Baran-Unland: Remembering the heroes among us

For many years, my family hosted a monthly luncheon at our church, St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Homewood, after services.

Twice year, we also coordinated a larger, potluck-style banquet complete with candles and other décor for the tables.

One day in 2005, church member Genevieve Latko brought several boxes of vintage candles to church as a donation for these banquets. She couldn’t burn them at home because her husband was afraid of fire, she said.

We couldn’t wait to use the Christmas-themed ones for our St. Nicholas banquet on Dec. 4 that year.

Unfortunately, Genevieve Latko died suddenly on Dec. 3. Her husband John Latko attended the banquet the next day, comforted to see her candles, which we of course did not light.

One day our pastor, Rev. Boris Zabrodsky, gathered us into the church’s large hall to hear John Latko tell his incredible story.

John Latko was serving on the USS West Virginia when that ship was hit during the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. He helped fight fires on that ship and rescue the wounded. That included throwing a line to a sailor in the water as John Latko himself was being rescued.

He had hurt his back jumping from ship to ship and the injury gave him trouble all his life.

John Latko always wondered what happened to the man he saved. He unexpectedly met that man at the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

Through the years, John Latko attended Pearl Harbor-related events and supported survivors. He was fond of distributing plastic leis to everyone at church with a Pearl Harbor memorial tag attached to it – so people would not forget.

John Latko died in 2013 and a street in Hammond, Indiana, where he lived, was named for him.

But John Latko was not the only hero from World War II I was honored to personally know.

My ophthalmologist when I was a child was Dr. Paul Morimoto. But not until I wrote “An Extraordinary Life” story on him in 2017 did I know he and his parents were evacuated to internment camps in the deserts of the West Coast, where tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were living, and that he had lived and worked in these camps until he was 15.

While writing that story, I learned about the many selfless ways Morimoto served the Joliet community, even serving as chief of the medical staff at the hospital now known as Ascension Saint Joseph - Joliet.

And while writing “An Extraordinary Life” story about World War II Army veteran Glenn Masek of Joliet, I learned this Catholic High graduate was just 18 when he served in the South Pacific as an artillery mechanic and participated in the invasion of Okinawa.

In 2021, the remains of a World War II veteran were identified and sent home to his family.

Last year I learned five brothers from Joliet served in World War II at the same time.

History isn’t dry facts between the covers of a book. It’s the experiences of the people who lived them.

That’s why telling these stories are important. Historical information on a broad level is easily available.

But local stories preserve history’s impact as it unfolded and gives us, the listeners, a deeper understanding of the words we read.

Denise M. Baran-Unland is the features editor at The Herald-News. Contact her at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.