Fred and Rosemary Alsman were so humble their grandchildren did not know what they had a Carnegie Medal for exactly.
They didn’t talk about the day they saved two lives very much at all. This medal was up high on a shelf out of arms reach of anyone my age most of my life. The questions we all have for Grandpa and Grandma have only accumulated over the last few years. While I was researching Grandpa Leo I decided to change topics and found an article from a Brazil Newspaper.
The eldest grandchild Anna, couldn’t stop just as I couldn’t stop with Grandpa Leo’s trail of letters. So because of her we have this picture above a medal for our grandparents gravestone. They were both so humble in life, we as a family believe they deserve to be known for this absolute essential necessity to save whoever was in this house.
My Dad Paul son-in-law of recipients of award, Larry one of the boys saved, Floyd son of recipients, Ian grandson of recipients, Randy nephew of recipients and Anna granddaughter her started this endeavor.
The people in the right corner photo.
The Bedwell Family at that time lived across from my grandparents house. Their little boys were asleep and Freddy and Rosie saw smoke. Now the Carnegie Foundation team only briefly mentions Grandma, but not as the recipient with Grandpa. However, to get the boys out of the house my grandpa had to get on my grandma’s shoulders to get into the window. This of course was before her shoulder surgeries and events in the future that would be difficult on her.
They saved the boys as a team, even from what I remember of that Brazil article, I now cannot find, didn’t mention grandma’s merits except for hoisting grandpa up. If that in itself is not merit what is then? Grandma told my mom she put her fingers in the boys mouths to get some gunk out and one of them bit her.
Lonnie with his cane needs no introduction for his admiring fans in the larger photo. Sherry is sitting in a seat on top and Jerry is in the middle of the bottom photo.
The year this happened was 1967. Grandpa was 35 Grandma was 31 and all five of their children had been born. Their oldest was already 11, my mom was not quite 10 yet, an 8 year old, an almost 7 year old and an almost 6 year old. Quite a handful of kids themselves right? My mind keeps going to the idea of what if it had been one of their kids? They would have wanted someone to do as they were doing to save those boys from possible suffocation.
My Grandparents were like any other parents at that time. He worked at GE in Linton and did what he needed to do for his family and friends. Would you be able to drop what you were doing at a moments notice to help someone else’s children?
When Anna was able to get the medal and we set a date to do this and were a few weeks out from that date I remember talking to Larry. He gave me goosebumps knowing that he just sealed the circle that our grandparents started in 1967. Both Larry and Lonnie are grandfathers. Lonnie has become a nation-wide figure in his own right now with other events in his life, but this was nearly tear-inducing for me to hear.
Larry was able to do as Freddy and Rosie did, to race to the aide of a person needing assistance from a fire. This is the beauty of being at the right place at the right time and how it continues to work onward decades later in your life. I wouldn’t have been able to get to know Courtney Lonnie’s daughter in School or spend the night when my family was having troubles. Of course we are interconnected by being family and neighbors, but being in trouble some people can’t compute what to do.
Would you be able to race towards a smoking house? Could you hold your husband on your shoulders to get up to a window?
Life would be shades darker without Larry and Lonnie still in our world!
And I don’t just say that because I think I remember we have gotten some really delicious deer and elk from Larry over the years.
Jewells of Thought 
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