Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Tom LaVenture/Daily Globe A member of the Michigan National Guard Military Funeral Honors Team presents a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart to Pat Werner, of Melrose Park, Ill., at Ironwood's Riverside Cemetery on Saturday, where her late brother Walter Kellett, was buried 77 years after dying in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines during World War II. Kellett was posthumously awarded the medals and was buried in the family plot with full military honors.
IRONWOOD - Walter Kellett is now at eternal rest in the family plot at Riverside Cemetery in Ironwood.
The 12,500-mile journey came 77 years after military historians say Kellett died at the Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp in the Philippines on July 19, 1942. The last mile of his journey was a drizzly cool morning drive in a funeral coach from the McKevitt-Patrick Funeral Home to the cemetery, where people gathered along the route to pay respects.
The hearse entered the cemetery gate underneath an American flag hoisted between two fire trucks with ladders extended. The procession went to th...
