This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
General Patton’s Third Army swept through France during World War II, playing an important role in the liberation from Nazi Germany.
Eighty years later, a South Dakota family uncovered a photo of a family and an apple orchard. That photo had been taken by an officer in Patton's Third Army, Ted Cooper.
We hear the story of the photograph, the orchard and the power of neighbors.
Bill Cooper, Ted's son, and Bill's daughter, Lucy George-Cooper, Ted's granddaughter, join "In the Moment" to share about uncovering the photo and their recent trip back to Normandy.
The following transcript has been auto-generated.
Lori Walsh:
You are listening to In The Moment on SDPB. I'm Lori Walsh. General Patton's Third Army swept through France during World War II playing a pivotal role in the liberation from Nazi Germany. 80 years later, a South Dakota family uncovered a photo of a French family and an apple orchard. And that photo had been taken by an officer in Patton's Third Army, Ted Cooper. So Bill Cooper is Ted Cooper's son, Lucy George-Cooper is Ted's granddaughter, and they are with us now in the Kirby Family Studio with a remarkable story of connection. Lucy, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Lucy George-Cooper:
Yeah, thank you so much for having us.
Lori Walsh:
And Bill, thank you as well.
Bill Cooper:
Thank you, Lori.
Lori Walsh:
Let's start with the photograph. Bill, you're going through your father's documents and papers, in what context? And tell me a little bit about why this particular photo captured your interest.
Bill Cooper:
Well, it began on the 75th anniversary of D-Day when I decided to take the day off from work and to begin to really look more closely at my father's photo album from World War II and begin to digitize those photos for posterity. And about four or five pages in, I saw this just gorgeous photo of a French family looking over a stone wall. It looked like a mother and seven children looking at the photographer, my dad, and others who may have been with him. And underneath that photo was his inscription, "The Blandamour family. Our neighbors in Néhou, Normandy." And of course, my first thought was, "Where is Néhou, Normandy? And who are the Blandamours?"
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. How did you begin finding answers to that?
Bill Cooper:
Well, literally in the next 20 minutes thanks to Google Maps, I was able to find Néhou. And then I did a Google search for Blandamours near Néhou, found two locations with the name. And when I looked at one of the Blandamour family addresses on Google Maps, it literally had a place adjacent to it called Camp Patton, which is something I had never heard of and dad had never mentioned. And so then I went to the street view and I actually could see what looked like the wall across from Camp Patton where this photo may have been taken. And I decided one day I want to stand on that road and look at that wall and maybe even meet some of the family members.
Lori Walsh:
Lucy, tell me when you first heard this story, what were some of your thoughts?
Lucy George-Cooper:
Yeah, so certainly a powerful story. My grandfather taught me backgammon as a little girl, and I got to know him a little bit, but never in the context of what may have been happening earlier on in his life. And so to kind of hear this connection, to hear about this family, really, I'll say the-I speak French-and so kind of the start was a request to translate a letter, which made me a little nervous, but it was pretty cool to hear about Bull going through, my dad going through some of these photos and wanting to find the family. I was a little nervous at first, a cold call to a family in a different country. But yeah, very, very powerful thing to think that this photo, obviously at the time when I heard it, didn't know what would come of it.
Lori Walsh:
Bill, what happened next?
Bill Cooper:
Well, Lucy translated this letter and then my wife takes students overseas regularly. And so I joined her after one of those trips with the caveat that we travel to Normandy. This would be January of 2020, and we went to Camp Patton, my wife and I and daughter Camille and her husband Miguel and son Sam. And we looked around at the apple orchard and at the monuments they had there and then walked across the street and knocked on the farmhouse door. No one answered. And so we put the letter in the mailbox. We had to travel later that day or the next day away from there. But I had left my email and phone number and all that and literally Christophe Blandamour, the son of one of those family members, reached out to me that next night by text and we began conversing and getting to know one another.
Lori Walsh:
What was it like to stand by that stone wall?
Bill Cooper:
It's an incredibly emotional place to be literally in the location where your father was 80 years before, not knowing whether he was going to live or die and having his close calls and to imagine that vibrant family there that were so incredibly, and still are, so incredibly grateful for what we as a country did for them and for Europe by fighting that war and liberating them.
Lori Walsh:
Lucy, one of the things that sticks with me is the caption on the picture saying "our neighbors". These are aren't neighbors when we're staying in this place, put into context what this means for you if you can even scratch that surface for us.
Lucy George-Cooper:
Certainly the power of being there and being present to help people a world way is very significant. And now that context has even changed more for us. This family has really become a family for us. I had the opportunity to meet them and to speak with them and to celebrate a birthday with them. And so the neighbor really at that time when my grandfather was there, meant a significant thing to him. And even to this day as we continue to form this relationship is a very large word for us as well, because across the notion we can still classify ourselves as neighbors and friends and family.
Lori Walsh:
Are the apples still on the trees?
Bill Cooper:
The apple trees that were there 80 years ago have passed away, as have many of the soldiers, but they have replanted them. Helen Patton, General Patton's granddaughter, has been a pivotal player in creating this memorial to her grandfather and the troops who were there because it was such a pivotal part of their preparations for the breakout and for what was to come in Europe. And so she has purchased, or the foundation has purchased the apple orchard from the Blandamour family and they have replanted apple trees.
And in fact, this past two weeks ago, we were there for the 80th celebration of the arrival of the Third Army in that apple orchard and surrounding area. And the Blandamour family and several others dug a hole and got us over to a surprising planting of an apple tree, which was a very powerful moment with Christophe and me planting this apple tree because I know my father loved the country and loved trees, and I planted many trees with him at our farm, and there was just this history there. He would've loved for a tree to be planted there to replace some of those that got blown over by the storm last year.
Lori Walsh:
Thank you so much for sharing just small portion of this story with us. I just have so many questions for you. For our emotions, we're going to take a pause because I'm going to cry here about it and then the show's over. So thank you for being here with us. We really appreciate your time.
Lucy George-Cooper:
Thank you so much.
