MY DAD, NORMAN PORCH, LEFT HOME AT AGE 19 WHEN HE WAS DRAFTED TO SERVE N WORLD WAR II. He never returned after the war because he and my mother, Dixie, settled in Bremerton, Washington. But their hometown of Anita, Iowa, was always “back home” to them. And, yes, I am named after their hometown.
For years afterward, Dad often sat at the kitchen table to write letters to family members back in Iowa, always in his perfect Palmer Method script.
Recently, my cousin found one of Dad’s letters among her late mother’s belongings. Her mom, Patty Stockham, was one of my dad’s four sisters, and she lived near Anita her entire life.
Patty’s letter from Dad was a round-robin letter from Sept. 15, 1959, and read by several members of the…
