Appleton, Minnesota, project aims to put a human face to what has been lost

Nov. 8—APPLETON

— Virgil Robertson served in

World War II

as a top turret gunner on a B-24 bomber with the 15th Air Force in Italy and had 15 combat missions behind him when he was reported missing over the Adriatic Sea on Jan. 20, 1945.

He never returned home. He was 19 years old.

Thomas Gunderson didn't make it home, either. He lost his life at age 21 as a machine gunner with the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry Division in operations against enemy forces north of Dau Tieng, Tay Ninh Province, Republic of Vietnam, on Aug. 18, 1970.

Robertson and Gunderson are among 36 Appleton, Minnesota, natives who have given their lives in service of country since World War II. They are remembered by their hometown in a unique way. The

streets and avenues

of Appleton are all named after the community's veterans who sacrificed their lives.

This has been the practice since May 22, 1947, when the Swift County community of 2,000 residents at that time

renamed all of its streets and avenues for the 26 men from the community who were killed in World War II.

Now, two artists are working to make sure this legacy continues in a way that helps people not only remember these veterans, but also to know them by more than their names.

"People have to realize what we lost," said

Kerry Kolke Bonk,

an Appleton native and the artist who came up with the idea for this project.

She and fellow artist

Katia Andreeva,

a native of

Russia,

are creating individual images of each of the 36 deceased veterans. Each sepia tone image is being created in acrylics on a 4-foot by 4-foot board.

The intent is to place the 36 portraits on a grassy triangle of land alongside Highway 7/59 near the southern entrance to town, which is located just before the community's Flags of Honor Memorial. Each image will be mounted on the poles now holding the street signs bearing their names. The city will be replacing all of its weathered street signs with new poles and signs in the coming year.

The Street Signs of Honor project is at once an art project and a memorial. The artists want all of the veterans to be remembered, and for all people to learn from their sacrifices, they explained.

Kolke Bonk grew up well-aware of her community's legacy of honoring its veterans. Her father, Erling Kolke, a Korean War-era veteran, had written a fictional book, "Streets of Honor," telling the stories of veterans. He had collected the real-life oral stories from the surviving family members of veterans on cassette tapes, which Kolke Bonk still keeps.

She initially applied for a Minnesota Arts Board grant for this project, and received $10,000 to create 10 images. Additional funding from the local

Martinson Foundation

and individual contributions are helping make it possible to do all 36 portraits. To date, the project has received about $27,000 toward an estimated $33,000 for the overall project costs.

Kolke Bonk enlisted Andreeva's support for this work, and they are now in the early stages of creating the images. They have taken over a room in the former Pioneer TV building now known as

Preserving Appleton's Heritage.

Kolke Bonk is helping lead the community effort to restore this historic building in the community.

They work quietly, and with an intensity that speaks to how seriously they take this responsibility. A portrait helps you know a person as a person.

"You see the faces," said Andreeva. "It tells you a lot about (the) young men."

She will be creating the portrait of Appleton's most recent veteran to have given his life,

Jesse Lhotka.

He died at age 24 on Feb. 21, 2005, while serving as a team leader with the 151st Field Artillery Battalion in Baghdad, Iraq.

Along with a collection of photographs of Lhotka, Andreeva said she will be visiting with surviving family members to help her get his image just right.

It is more difficult, of course, to strive for the same accuracy in the portraits of the veterans who died in World War II. Some of the black and white, 1940s-era photographs they have of the men are not very sharp. They have had help with a computer program to provide sharper images, and they have reached out to surviving family members and others for other photos that may exist.

Both artists are well-aware there are surviving family and friends who remember these deceased veterans as people they once knew and loved.

Their hope now is that more people can know them. While working on the images, both artists said they cannot help but think about how the community might be different today had these men not lost their lives, and how much better we would all be for it.

The

city of Appleton

is committed to maintaining the art and memorial once it is erected. The artists hope its prominent location along a highway will attract people to stop and visit and learn about these men.

Interim City Administrator John Olinger said he hopes it does more. By visiting the portraits, he said he hopes it reminds all of us to do more to find peaceful solutions before we put our best and brightest in harm's way.

It's the artists' hope that the portraits can be placed on public display by Memorial Day 2024. Donations toward costs for the project can be sent to the city of Appleton.