The 2019 Hometown Hero of East Liberty is Cpl. Francis “Marion” Rosebrook, who was killed at the age of 21 on Jan. 31, 1945, in Germany during the month-long Battle of the Bulge in World War II.
ROSEBROOK
He will be recognized in a ceremony beginning at 10 a.m. Monday, May 27, in the East Liberty Cemetery, where his body was returned Jan. 2, 1949, from the Netherlands where he had been buried in an American military cemetery in Holland.
The corporal was born Dec. 9, 1923, near East Liberty, a son of Chester “Chet” and Mary Buhlen Rosebrook. He was a brother of Emma “Laverne” Rosebrook Current Welch and Willis Lee Rosebrook.
His father was well known for his sawmill operation and for operating a threshing machine on the farms around the community. Young Marion helped in the family businesses and acquired cal- loused hands about which the locals commented. He was inducted into the Army on Jan. 9, 1943, and served with the tank corps at Camp Rucker, Ala., and Ft. Knox, Ky. He was sent overseas in May 1944.
His family connected in 2009 with a granddaughter of a woman whose family Rosebrook and his tank crew had bivouaced in Holland. They shared their rations with the family and became close. Rosebrook’s father continued corresponding with the family about his son after the war and the family watched over his grave in Holland.
The granddaughter told the Logan County family her grandmother always told the story of how she had prepared a big pot of hot cocoa while waiting a particular day for the soldiers to return from their fight at the Battle of the Bulge. The grandmother was devastated when only two soldiers returned. The story continues to be shared in the family.
Read complete story in Saturday’s Examiner.
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