Bill's leg

St. Mary's Cemetery, Minneapolis.  Grady was my maternal grand-
mother's maiden name.  Her sister Jean married Bill Baune.  While 
fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, Bill was shot in the leg while 
climbing through a barbwire fence.  The Germans had pinned down 
his would-be rescuers, so he was left dangling up there in agony, 
bullets in his leg, by some accounts for hours, by others for more 
than a day.

As the battle shifted he was rescued and sent home stateside.  After 
his return gangrene set in and his leg was amputated.  In Catholicism 
major limbs have to be buried in consecrated ground, and my Great
Grandmother Grady offered the Baunes a spot in their family plot at 
St. Mary's.  So, among the buried Gradys, somewhere down there is 
Bill's leg.