Hansen: Meet Bellevue's band of brothers

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/hansen-meet-bellevue-s-band-of-brothers/article_e79d9098-07e0-58a0-bedf-a376454a57ff.html




SARAH HOFFMAN/THE WORLD-HERALD
Rita Willuhn and her brother Bob Sullivan page through old family photographs on Friday at her home in Bellevue. Bob and five of his brothers served in World War II, five in the Army and one in the Army Air Forces. All survived the war.


POSTED: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014 12:30 AM
By Matthew Hansen / World-Herald columnist

Rita turned the corner toward home and caught her first glimpse of an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. The fourth grader’s eyes widened. She clutched her schoolbooks to her chest, and began to run.

It was 1943, and 9-year-old Rita already understood how an unfamiliar car could change everything for the Sullivan family. How the sight of a U.S. Army officer stepping out of that car and knocking on the front door could tear the giant, tight-knit family apart.

Donald Sullivan, a farmer and construction worker, and Mary Sullivan, a homemaker, had a brood of 11 children and lived in a farmhouse that’s now part of east Bellevue. Mary made huge pots of potatoes that her kids scarfed down at dinner. The seven boys shared the biggest bedroom and the four girls shared a smaller one.

It was crowded but it worked. Then the news crackled out of the family’s radio: The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

FULL story at link.