Word: mcracken
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Each summer for 16 years, the citizens of Mayenne (pop. 10,000), a river town 150 miles west of Paris, had pleaded with Maggie Mae McRacken, now a 48-year-old widow and a $50-a-week sales-clerk in a Charlotte, N.C., sundries shop, to come and visit them. But for reasons of health, family responsibility, finances and natural reticence, Maggie McRacken never got to Mayenne-until last week. Then, she and the townfolk of Mayenne finally met at the end of an intensely sentimental journey...
...Maggie McRacken was once the wife of a quiet. Red Springs, N.C., farm boy ("He was so good and I was so lucky to have him that it scared me") who, at 27, and just 3½ years after their marriage, became Private James Dougal McRacken, a soldier in the U.S. Army's tough Normandy-landing goth Division. On the night of Aug. 5, 1944, McRacken and eleven other G.I.s crouched behind a tank as the 90th approached Mayenne on its drive toward Paris. Retreating German troops had blown up two of three bridges across the Mayenne River...
Dahlias. Suddenly and surprisingly, Private McRacken sprinted ahead of the U.S. tank and ran 500 yds. down the exposed street to the bridge. German machine gunners and riflemen had clear shots at deadly range. McRacken slashed wildly at the white wires, then fell dead at the center of the bridge, his body across the disconnected lines, his clippers at his side. Dozens of Mayenne townfolk watched McRacken's dash and death from their windows, saw the Americans then speed across the bridge to rout the Germans out of town. Villagers stole out on the bridge, placed a white sheet...
...grateful Mayenne placed a wreath at the bridge's center. Then the town built a marble monument, bearing an image of McRacken's face and the legend: "Ici pour sauver ce pout, James McRacken, 315 Bataillon, U.S.A., se sacrifia le cinq Août, 1944." President Truman sent a message for its dedication; General Charles de Gaulle knelt to place a floral Cross of Lorraine. Through the years, schoolchildren replaced the flowers as they withered. Each Aug. 5, the residents followed their mayor to the bridge to pay their somber respects to Jim McRacken. Each Christmas, they sent...
Mayenne Worries. In North Carolina, Maggie McRacken packed away her husband's Distinguished Service Cross and the messages from generals and the President. She worked hard, saw her daughter Myrtis Ann, graduate from high school last June. A quiet woman, Mrs. McRacken seldom mentioned her husband's heroism or Mayenne's continued devotion to his memory. Her employer had never even heard the story. But recently a friend got the Charlotte Observer interested. People throughout North Carolina contributed more than $1,500 to send Mrs. McRacken and Myrtis Ann to Mayenne...
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