At 9:22 a.m. Tuesday morning, November 25, 1947, the body of Pfc. Jewell Bethel Jr., who lost his life in the Battle of the Belgian Bulge, arrived in Marion for reburial. Bethel was the third of Marion’s World War II dead to be returned home.
Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars met the C & E I train at the depot on West Main Street, which bore the body to Marion and marched with their colors behind the funeral car to the Frick Funeral Home located on S. Van Buren Street.
The body was removed from the funeral home Tuesday afternoon to the home of Pfc. Bethel’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jewell Bethel Sr., 409 W. Union Street, to remain until the funeral hour. Funeral services were held Wednesday at 10 am at the First Baptist Church where the young paratrooper held membership.
The body of Pfc. Jewell G. Bethel Jr. was accorded military rites in the First Baptist Church, Rev. T.W. Nelson officiating and was for the second time laid to rest in snowy, sub-freezing weather as an Army bugler played taps at Rose Hill Cemetery.
Of the young paratrooper who perished in the Battle of the Bulge. Rev. Nelson, once an Army Chaplain, said. “He has joined that great Host of men who gave themselves since the early days of the American Revolution until the present for democracy and freedom.”
Standing above the flag draped casket. Rev. Nelson looked over the banks of floral offerings into the faces of the bereaved family and relatives and offered the thought from the Bible that, “Things are not what they seem.”
Quoting from the scripture, he said. “‘Verily, verily I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground, it abideth alone, but if it die, it will abound.” The life of Pfc. Bethel he pictured as “not thrown away but sown, and it shall bear fruit in the glory of God.”
Pfc. Bethel, son of Jewell G. and Elma Houston Bethel, 409 W. Union Street was born July 23, 1924 in Williamson County. He was a senior in Marion Township High School when he was inducted into the military service June 17, 1943. He went to the mechanized cavalry training school at Ft. Riley, Kansas. He volunteered for paratroop service in August, 1943 and was sent to paratrooper’s school at Ft. Benning, Ga. receiving his wings in November of the same year.
He volunteered tor replacement duty and went overseas in January, 1944, landing on the Anzio beachhead. He was on combat duty with the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion attached to the 5th Army in its drive to Naples and Rome for which his unit received the presidential citation. He later landed in Southern France with the 7th in August, 1944. He was in France until Dec. 20, 1944 when he was sent to bolster the forces in the battle of the Belgian Bulge. He was mortally wounded in Belgium four days later at the age of 20 years, 5 months and 1 day.
During his high school days he was active in athletics. He was a member of the winning one mile relay team in 1943, ran the quarter mile in the state finals of the same year, was quarterback on the football teams of 1941, 1942 and 1943 and was co-captain of the 1943 track team with Jack Schafale who was killed while serving in the Pacific war theatre. Jewell was also on the wrestling team in high school, being undefeated in the light weight class. He was vice-president of the “M” Club in 1942 and 1943.
A scholarship was established by Jewell’s parents in his name at the Marion High School which remains in place to this day.
Besides his parents, he was survived by two brothers, Donald Bethel, a student at Theological Seminary in New Orleans and William G. Bethel at home and two sisters, Mrs. Carl Addison and Mrs. Carl Tyner both of Marion.
(Data extracted from Marion Daily Republican articles dated November 24, 25, and 26, 1947 as part of the three volume set, Williamson County’s Greatest Generation by Harry C. Boyd; photo courtesy of the Bethel family; edited and compiled by Sam Lattuca on 06/28/2013)