Photo By Eric Schultz | Rachel McCalpin read more read more
A quick Google search and a cold phone call led Hartselle’s Laura Ritch and Cynthia Kovach on a journey through history, all in the pursuit of good customer service.
Ritch and Kovach, co-owners of Main Street West gallery and frame shop in Hartselle, were faced with a dilemma in early February. A customer had brought a photo of her father’s World War II infantry to be matted and framed. In addition, she requested an engraved brass plaque that listed his information, including his name, rank, company and infantry name, and serial number.
However, when Ritch was proofreading the information before having the plaque made, she knew something about the abbreviations of his information didn’t seem quite right.
“I couldn’t figure it out,” Ritch said. “My partner and I called around to everybody that we knew in the military and said, ‘Are these abbreviations right?’ because where she had gotten the abbreviations was from footstone from her father’s grave.”
These calls, though, yielded no new information. So, Ritch and Kovach began researching more deeply.
“So, I thought, ‘you know what? Somebody at the Arsenal is bound to know,’” Ritch said. After scrolling Redstone Arsenal’s online directory, she came across a listing for the Redstone MWR Library and called the number.
When librarian Rachel McCalpin picked up, she didn’t have an immediate answer for Ritch and Kovach, but promised she would do her own research and get back with them. Little did they know, McCalpin would not only solve their problem, but uncover a treasure trove of artifacts from the customer’s father’s WWII infantry.
In particular, McCalpin informed Ritch and Kovach that the abbreviations they had suspected were, in fact, incorrect, and furthermore, each war has a different convention for abbreviations. However, in the course of her research, McCalpin also found a sort of yearbook chronicling the no-longer-existing infantry’s activity from each individual Soldier’s enlistment through the end of WWII.
“She downloaded every page of this yearbook and said, ‘maybe we’ll find this man’s picture somewhere in here, too,’” Ritch said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Ritch and Kovach were able to update the plaque with the correct information and also give their customer the digital files of the yearbook that McCalpin found. Ritch said the experience gave her an entirely new perspective on the library and praised McCalpin for her work, which she said would touch the lives of many different families.
“She went so out of her way and she was so excited,” Ritch said. “She got into our little project and it just lifted everybody’s spirits. Her willingness to work with us and her excitement about it was just wonderful, and it was contagious.”
| Date Taken: | 04.14.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 07.02.2021 11:21 |
| Story ID: | 399460 |
| Location: | HUNTSVILLE, AL, US |
| Web Views: | 19 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Librarian solves World War II mystery for customer, by Emily Strickland, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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