Charles Everett Balcom died when he was 17, a few weeks before he should have graduated from Lockport High School.
The one-time Union-Sun & Journal carrier enlisted in the Navy in January of his senior year, shipped out in April, and lost his life at Normandy on June 7, 1944. Navy correspondence to his parents indicates Charles went into the water to try to save a shipmate — during the “D-Day” Allied invasion of occupied France — and when he was taken from the water he was dead.
As the story goes, Charles had made a pact with a shipmate: Whoever survived would send a bottle of real French perfume to the other’s mother.
The small bottle of Caravane de Bienaime / Paris that sat unopened on Charles’ mother’s dresser for the remainder of her life will be on display in the When Lockport Went to War section of the “Secret Weapons of World War II: Women, Books & Music” immersive exhibit at Kenan House Gallery.
The perfume and its original packaging will accompany numerous other proofs of Seaman 2nd Class Charles Balcom’s service to our country, from photographs, a letter home and newspaper articles, to the Blue Star and Gold Star flags that long hung in a front window at the Balcom family residence on Cave Street, the five service medals that he was awarded, the Western Union telegrams reporting him missing In action and then killed In action, and the American flag that was presented at his funeral in Lockport after the war ended.
These articles are on loan from Balcom’s baby sister, Jean Skop, who said she’s had them all in storage the past 58 years and had never taken the time to really examine them until recently. A member of the Kenan Arts Council, she was inspired by the exhibit curators’ call for local families’ World War II-related mementos to include in the Lockport room.
What Skop learned about her war-hero brother who died when she was 3 years old truly moved her, she said.
Charles Balcom was originally interred in the American Cemetery in France, and after the war his parents had his remains brought home for reinterment at Corwin Cemetery. Skop remembers attending his funeral, when she was 6 or 7 years old, and remembers well the long-lasting, “terrible” toll on their mom. “She used to cry in church,” Skop said. “Christmas was an especially tough time. She would decorate the house… but when it was quiet you could hear her crying.”
Finally poring over the contents of a box she had inherited at age 26, after her last parent passed, and moved to three different new homes over the years, Skop discovered there was more to her brother than the story of his sacrifice. In photographs and letters, particularly a Navy officer’s condolence letter to Mr. and Mrs. Balcom referring to Charles as a friend, Skop said she saw that her brother was “somebody I’d really like to have known.”
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So far, about a dozen families from Niagara County have contributed their World War II-related mementos for display in the Lockport room, and more offers are coming in ahead of the January opening of the Secret Weapons exhibit.
For co-curator Mary Brennan-Taylor, whose personal collections of World War II-era media formed the basis of Secret Weapons, growing public interest in the exhibit is a welcome surprise.
From an interpretive standpoint, the function of the Lockport room is to illustrate local involvement in a cause that consumed the entire nation for four-plus years in the 1940s. Brennan-Taylor said that as contributors come forward they’re passing on whatever they know about their loved one’s service, almost as if to ensure this local history isn’t lost to time.
The Lockport room “has taken on a role as a way for people to honor their relatives. … These stories are part of the fabric of our community,” she said. “This is slowly becoming my favorite part of (Secret Weapons).”
Dog tags, uniforms and gear, medals, letters, service photos, anything war-related — including the proofs of women’s wartime service on the homefront, as in grandma was a “rosie” riveter … if it connects a Niagara County native to World War II, and their family wants to share, it has a place in the Lockport room, Brennan-Taylor said.
To contribute items, call the Kenan Center at 716-433-2617, leave your name and number and Brennan-Taylor will get back to you.
Secret Weapons of World War II: Women, Books & Music opens Jan. 4 at Kenan House Gallery, 433 Locust St., Lockport, with a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. The exhibit will be accessible daily through March 31. Admission is free.
Related special events including narrated tours, concerts, an author talk and a roundtable with World War II veterans are scheduled or being scheduled now.