A Living Memorial
.
Detroit neighorhood works to restore park, preserve Jewish soldier's legacy.
Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News
A
t first, it was a miserable saga. A
Jewish soldier killed in the war,
and buried in a foreign land. A
son who never knew him and a broken-
hearted, inconsolable family. A city park,
later named in his honor then forgotten
and fallen into disrepair.
But the story has a pleasant ending. The
soldier, Pvt. Albert Aaron Fields, received
one of the U.S. Army's highest medals. He
also was America's first deceased Jewish
soldier returned from a foreign cemetery
after World War II for burial in the U.S.
His son, Dr. Sander Fields of Columbia,
S.C. — only a year old when his father
died in Germany — watched the reburial
and later the dedication of Albert A. Fields
Park.
And now, in a warm display of human-
ity and cordial relations between the
Jewish and African-American communi-
ties, Sander Fields, his wife, Suzanne, and
sons Drs. Andrew and James, witnessed
the rededication of the restored park just
after Veterans Day.
The park, at Forrer and Florence streets
on Detroit's west side, was refurbished
through the persistence of Detroiter
Yvonne Gibbs and other members of the
Forrer Community Block Club. They also
replaced the memorial plaque honoring
Pvt. Fields and brought the community
together for the rededication.
"If a park is dedicated to a person, it
should be fixed up and look good so that
the people will always know who's being
honored," Gibbs said. "I hope the children
in the community will see the plaque and
be inspired to strive to do some good."
She and her neighbors — many still
have mezuzot on their front doors left
by Jewish residents who dominated the
neighborhood in the 1950s — defied a
chilling rain to attend the rededication
ceremony this month.
The ceremony included a color guard
by the Jewish War Veterans and remarks
by Wayne County Commissioner Burton
Leland of Detroit, who is Jewish and a for-
mer state senator and representative who
helped secure funding for the refurbish-
ing, and by Robert Cohen, executive direc-
tor of the Jewish Community Relations
Council of Metropolitan Detroit.
A22 November 29 2007
Yvonne Gibbs of Detroit, with Andrew, Suzanne, James and Sander Fields of
Columbia, S.C., at the rededication of the Albert A. Fields Park in Detroit.
The renovation project
also was aided by Detroit
City Councilman Kwame
Kenyetta and Project
Manager Craig Bistrow.
The JCRC, the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit and the Jewish War
Veterans were instrumental
in locating Sander Fields.
Retired and 64, he founded
the Fields Chiropractic
Pvt. Albert
Clinic in Columbia, and his
sons also are chiropractors
there.
"I was in total shock to learn the city
of Detroit was renovating this park:'
Fields told the audience. "I knew it was
in extremely poor condition, but I never
expected it would return to its original
state and become a lovely place for chil-
dren to enjoy themselves."
The county and city shared the cost of
$125,000 to renovate the 3.8-acre park,
including a rebuilt baseball diamond,
new paved walkways, picnic tables, a
flagpole and the new plaque honoring
Pvt. Fields, which was unveiled during
the ceremony. The old plaque was dam-
aged by a car and sat for three years on
Gibbs' porch after she rescued it from a
bulldozer. She visits and works on the
park daily.
A Lasting Legacy
"My father often wonders what
his relationship with Albert
would have been like," said
James Fields, 31. "My brother,
Andrew (now 36 and named
after Pvt. Fields), and I wish
we had the opportunity to
have known our grandfa-
ther. A part of all of us died
with Albert Fields in Hoven,
Germany, on that nasty winter
Fields
day. No one will ever know the
influence he may have had on
his family and fellow Americans if he had
not been killed defending his beloved
country."
Earlier in the day, the family reflected
on Albert Fields, a happy-go-lucky youth
who lived with his family on Glynn
Court in an old Jewish neighborhood
and attended Central High School. After
graduating, he got a job in the produce
department of a Food Fair supermar-
ket (a forerunner of the Farmer Jack
chain), where he met and married Lillian
Kriseman. He enlisted in the Army after
the Pearl Harbor attack and received basic
training at Ft. Jackson, S.C.
"I was born after he left, and he saw me
only one time, while on a furlough:' said
Sander Fields. "Of course, I was too young
to remember anything about him. But I'm
told his nickname was 'Hustler' because
he was always doing extra jobs to help
support the family."
Pvt. Fields, 24, had been hospitalized
in England, recovering from shrapnel
wounds from a bomb blast when he
was called back to action with the 60th
Infantry Division at the end of 1944. The
Allies needed every soldier for the final
push on Germany. The Nazis were put-
ting up fierce resistance in their home-
land and preparing for what became the
famous Battle of the Bulge.
Pvt. Fields was fatally wounded when,
"with complete disregard for personal
safety, he exposed himself to intense
enemy mortar and machine gun fire to
carry vital messages to other personnel in
his company ... and to administer medi-
cal treatment to wounded comrades:'
reads the Army's letter to Pvt. Fields' wife.
He was awarded the Silver Star and two
Purple Hearts posthumously and buried
in the American military cemetery in
Belgium, with a Jewish chaplain officiat-
ing — one of 400,000 American casual-
ties in World War II. He was brought back
for reburial at Machpelah Cemetery in
Ferndale.
Sander Fields, by then age 9, also
attended the park's dedication in 1952,
with such Detroit luminaries as Mayor
Albert Cobo, Council President Louis
Mariani and Council members Mary Beck
and Billy Rogell.
Pvt. Fields' widow remarried around
that time. She died at age 81 in 2001.
Sander Fields attended Cass Technical
High School and graduated from Wayne
(State) University's Pharmacy School in
Detroit, then operated Thrifty Drugs in
Detroit before moving to South Carolina
and studying to be a chiropractor.
At first, everyone involved in the park
rededication feared they wouldn't be able
to locate the Fields family and the task
was left up to the Jewish War Veterans.
"Actually, we did it pretty quickly:' said
JWV Michigan Dept. Commander Jerry
Order of Novi.
"While attending our annual Memorial
Day service at Machpelah Cemetery [in
Ferndale] last May, I happened to look
down at one of the gravestones — it was
the grave of Pvt. Albert Fields. The cem-
etery office records helped us locate the
family."