NEWS

Glenns honored just hours before John Glenn's death

Shelly Schultz
Reporter

NEW CONCORD - Viewed through the prism of history, Dec. 7, 1941, represented a pivotal day in the lives of John and Annie Glenn. 

A young Glenn was traveling to Muskingum University, then Muskingum College, to attend the senior recital of his future bride, Annie Castor, when his car radio broke the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The United States was at war.

Realizing the recital was a high point in her college career, Glenn decided not to tell her about the attack until the recital concluded. He later recalled he immediately knew that day would forever change both of their lives.

Just a few hours before John Glenn died Thursday, a large crowd gathered at Brown Chapel on the university's campus to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and celebrate the lives and service of John and Annie Castor Glenn.

Sitting in the room where the young couple's journey was molded, a video titled "Out of Silence: The Annie Glenn Story" brought tears to the eyes of many people of the audience. Throughout her young life, Annie Glenn dealt with the obstacles associated with a disability. A severe stuttering issue made communication nearly impossible for her.

From a projector screen, Annie Glenn spoke about the ridicule she endured and the difficulties she faced doing things most people take for granted: talking on the phone, going to the grocery store, interviewing for a job and anything else that required verbal communication.

Because communication was so difficult for her, her sister, Jane, often completed her sentences. But her childhood best friend, Johnny Glenn, never did.

"He would just wait patiently until I finished trying to get the words out," Annie Glenn told her interviewers in the 2010 video created by Muskingum University Professors Tom German and Jeff Harman, and written and narrated by Dr. Lorle Porter.

Friends and colleagues describe the relationship between John and Annie Glenn as a true partnership.

"They are authentic. They are solid," said Susan Hasseler, Muskingum University's president. "They have such a deep respect for each other. I tell people all of the time when discussing the many wonderful contributions each of them have made as individuals not to lose sight of the real story — and that is the partnership John and Annie have."

In his homily during Thursday's ceremony, the Rev. William Mullins, the university's chaplain, provided further evidence of the partnership between John and Annie Glenn.

"Seventy-five years ago yesterday, two people in love stilled the raging waters of separation and the reality of war by choosing to serve, by believing that this tiny, small, schoolhouse on the hill had prepared them to move mountains, to overcome their struggles and to endure in the face of tragedy set before them," Mullins said. "Seventy-five years ago yesterday, in this space God spoke and John and Annie listened. For in this spot, the eternal nagging question of who shall we be and what shall we do was so beautifully answered, so steadfastly pursued, so unwaveringly sought — this son and daughter of New Concord set out that day to love, to inspire and to serve. And now, 75 years and a day later, we, each of us this day, hear the echoing strain of two lives so profoundly well-lived."

John Glenn's decision to volunteer for the war effort was the beginning of a lifetime service to the nation that he and Annie Glenn would share. He would go on to serve as an astronaut, a U.S. senator and as a presidential candidate, while she would serve as an advocate for people with communication disorders.

Thursday's event at Brown Chapel was in commemoration of service — the many capacities John and Annie Glenn served the New Concord community, Muskingum University and their country, as well as the service of the Muskingum University alumni who died in World War II.

After the reading of each fallen soldier's name by Harold Burlingame, MU's chairman of the board, a single bell peal and silence honored the brave men who gave their lives for their country.

In his 1999 memoir, John Glenn recalled watching his father play taps during Memorial Day celebrations in New Concord: The marching soldiers presented arms and fired volleys in salute as the flags flanking the Stars and Stripes were dipped. Then his father raised his war-battered brass bugle and played those drawn out, mournful notes in memory of the soldiers killed in action. The sounds drifted across the gravestones and sent chills up my spine, John Glenn wrote.

And it was the playing of taps, this time by Brandon Barnes and Gabriel Weeldreyer, that brought Thursday's service to a close.

cschultz3@gannett.com

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Muskingum University director of choral activities Dr. Zebulon Highben tolls a bell as the name of Muskingum students and alumi killed during WWII are read aloud during a service in New Concord on Thursday.