A sketch in time: Monongahela native television producer details search for WWII soldiers
WQED producer Dave Solomon spoke to the Monongahela Historical Society at their annual banquet, held at the Anthony M. Lombardi Educational Conference Center at Mon Valley Hospital in Monongahela on Thursday. Solomon produced a story about a portrait artist in World War II who painted portraits of service members, seen here, and reconnected with the subjects decades later through Solomon's story.
WQED producer Dave Solomon spoke to the Monongahela Historical Society at their annual banquet, held at the Anthony M. Lombardi Educational Conference Center at Mon Valley Hospital in Monongahela on Thursday. Solomon produced a story about a portrait artist in World War II who painted portraits of service members, seen here, and reconnected with the subjects decades later through Solomon's story.
In 2010, Monongahela native Dave Solomon, a producer for local public broadcast station WQED, began work on a documentary that would ultimately touch the lives of the family members of soldiers.
Solomon connected with John Black who had opened an old footlocker and found 100 photographs of portraits his mother sketched of soldiers in Europe during World War II. John Black, who resided in suburban Memphis, subsequently scanned and emailed Solomon a few images of some of the portraits.
“Once I saw the images, I was hooked,” said Solomon. “I wanted to tell the story Pittsburgh doesn’t know and needs to know.
“As soon as Joe Black reached out and said what he had, I knew we had to immediately had to go after this story despite the geographic differences.”
That story was told by WQED producer Dave Solomon in “Portraits for the Home Front: The Story of Elizabeth Black.”
Solomon was guest speaker at the Monongahela Area Historical Society’s annual banquet held in the Anthony M. Lombardi Education Conference Room on the campus of Monongahela Valley Hospital late last week where he discussed the project.
After producing, “Portraits for the Home Front: The Story of Elizabeth Black,” Solomon produced the sequel, “Finding Elizabeth’s Soldiers.” It detailed efforts to bring together the portraits with the soldiers or their families.
“Portraits for the Home Front: The Story of Elizabeth Black” was released locally in 2013 and picked up for national distribution in 2014.
“Finding Elizabeth’s Soldiers” was released by WQED in 2015 and picked up for national distribution this year.
Solomon, who has been a producer at the station since 2000, and has won 29 Emmy Awards and two Edward R. Murrow Awards, showed the later film during the banquet, enthralling the audience with the stories of Black, her subjects and connecting the men and their families with the sketches. “Finding Elizabeth’s Soldiers” began airing in April, but the search continues.
Elizabeth Black of Pittsburgh traveled throughout Europe for two years during World War II. Initially serving donuts and coffee to the troops. Feeling she could do more, she sought and ultimately received permission to sketch the soldiers throughout Europe.
The Pittsburgh woman sent the sketches back home to the soldiers’ families.
Some did make it home, but other families either never received the portraits or did not know the story behind that rolled up, yellowing sketch locked up for decades in some closet or drawer.
“A lot (of the families) did not know Elizabeth or the story behind the sketches,” Solomon said.
“We found families in just about every state. Some had sketches in their homes but did not know anything about the artist of the sketches.
Their reactions to the sketches ranged from humorous to bittersweet. When Myer Bernstein’s son saw his sketch, he replied that it did not resemble his father now. Bernstein, now living in Wyncote, Montgomery County, replied, “I was 19 then.”
But for Rick Damon of San Francisco, the sketch was like looking into the eyes of his father George, now deceased.
“That’s my dad,” Rick Damon replies in the documentary. “That was my best friend.”
Each soldier signed a book for Black after she sketched them. That book was used to try to match the sketches with the soldiers or their families for the second documentary.
Solomon provided for the audience copies of those notes as well as a touching letter sent to Elizabeth Black by Helen Harper. Her husband, Fred Harper, was killed in action Dec. 22, 1944, one month after being sketched by Black. In the letter, Helen Harper said she was having the sketched framed so his 9-month-old son will know him. Solomon’s crew found Fred Harper’s son in Fort Lauderdale.
“The portraits had a way of reaching through time and bringing the families closer to their dad,” Solomon said.
Myer Bernstein, a medic during the war, recalled a man jumping up, hugging him and dying in his arms.
Shortly after that incident, he and some other medics were sent back a bit from the front lines. It was during that time that Bernstein was sketched by Black.
Framing the stage from where Solomon made his presentation were enlarged copies of the photos/sketches. One of those was the lone sketch of a woman in Black’s collection. It had the name Lulu on the lapel of the subject.
Solomon and his crew would trace that to Mary Lou Chapman, a fellow Red Cross volunteer, and friend to Black. Chapman, now 97, lives in California and is still active playing tennis and golf. In September, while on the West Coast, Solomon against visited his friend Chapman.
He said one soldier’s family now lives in Elizabeth, but they have yet to respond to Solomon’s attempts to interview them.
Solomon noted that some of the soldiers have died since the documentaries were produced. But their stories remain alive in the films, which can be viewed at wqed.org/Elizabethblack.
“There have been a couple of other stories which have been rewarding, but with this one, we have had something tangible we can give them — the portraits. Of all of the projects I have worked on it ranks among the most rewarding.”
Solomon said he still speaks with John Black once or twice a month, giving him updates on portraits that he found homes for.
“I think it had opened up a lot of doors for him and his family,” Solomon said. “It has been extremely rewarding to interact with all of these families — to get a call from them, an email from them, to express their thanks.”