HANOVER COUNTY, Va. — Don Ducote is proving that hidden treasures aren’t always unearthed at yard sales or buried deep in sand.
"I don’t know what is in here," Ducote said. "It is kind of neat that he brought a few things back. It kind of connects you with the whole situation."
Sometimes, priceless finds turn up covered in cardboard.
"It was a plenty of stuff, and I did not expect to find anything like this," Ducote said. "When I finally got to this little box of war-type related stuff, that is when I found them."
While rummaging through his late father’s keepsakes, Ducote made a startling discovery.
“He never said anything about them or that gave any indication that they were there,” Ducote said.
Large sheets of paper folded away for decades detailed a chapter of his father, Captain Warren Ducote’s, life in ink.
"But then I saw one of these, and there was a bunch more, and I thought, 'Where is this going to end?' He loved drawing. He loved painting. He loved all kinds of artwork. Each page has its own theme."
Vivid vignettes of soldier life in Italy and Africa, 80-plus years ago.
"All World War II. All of it. The harshness of it. The fun of it. The danger of it. And camaraderie of it," Ducote said.
The officer in the 141st Field Artillery put pen to paper from combat to close calls.
"It shows a battle scene and that is what his intention was," Ducote said. "He shows private moments like you wouldn’t want to talk about like a whole lot when you have to go to the bathroom and there are shells falling right next to you."
Don believes the sketches heal scars.
"I wish he had been more verbal about it, but verbs go through the air and disappear, so isn’t it better?" Ducote asked.
Captain Ducote even decorated each page of his wartime photo album with original artwork.
"He put pen in ink drawing, and then he water colored each and every one of them," Ducote said. "They haven’t seen the light of day until today."
After returning home, the Louisiana native packed up his pictures.
Post-war Don’s father works at NASA’s Goddard Space Center near Washington. His attempt as a commercial artist never pans out.
Don recorded his Dad’s recollections of war in the 1980s, but his father never mentioned his illustrations.
"Why didn’t he bring these out? Why didn’t he have them on the wall?" Ducote said.
Thirty-three years after his dad’s death, Ducote says the drawings deserve to be shared.
"They can’t display everything, and I understand that. But some of this is culturally significant, I think," Ducote said.
Preserving these pages for posterity, Ducote shared that holding something so personal strengthens the bond between a son and his late father.
"It means a lot. It is all I got," he said. "It’s all I got left."
Finding a loved one's masterpieces hiding in plain sight.
"I am just amazed that he was able to do all of these," Ducote said. "We get to see exactly how life was back then."
Ducote urges you to dig a little deeper; one never knows what is waiting to be discovered at the bottom of a box.
"I enjoyed thoroughly looking at all of this stuff. It is a whole lot of fun," Ducote reflected. "I don’t know when he did this. It is amazing he had time to do all this, but he did it."
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