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The Unfinished Autobiography of Hannah Climena Pixley Ariail: "The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses"

Hannah Climena (“Minnie”) Pixley Ariail was the grandmother of Lieutenant Edward L. Forrest, an officer in the 712th Tank Battalion, with which my father served in World War II. Ed was killed near the end of the war in Europe. His brother, Elmer Forrest, gave me a copy of Flora Brantley’s transcription of the manuscript when I interviewed him about his brother in 1996. Flora was Ed and Elmer’s niece. Spoiler alert: The story ends in mid-sentence, at the point where the notebook in which was written ran out of space. A second notebook has never been found. However, the story inspired Flora to encourage her mother, Ed’s sister Vera Louise Forrest Beckley, to write about her life when she was 76 years old. I hope to publish that story in the future, as it shed a great deal of light on Ed’s youth, and the tragic circumstances of his adolescence.– Aaron ElsonRead more

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