Way Back When

 The Thorp Courier  --   November 18, 2009
 

 This week brought the City of Thorp a multitude of events, ceremonies and celebrations in honor of Veterans Day.  This week’s Way Back When photo offers another veteran that needs identification.  This picture showcases a young man in an official military photo.  Do you know who this young man is?  Do you have any information about what branch of military he was in?  Tell us what you know by contacting The Thorp Courier.
 
 
Two weeks ago, The Thorp Courier showcased a picture of three Boy Scouts waving goodbye as they headed off to an event. Phil Jorgensen, currently of St. Cloud, Minnesota, identified the boy on the far left as himself, leaving for the Third Annual Boy Scout Jamboree in California in July of 1953, led by Scout Master Danny Slupski, a former butcher in Thorp.  Helen Gorsegner Davis wrote in to identify the other two boys as Danny Slupski Jr. (far right) and a Sneider boy, first name unknown (center).  The scarves that the boys were wearing signified the Jamboree event and the patch on Jorgensen’s uniform was the 1953 patch.  The photo was taken on the east side of the Jorgensen house on Main Street, owned by his parents, Dr. Phillip Jorgensen and Dr. Eleanora Jorgensen.  The woman in the background was identified as Ella Gorsegner, age 50 in the photo, who is now living at Oakbrook Health and Rehabilitation in Thorp.  She is 106. Ella worked in the Jorgensen’s medical office, which occupied the front portion of the house shown in the picture, and the child she was holding was recognized as Jorgensen’s little sister, Trudy.
 
 
Last week’s photo of the young pilot in front of a grounded plane was identified as Sergeant Leon E. Piatek.  The photo was an official United States Armed Air Forces photograph and was released for publication on November 10, 1947.