When Christine Untrauer learned that local fallen Vietnam veteran Willie Ross Dennis didn’t have a grave marker, she was determined to change that.
Untrauer is a Ravenna-based volunteer Find a Grave contributor who began using the website in 1999 to document her parents’ gravesites in Mantua. Find a Grave is an online collection of gravesites where anyone can add to, create and find existing gravesites. Since then, she has used the website to document thousands of gravesites in several states. Nowadays, she specifically works on military veteran gravesites, because she believes veterans signed a blank check and gave their lives for our country.
“I feel that anybody who has done that in the military, their grave should be marked,” Untrauer said. “That’s just me.”
Untrauer began locating veteran’s gravesites at Maple Grove Cemetery in Ravenna in 2014. The cemetery’s manager, Mark Gabriel, gave her a map denoting every marked and unmarked grave at the cemetery, to help her navigate the plots.
When she came across Dennis’ obituary in an old newspaper, she looked at the map and located Dennis’ burial site, which had a small concrete marker specifying the gravesite was his, not an official marker.
That’s when she began working with Vice President of the Ravenna American Legion Auxiliary post 331 Heather Roosa Sepelak to get Dennis a marker, which was ultimately paid for by the Auxiliary.
On Nov. 3, a marker dedication ceremony was held at Maple Grove Cemetery for Dennis, who lost his life in 1968 during the Vietnam War. The ceremony was presided over by veteran Portage County law enforcement officer and pastor of the New Testament Church of Ravenna, Robert Burgess, and was made possible with the help of the Ravenna American Legion Auxiliary post 331, the Mantua American Legion post 193, Ravenna Elks Lodge 1076, Aurora School of Music teacher Armond S. Luckey and City Gardner & Florist, which supplied the flower arrangement for the grave.
Dennis was born on Dec. 21, 1947, and moved to Ravenna with his father and stepmother, James and Rose Dennis, at the age of 5. He enlisted in the Army in the latter part of the ’60s and began his tour in Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, on Dec. 7, 1967. Just over a month later, on Jan. 13, 1968, he was killed in action at 20 years old. He was buried in section 13 at Maple Grove Cemetery in Ravenna, but never received a tombstone. He was a Private First Class of the 101st Airborne Division, 801st Maintenance Battalion, B Company.
Untrauer is unsure why Dennis didn’t have a proper grave marker, but she believes it’s because Dennis’ death came before the Veterans Education and Benefits Expansion Act of 2001 was signed on Dec. 27, 2001, which allowed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to furnish a marker for the grave of a veteran buried in a private cemetery.
The ceremony began with an emotional introduction by Untrauer, followed by an extensive, heartfelt sermon by Burgess.
Burgess opened his sermon with a fitting Bible passage, Psalm 142:4: “I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.”
He also indicated the location of Dennis’ name on the Vietnam Memorial wall.
“As part of my ministry to peace officers across this nation, I almost always get over to the Vietnam Memorial wall, where I find 140 panels of names, where I find 493 feet of wall containing more than 58,000 names,” Burgess said. “His name is inscribed on that memorial on panel 34, E as in Edward, line number 41. I’ve made note of that today, because my next trip there I want to make sure that, as I always do, I pray, and I put my hands on those panels thanking God for his ministers to be for good that protected this nation and gave the ultimate sacrifice. I usually pick out a name on one of those panels and pray for that family who also are the ones who gave such a sacrifice.”
The sermon closed with a prayer, after a reading of Romans 13:4: “For he is God’s servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”
Sepelak then dedicated the grave marker to Dennis’ and paid tribute to his life, before flowers were placed on his grave.
“Dennis made the ultimate sacrifice for God and his country,” Sepelak said. “For as much as it pleased God to take unto himself the full of our departed brother in arms, we, therefore, place this wreath and poppy, the memorial flower of the American Legion, in his honor.”
Over a somber crowd, the Mantua American Legion post 193 gave a four-gun, three-volley salute in honor of Dennis’ life.
Following military tradition, Taps was played by Armond S. Luckey to signal the end of the ceremony.
It is unknown whether Dennis has any living relatives, but a 1968 newspaper article said he had four brothers and a sister; John and Frank from Ravenna, James from Columbus, Fred from Detroit and Marianne Young from Brooklyn, New York.
Dennis’ biological mother, Jeanette Iverson Dennis, died in 1964 and is buried in the same section as Dennis.
Community organizer Frank Hairston, who attended the event, voluntarily assumed the chore of finding Dennis’ living relatives in order to give them an American flag and a 101st Airborne Screaming Eagle flag provided by Untrauer and company, and to inform them of the ceremony held in Dennis’ name.
“I was blessed to be here and receive two flags that I will personally make sure the family receives,” Hairston said. “I’ve been blessed to be a part of a lot of things in my life, but this one really touched me, because people care. They wanted to honor him.”
Anyone who has information regarding the whereabouts of his family members can reach out to The Portager, or call Untrauer at 440-263-4390.
