AUBURN, Maine — There are people we meet in life who are memorable, simply because of how they have lived, and how they treat others.
Ralph Sylvester was one of them.
NEWS CENTER Maine photojournalist Steve Sherburne and I met Ralph on a trip with Honor Flight Maine, back in 2015. He was one of the World War II veterans on that trip—good-natured, friendly, and eager to hear the stories of others and to share his own.
Ralph grew up and went to school in Auburn, graduating high school in 1942. He started out at Bates College, working in a mill for 65 cents per hour to pay his tuition.
But in 1942, school didn’t last long, and Ralph joined the Army. Ten other young men from Auburn signed up with him. Ralph’s real soldier story began in England, in May and early June of 1944.
"We went down to Southhampton with all our heavy equipment," he recalled in a 2019 interview for a story on the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
Ralph was part of the 295th Engineer Battalion, which he said went ashore on Omaha Beach about a week after the invasion. That began 11 months of combat and construction across Europe for Ralph and his fellow engineers, much of it clearing minefields and building bridges across the many rivers between Normandy and Germany.
He said it was tough and often dangerous work as the Allied troops battled the Nazis.
"We would go ahead of the infantry many times," Ralph recalled. "They would say, 'Where are you going?' 'Oh, up the road a piece.'"
That distance up the road eventually included building the critical Truman Bridge across the Elbe River in April 1945.
Ralph came home from the war and, like millions of other Americans in uniform, tried to pick up where he had left off. That meant returning to Bates, but for Ralph, those three years of war had changed him.
"I had seen so many things overseas, I couldn’t concentrate. So I didn’t finish here at Bates, but I would have been Class of '50," Ralph told NEWS CENTER Maine.
Instead, he went to work, taking a job at a bank, learning that business, and moving up. He spent 25 years at the bank, then took a job managing a telephone company that extended phone service into rural areas like Kingfield. Ralph retired after 15 years in the phone business.
He had already met and married his beloved wife Elaine, with whom he shared 70 years of life.
One of the things they did during retirement was have breakfast, almost daily, at Bates College. There, they became friends with the college crew team. Earlier this year, the college held a special ceremony where the team named its new rowing shell in honor of Ralph.
"I never expected this in my entire life," Ralph told us that day.
Ralph became a strong supporter of Honor Flight Maine in his later years, going on two trips to Washington and encouraging other veterans to make the trip. He took part in telethons and other events to raise money and spread the word about the Honor Flight program.
Through Honor Flight, Ralph also developed a close friendship with Bruce Whichard and his family from Waterford. They would attend Honor Flight events together and become like a family to Ralph, who had no children of his own.
Ralph spent his final months at the Maine Veterans Home in South Paris, with his old Army uniform close by. Ralph passed away at age 99 and will be laid to rest later this month at the Maine Veterans Cemetery.
For those who were his friends, Ralph's life is a true example of what others have called America’s Greatest Generation.