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Bedford Boys Tribute Center seeks to purchase Green's Drug Store

The Center has been operating in leased space since its opening in 2019

BEDFORD, Va.The reason the Overlord Arch and all the rest of the D-Day Memorial is in Bedford is because of the Bedford Boys — the 19 men who were killed on D-Day, making the small town the place with the highest per capita losses on D-Day. And thanks to an unusual set of circumstances, we continue to learn more and more about those men.

The Bedford Boys Tribute Center has emerged as a focal point for the stories of the Bedford Boys.

The displays illustrating so many back-stories as to who they were.

Like a class ring one of the men was wearing when his body was recovered on the beach in the days following the invasion. A small memento of his life — but with an aging family a memento with no real home were it not for the Center.

The Tribute Center is in Green’s Drug Store — where the boys hung out long before they were soldiers. And where later, the dreaded telegrams came in notifying loved ones of the losses. It’s where a 21-year-old Elizabeth Teass Began reading messages that began with, “The secretary of war desires me to express his deep regret that your son was killed in action on six June...”

Eleven came in that day. The rest came in, more the next day, more the next day. The first four that came off the machine were killed in action. The rest were missing or wounded. It took weeks to find out if they were missing or if they were killed, said Linda Parker, who co-founded the Center with her husband Kenneth.

Linda and Kenneth opened the museum in 2019 — so taken with the story of the Bedford Boys that they picked up and moved from Oklahoma with no other attachment to the area.

During a visit, they just happened to learn Greens Drug store was for rent.

“Historic green drugstore. This is the Alamo of San Antonio. Green’s drugstore to Bedford. Who’s going to rent this? Three hours later, we walked out of here with the key to drugstore,” Parker said.

And since then Bedford Boys memorabilia, from baseballs, and foot lockers, to a 103-year-old report card has been seeping in from all over the county. Finally, there was a place to put those lasting memories of loved ones lost.

Like Bedford Boy John Schenk.

“They met on a blind date here at Green Drugstore,” Linda Parker said of Schenk and his wife. “Love of each other’s life. When they got married in 1942 they had an eight-day honeymoon. They never got to see each other again.”

But they wrote love letters every day. Now those letters, hers and his are in the museum.

“But the last letter she wrote to him was on June 25 not knowing he was already killed on June 6, 1037, and it came back to her deceased on July 17 the same day the telegram started coming in,” Linda explained.

And we know more about how impossible their mission was.

“Once the invasion began OK at 06:30 military time — 6:30 in the morning, our boys landed in four landing craft, and by 6:45, nine minutes later they were all gone They never fired a shot,” Kenneth Parker said.

They had landed at the center of the German defenses. The very first to hit the beach.

“It’s estimated that over half one million rounds landed on our boys and those nine minutes never had a chance,” he said.

Nineteen Bedford Boys lost in nine minutes — and a 20th lost inland two months later.

Each leaving behind a family, a life a story. Stories that for 7 decades were too painful to talk or think about.

“But once Linda and I talked with the families and asked them. We have an opportunity to rent Greens Drugstore what do you think? That we make a tribute center to your uncles, and my goodness you could see the outpouring then for the first time,” Kenneth said.

So now the Tribute Center is teasing those memories from basements and attics around the region from love letters to class rings, so the legacies are never forgotten.

The Parkers have been leasing the Green’s Drug Store building since it opened as the Tribute Center. Now they are in the midst of purchasing the building. They say they have about two-thirds of the roughly $350,000 asking price, and they hope to raise the remainder before the end of the year. If you would like to donate or learn more information, please visit their website here.


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About the Author
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John Carlin co-anchors the 5, 5:30, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts on WSLS 10.