after admission he was no longer able to communicate with anyone. His eyes were open but no one was there. I spent one of my evenings just talking to him about his life, his brother and all the things we achieved. I told him “I’ve got you dad” and I know somewhere inside he knew too as a tear fell from his eye and his chin quivered.

On my dad’s birthday, the 9th April we opened and read cards to him. His eyes were open and he seemed aware when I called his name, “Roger”, but there was no other response to any other actions. As mentioned, he sadly passed away 3 days later on the 12th of April.

The day he stepped down from the train of life.

“They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name on Earth for the last time.”

Sleep tight my father my friend x Amen