Published July 26, 2025
By Phil Reyburn
It was Saturday afternoon, February 12, 1944, when “a fragile little woman . . . walked into the editorial rooms of The Herald-Whig . . . to tell of the sad news she had received. One trembling hand carried the telegram. The other nervously fingered the lapel of her coat where two gold stars and silver star shone from a service pin.”
“Bravely she held back the tears as she unfolded the little slip of yellow paper that had multiplied her grief when it was delivered at her door a few hours earlier. Twice before such yellow slips in their yellow envelopes had been placed in her trembling fingers and each time the shock and sorrow were more than she thought she could bear.”
The telegram received today read: “The secretary of war desires to express deep regret that your son, Second Lt. William T. Kaspervik, has been reported missing in action since January 14 in Italy. If further details or other information are received, you will be promptly notified.”
The staff reporter noted that “strangely enough Mrs. Rosen received her son’s last letter on January 14—the day he was reported missing in action.” In this letter he “’begged her not to worry’ and ‘assured her that the ‘Jerries are poor shots.’” Mrs. Rosen told the reporter that she “‘knew he was too optimistic. I just felt that something was going to happen.’”
‘Ever since the death of Preston (Cpl. Preston Lee Kaspervik),’ Mrs. Rosen said that she had ‘had a premonition that something was going to happen to Bill. All this week I’ve been sick with the feeling that I would hear bad news. When the messenger boy came today, I just stood there shaking. I couldn’t go to the door, and my husband had to go for me. I knew what it was before I ever opened the telegram.’”
On December 24, 1914, 18-year-old Edith Jewel Clow and 21-year-old William Wolfgang Kaspervik were married in Quincy. The couple’s first child, Donald Wilbur was born April 10, 1916. With the United States’s entry into the First World War, William Wolfgang quit his job as a machinist with Otis Elevator Company and enlisted in the navy on April 7, 1917.
Edith gave birth on August 11, 1918, to their second son, William Theodore. Discharged from the navy on January 30, 1919, William returned to Quincy and his job, but he had changed. Before their third son, Preston Lee, was born on September 28,1922, William left the household. The couple formerly separated on August 5, 1922. Edith repeatedly “asked him to return on account of their three children.” But after two-and-a-half years Edith filed for divorce, and the decree was granted February 27. She married Leo Rosen on March 21, 1931.
In March 1933, FDR signed an executive order establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps. Unemployed young men were put to work improving the nation’s natural resources. Seventeen-year-old Donald Kaspervik was part of Adams County first group. The Herald-Whig stated all the men selected were single and their families were on the relief rolls. Donald would leave the CCC to enlist in the army at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.
The army agreed with Donald, and by 1939, he had risen from the ranks and was a second lieutenant. He would transfer from the cavalry to the army air corps and received his pilot’s wings in June 1942.
Willliam was 17 when he followed Donald footsteps, enlisting in September 1935. After seven years in the cavalry, he was also accepted as an aviation cadet and got his wings on March 25, 1943.
In June 1940, while visiting Donald at Fort Bliss in Texas, Preston enlisted in the army air corps. Preston trained as a radio operator.
On June 15, 1943, nine B-24s took off from Alamogordo Air Base on their final training mission before deploying overseas. Donald, who was slated for promotion to captain, was leading the first element in the formation. Due to turbulence, a plane to the right and behind flew into the lead craft resulting in both planes crashing and killing 19 officers and enlisted men.
In a letter to Edith, Donald’s commander wrote: “‘He did not lay down his life upon the field of battle, but his sacrifice is the same. He was preparing himself to defend those liberties and principles which had been taught to him from his early youth, and which were part of his very being.’”
Saturday January 22, 1944, Edith was notified by the War Department that her youngest son, Preston, who was serving in Sicily as a radio operator in the 18th Airways and Communication Service Squadron died on January 4 of hepatitis. She had no idea that he was ill. After the loss of her second son, Edith told the Herald-Whig that “’It is hard indeed to lose the boys, but there is many another American mother whose sons died for their country.’”
Lt. William T. Kaspervik flew an A-36A fighter-bomber providing close air support for the infantry. On the day he went missing in action, William bombed a German position; and on returning to strafe the enemy, his plane was hit by ground fire and crashed behind enemy lines.
Since the teletype on February 13 saying that William was missing, Edith told the Herald-Whig that she had heard nothing until Wednesday [May 24] when she was notified that her son William T. Kaspervik “had died in action over enemy territory on January 14, 1944.” “‘I had come to be somewhat resigned to the loss of my other boys,’’ she said, ‘‘but still cherished the hope that William had escaped death and would come back to me some day. Now all are gone.’” Tuesday evening Edith had attended a gold star mother’s banquet. During the event, she told the writer: “‘I was cheered with the hope that Bill had escaped death and was a prisoner. Now no hope is left.’”
To escape the poverty of the Great Depression, the three Kaspervik brothers joined the army and died in service to their country.
Phil Reyburn is a retired field representative for the Social Security Administration. He authored Clear the Track: A History of the Eighty-ninth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, The Railroad Regiment; and co-edited “Jottings from Dixie”: The Civil War Dispatches of Sergeant Major Stephen F. Fleharty, U.S.A.”
Sources:
“Action—Mrs. Edith J. Rosen Fears Lt. William T. Kaspervik has Also Met Death.” Quincy Herald-Whig, February 13, 1944, 12.
“Bush recalls 3 Quincy brothers killed in war.” Quincy Herald-Whig, May 30, 1989, 18.
“Cases Stricken.” Quincy Daily Herald, February 6, 1926, 8.
“D.F.C. Award to Lt. W. T. Kaspervik Killed January 14.” Quincy Herald-Whig, September 18, 1944.
“ Eight Decrees Of Divorce Signed By Judge Wolfe.” Quincy Herald-Whig, February 27, 1926, 10.
Find a Grave, 1LT Donald Wilbur Kaspervik, Greenmount Cemetery, Quincy Adams County,Illinois; 1LT William T. Kapervik, Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy; and CPL Preston Lee Kaspervik, Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, Nettuno, Italy.
“LT. Donald W. Kaspervik Was Killed in New Mexico Army Bomber Crash Wife and Mother Here are Notified.” Quincy Herald-Whig, June 16, 1943, 12.
“Lt. W. T. Kaspervik Died In Action Over Enemy Territory.” Quincy Herald-Whig, May 25, 1944, 16.
“Missing in Action.” Quincy Herald-Whig, February 14, 1944, 14.
“Mrs. Edith Rosen has Lost 2 of 3 Sons in Service—Corporal Preston Kaspervik, Radio Operator, Died in Sicily of Illness.” Quincy Herald-Whig, January 23, 1944, 12.
“Reforestation Recruits Off for Barracks—First Adams County Group Leaves Quincy for Government Work.” Quincy Herald-Whig, May 25, 1933, 14.
