Cherie's Letters

Cherie inherits a stack of 33 letters, written by her grandfather, who died during the Korean War, and who Cherie's family never talked about. Before receiving the letters, she knew almost nothing about him. She hadn't even seen a picture of him. But the letters unveil who he was and the fateful decisions he made that affected not only his life but still affect her life today. 

Larry Hood’s page on the Korean War Project website. (While talking with Cherie, I misspoke and called it the Korean War Memorial website. It's the Korean War Project. My apologies to the folks there!)

Season 1, Episode 4: Crystal's Letters
Guest: Cherie Louise Turner

Visit www.MementosPodcast.com to see some photos of the memento in this episode. 
Follow the show @MementosPodcast on Twitter and Instagram.
Follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mementospodcast
Follow Lori at @mortaymortay on Twitter and Instagram. 

CREDITS:
Lori Mortimer – Host, Sound Designer, Producer

Cherie Turner – Guest

Charles Gustine – Voice Actor

Galen Beebe – Story Editor 

Alyssa Duvak – Social Media

Music: 

Micolai by Blue Dot Sessions

Looperman: 

looperman-l-1186967-0179585-piano-melody-654-abelouis

looperman-l-2431466-0230476-sunset-piano-melody

looperman-l-4487063-0257366-lofi-piano-really-chill

looperman-l-2392682-0213471-classic-mellow-piano

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TRANSCRIPT

Mementos Episode S1:E4

Cherie’s Letters

[00:00:00]

CHERIE: One of the reasons that he was so aggressive about putting himself in danger is because he just wanted to get back home. And that was his fastest way to get back home. And it ended up doing the very thing that made it, this short track, which is that it was super, super dangerous and you're at risk of dying.

And that's what happened.

LORI: Welcome to Mementos. I’m Lori Mortimer. If you listened to the last episode, Crystal’s Hymn, you’ll know that it was a story about a grandfather. Today’s episode is also about a grandfather, but the two episodes could not be more different. 

In this episode, my guest is going to tell us about a grandfather who she knew nothing about until just a few years ago.

Cherie has been able to bring back to life, in a sense, her grandfather, who died many years ago and who had been lost to the sands of time. 

And she learned that he made some fateful decisions a long time ago that not only affected him but also still affect her life today.

[00:01:30]

CHERIE: My name is Cherie Louise Turner. And I’m originally from Goleta, California, which is near Santa Barbara.

LORI: Cherie’s story starts in 2010, when she got a phone call from her aunt. 

CHERIE: She informed me that my grandmother had passed, after several bouts of cancer. And she had left me some things in her will. Which I was very surprised about because I really hadn’t spoken much to her um, in probably over 20 years. 

[00:02:00]

So I received this stack of 33 letters that my grandfather, Larry Hood, had written to my grandmother while he was in the Army and then when he went off to the Korean War.

Before I got these letters -- I got them when I was 40 years old -- I really didn’t think much of my grandfather. Or I didn’t give him much thought. I had maybe known that he died in a war. I wasn't even ever clear on which war it was.

He went into the Army on the 4th of April, 1951, and he died on June 29th, 1952. He wasn't even overseas for but a few months. So by the time I was cognizant of this missing person, he'd been gone for such a long time, and nobody really talked about him bec