Trip to France brings new details to light about combat death of Rockwell City native

At first, Ryan Hildreth didn’t understand why the caretaker of the American cemetery in Epinal, France, grabbed a closed glass jar as the man headed out to show Hildreth and his wife, Sandra, the gravesite of a relative.
But the reason for the jar wasn’t a secret for long – the caretaker poured some sand from inside onto the engraved name and rank of Jasper Inman Jr., a 22-year-old Rockwell City native who died Feb. 17, 1945, in France.
“My family history has always been important to me,” Hildreth said.
Hildreth grew up looking at family gravestones while helping dig burial sites at Rosehill Cemetery with his family’s boring company. Among those stones was one for Inman, the only son of his grandfather’s only sister. Hildreth said he couldn’t find many family members who knew much of anything about Inman. All he knew, for years, was that Inman was in the service and was buried in France. A member of the Air National Guard, Hildreth was deployed to Germany last fall; knowing he would have some time off while there, he and his wife planned a road trip to Epinal. 
Read more in the May 24 edition.