Cornwall was Pederson's husband from 1966 until his death in
1990 (she has since remarried). She knew he had served in World War II as a
rigger, or parachute packer, but she had heard little else about it.
Apparently, Cornwall saw no reason to dwell on the death and destruction he
had witnessed.
"He went through hell," one of his friends told her.
Pederson, who married Cornwall after his first wife died,
decided to find out exactly what that meant.
"I just had a few snippets of information," explains
Pederson, who knew that Cornwall entered the Army at age 18 in 1942, serving
until 1945.
"I vowed to learn about his military service because I
thought the kids would want to know."
So last January, she checked the Internet to see what she
could find out about the 82nd Airborne Division.
"I like to learn," she explains.
And, after eight months of researching, she learned
plenty.
A good deal of information came from eight riggers who had
served in Cornwall's company, plus the commanding officer.
"It's positively amazing that after 60 years that these
men remembered Earl," Pederson notes.
She became fascinated with stories of how riggers worked,
laying material out on 40-foot-long tables to pack two parachutes for every
man in the regiment.
The buildup to D-Day was especially frenetic for riggers.
Cornwall had been stationed near Nottingham, England, but as June 6, 1944,
approached, his company was sent to an airfield on the country's coast,
already crammed with servicemen.
Since there was no room left in the barracks, Cornwall and
the other overflow troops had to convert shipping crates into beds.
With notoriously bad weather on D-Day, the sky was filled
with clouds as well as paratroopers; many regiments landed completely off
target, and Cornwall's was no exception.
Lost, he spent three days in hiding near the village of
Chef du Pont. To survive, he raided chicken coops and gardens.
Ultimately, he found another Allied regiment and ended up
fighting with them against the Nazis for more than a month. It was a grim
time of little food and violent clashes.
Cornwall's regiment took an immense toll in the storming
of Normandy -- only 900 out of more than 2,000 men survived.
A year later, as the war in Europe was winding down,
Cornwall's regiment was chosen to serve as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower's Honor
Guard in Germany.
Finally, Cornwall returned to the United States in the
winter of 1945.
It would be another 20 years before he reunited with
Pederson; they had met in high school in Wenatchee and had briefly dated
then.
After the war, she was busy working as an elementary
school teacher and he, a salesman. Both had married other people.
When they rekindled their romance and married in 1966,
they blended his three children and her four in their Yakima home.
But, because Cornwall never talked about it, Pederson knew
very little about how he had spent the war years.
Now she does. And she has a 3-inch-thick binder to prove
it.
As does her son Rick Blumhagen in Spokane, who received
the book as an early Christmas present.
"It's quite a magnificent feat and an enduring piece of
labor," Blumhagen says. "I sat down and read the whole thing in two days."
His sister, Dianne LaBissoniere of Yakima, says the book
is a fitting tribute to a fine man.
"I couldn't have picked a better stepfather," she says.
"The Soldier Among Us" isn't just a gift to the children,
Pederson says; ultimately, it's a gift to herself.
"It's been a blessing to me," she says.
