Local woman visits uncle’s grave in Italy
It’s a fitting tribute to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. The Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial in Nettuno, Italy, is a quiet, reverent place that holds sacred the memory of American heroes from World War II.
“It’s a beautiful place,’ said Andrea Shimko Raho of Uniontown. “…It was sad, too.’
Raho, a nurse/case manager at Uniontown Hospital, visited the cemetery in March to pay respects to her late uncle Michael Shimko, who died in Italy in 1944.
A daughter of the late Andrew and Violet Gavorcik Shimko, Raho made the visit with her son, Richard Raho, who lives in Chicago, where he is director of campus ministry and a theology instructor at St. Patrick’s High School.
Raho also has a daughter, Regina Raho Ziegler, who lives in McMurray, with her husband, Neil, and their four children: Olivia, Mason, Jakob and Bennett.
“We decided to go last fall,’ said Raho. “My son had been there last year. He had taken kids from the school.’
Mother and son planned to visit Rome at Easter.
“Rome was wonderful,’ she said. “We were there for all the Easter services at the Vatican.’
But Raho also had a mission. She knew her uncle was buried in Nettuno but didn’t know how far it was from Rome. Before leaving for Europe, she discovered the cemetery was located 38 miles south of Rome and that made the trip a possibility.
Excited, Raho telephoned her cousin, Betty Gavorcik Kluska, a Fayette County native who lives in Ohio. The two women are related through Raho’s mother and Kluska’s father.
Kluska mentioned that she had a cousin on her mother’s side, William Poplarchek, who was also buried in Italy, and Raho said she would look for his grave as well.
She would discover that both men were buried in the same cemetery.
Raho explained that Kluska’s parents died at a young age and she was raised with Poplarchek by family in the Vanderbilt area and later with family in the Uniontown area, where she attended St. John’s High School, which Raho also attended. After her high school graduation, Kluska moved to Cleveland, Ohio.
“I called her right away when we went online and found her cousin in the same cemetery. I assured her I’d go to his gravesite,’ said Raho. “It was very easy to find. We pulled up his name and they gave us the row and section.’
Once in Italy, Raho and her son traveled to Nettuno by train the Thursday after Easter. It was about an hour and a half train ride. They walked a mile from the train station to the cemetery, where they were touched by the beauty of the place.
Finding Michael Shimko’s grave meant a lot to Raho, she said.
“My father’s family was very patriotic. Daddy came from a family of nine boys and his mother was a Gold Star Mother,’ she said.
A Gold Star Mother is a woman whose son or daughter has died in the line of duty in the military.
All nine Shimko brothers, who were originally from Lemont Furnace, served in the military during World War II, either in the South Pacific, Europe or in the United States. They included Charles, Edward, George, John, Frank, Stephen, Joseph, Andrew (who was Raho’s father) and Michael, who was the youngest.
Michael Shimko was living and working in Ohio when he entered the military. His brother George also was living in Ohio.
Raho noted her father and mother made their home in Uniontown. Frank’s wife, Mary Cerney Shimko, still lives in Lemont Furnace.
“Michael was killed in action in Italy on Palm Sunday – April 2 – in 1944. He was in the Army,’ said Raho, later noting her uncle was just 21 years old.
The tombstone bears the inscription: “Michael S. Shimko, PFC 135 INF 34 Div, Ohio Apr 2, 1944.’
Poplarchek’s tombstone reads, “William M. Poplarchek, PFC 30 INF 3 DIV, Pennsylvania Feb 15, 1944.’
According to a booklet that Raho received at the cemetery, “The site, 77 acres in extent, lay in the zone of advance of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division. A temporary wartime cemetery was established there on Jan. 24 1944, two days after the U.S. VI Corps landing on the beaches of Anzio.
“After World War II, when the temporary cemeteries were disestablished by the U.S. Army, the remains of American military dead whose next-of-kin requested permanent interment overseas were moved to one of the 14 permanent sites on foreign soil, usually the one which was closest to the temporary cemetery. There, they were re-interred by the American Graves Registration Service in the distinctive grave patterns,’ the booklet explained.
“Many of the dead interred or commemorated here gave their lives in the liberation of Sicily (10 July to 17 August 1943), in the landings in the Salerno area (Sept. 9, 1943) and in the subsequent heavy fighting northward; in the landings at and the occupation of the Anzio beachhead (Jan. 22, 1944 to May 1944); and in the air and naval operations in these regions. The permanent cemetery and memorial were completed in 1956.’
Entry to the cemetery is through ornate bronze gates surmounted by the United States seal, the booklet explained.
The cemetery is trapezoidal in shape and includes a large elliptical reflecting pool with a stone cenotaph of bronze-colored travertine in the shape of a sarcophagus on a small island in its center.
Several Italian cypress trees flank the cenotaph on either side.
Extending from the reflecting pool through the graves area to the large memorial on the west is a wide grassy mall lined with evergreen holly oak trees and a hedge of pittosporum tobira.
The memorial consists of a chapel and museum. American flags fly daily from flagpoles located on each side of the memorial. The interior chapel walls are engraved with the names of 3,095 missing in the region.
The booklet explained there are 7,861 military dead interred in the cemetery under headstones arranged in gentle arcs that sweep across broad green lawns.
Each grave is marked with a white marble headstone with a Star of David for those of the Jewish faith and a Latin cross for others. There are 490 who could not be identified. In 21 instances, two brothers lie buried side by side.
Raho said, “I can only imagine how heart-wretching this was for my grandmother. I’m sure her faith in God kept her going. My earliest memories of her are sitting in the living room praying her rosary or reading her prayer book.’
She explained her grandmother, Mary Kacmar Shimko, was a widow, whose husband, John Shimko, died at a young age.
Two years later, in 1946, another of her sons, Joseph, would die in a hospital in Arizona as a result of war injuries. Joseph Shimko is buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Uniontown.
Raho said it meant a lot to her to make the visit to the grave of her uncle Michael Shimko. There are things she doesn’t know.
“Daddy never talked much about the war,’ she said.
But Raho noted, “It was very nice. I think Daddy would have been proud of me for going.’
And it makes Memorial Day this year special.
“For a while, I wanted to do something for Memorial Day or Veterans Day in tribute to my father’s family,’ said Raho. “When I went to the cemetery, I said I just have to do this. I think of my Daddy every time I put my flag out. He was very patriotic, which I think you should be.’
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