Hayden woman honors her family of heroes

HAYDEN — A violin that Carlena Shove once played as a girl never made another sound after her brother, James "Jim" Clopton, was killed in the Korean War, its strings seemingly silenced by his death.

"I was playing the violin," she said Thursday afternoon, sitting in her home near a table arranged with family photos. "In fact, I had his violin I was taking lessons on."

Clopton served as an Army paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and he was in the First Ranger Company.

"He was very brave, and he was just a kid," Shove said.

While he was overseas, he wrote to his little sister and encouraged her to keep practicing.

"He had told me in one of the letters, ‘No matter what, keep on playing the violin, keep on learning it.’ When he got killed I never touched it again," she said. "My husband that I was married to for 50 years, he never once heard me play the violin. My kids have never heard me play the violin. It’s funny how that makes you feel."

The second of four older brothers, Clopton made a big impression on Shove, who was 9 when he died. He was just 21 when he lost his life during the May Massacre in Chaun-ni. He was shot in the head, a detail Shove and her family didn't know until author Robert Black wrote "Rangers in Korea: The War the World Didn't Want to Remember, Fought by the Men the World Will Never Forget," in 2002.

"My brother’s mentioned in there about four or five times and it tells me exactly where he was,” she said. “I treasure that book."

Clopton is buried in Fort George Wright Cemetery in Spokane, close enough to Shove's Hayden home that she can visit his gravesite. Shove, 81, has carried on her mom’s tradition of decorating the graves of her brothers, all of whom served and all of whom are interred nearby.

Shove said her mom never missed a holiday.

"She said to me one time, ‘Who’s going to decorate Jim’s grave when I’m gone?’ I says, ‘Mom, I will," Shove said, adding that her mom worried that she would forget when life got in the way.

"I said, ‘Mama, I promise you, I will never forget.’ And, except for one year, every year since my mom passed away in 1984, I have decorated all the graves," she said.

Shove has stayed true to her word and kept in her heart the memories of her brothers, four heroes among a family tree full of them.

Shove's great-grandfather from New York was an American Civil War veteran. She has his journal from 1879 safely tucked away in storage.

"I don’t know a lot about him except his name was George Harper Webster," she said.

She has always been fond of that time period: "It's a time of sadness, but also a different era when people were more easy to get along with."

From great-grandfather on down, members of every generation of Shove's family have served their country: Uncle James Pearson, who was a Marine and survived malaria in the South Pacific in World War II; his son, Greg, who was a war correspondent; her four brothers; her dear cousin Jerry Everhart, who was in the Army Signal Corps and lives in Post Falls; her first husband and father of their seven children Donald Shove, who was a military policeman in the Army and died in 2009.

"He played softball at age 72 and-a-half," she said. "He was a very good softball player."

Two of Carlena and Donald's boys served — Kenneth Shove Sr. and Clifton Shove were both in the Army — and their granddaughter, Diana Shove, went into the Air Force right after graduating from high school.

“I’m proud of her because she stands on her own,” Carlena said. “She knows what she wants in life.”

Six years ago, Carlena found happiness again when she married another military man, Stuart Hinz, who was an electrician in the Navy.

She loves them, tells fond stories of them and will always honor and cherish the veterans in her family, especially brother Jim, who gave his life to his country.

"I couldn’t be prouder. I'm the proudest relative that they all have," she said. "I'm so very proud and I’m very honored to be related to all of them. They’re keeping America free for me and for everybody else.”