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."