OKLAHOMA CITY — Lawrence Robert Merideth was a star football and basketball player at Oklahoma City’s now-defunct Central High in the early 1940s. Merideth, who was 6 feet 1 and 170 pounds, was named Central High’s most outstanding athlete and an all-state football player as a senior in 1942.

Merideth had a scholarship offer to play both sports at SMU. He was an honor student. He was handsome. He was the All-American boy who was beloved by his classmates, as evidenced by the fawning notes and signatures scattered throughout his 1942 yearbook.

• “Dear Lawrence: You’re really the one. You’re swell. Tops in my books.” — Wanda Lou Webster

• “Dear Lawrence: I don’t know you very well. But I admire you very much. I wish you all the luck and happiness in the coming years.” — Joan Frye

• “To one of the best athletes in the state. Good luck in college.” — Frank Bruno

But Merideth never got to college. Instead, he joined the Navy, spending 18 months training in Chicago and later Scotland as a radioman. As part of the Sixth Naval Beach Battalion, he was among the first Americans to land on Omaha Beach during the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion. Merideth and his battalion were attached to the Army’s 5th Engineer Special Brigade, and responsible for, among other things, establishing shore-to-ship communications and evacuating casualties.

Radioman 3rd class Lawrence Merideth was 20 when a shell from a German 88 mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun landed in a foxhole between he and Radioman 2nd class John Murphy. Both died instantly.

Instead of playing college football with Doak Walker — the SMU scholarship offer would have been honored after the war, family members say — Merideth became one of the more than 4,000 Allied deaths in the Normandy landings, history’s largest-ever seaborne invasion that triggered the liberation of Europe and ultimately World War II victory. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart.

Twenty-one months earlier, Lawrence Merideth had been a recent Central High graduate, working a job with his dad and still deciding what to do with his life. He lived at home with his parents on West Park Place, located immediately west of what today makes up Oklahoma City’s Midtown district. His older brother, Glenn, was in the Coast Guard, stationed in Providence, R.I., and wrote home often.

One particular letter — dated Sept. 6, 1942 — from Glenn to Lawrence had a specific point, and Glenn was quite heavy-handed making it. He spent nearly three pages practically begging his little brother to go to college. The letter read, in part, “Lawrence if you pass up this chance you will be the sorriest person on Earth. I know, take it from me. There is no reason in the world, with your ability, why you should pass this chance of your life.”

Two of my best friends, Erika and James Warren, bought their first house — a bungalow-style home built in 1917 — over the summer, and on July 19, my wife Annie and I went over to visit for the first time. James was doing some remodeling and had removed a China cabinet built into a wall separating the bedrooms from the dining and living rooms.

When we arrived, James showed us two yellowed envelopes that had fallen out of the wall during that process. The envelopes were postmarked Providence, R.I., on Sept. 6, 1942, and Feb. 12, 1943, and obviously had been opened long ago. Knowing my job and my affinity for that kind of research, James asked me to see what I could find out about the letters. The first, from Glenn Merideth to younger brother Lawrence, was striking in its tone. From the letterhead and postmarking, we could tell Glenn had been in the Coast Guard.

“Tell me what in the world you have got that I haven’t,” Glenn wrote on the first page of the letter. “Except for a good ability to play athletics like nobody else in the world and you are good looking and have a good build. It seems to me that everybody that you come into contact with would do anything in the world to help you in anyway.”

Then came the lecturing.

“Please go and get that college education,” Glenn wrote. “If you haven’t gotten a bid as yet, hop in the car and go to A&M, OU or whoever or wherever it may be and see what you can do. I know you have a swell job and hate to quit on account of the money coming in, but Lawrence, after the war if not before the war is over the job you have will fold up, yes and I know you are in a position to learn a good trade, but it all will not sum up to a good college education.”

After signing his name, Glenn added nine more words at the bottom of the third page: “College education? I hope I see a big yes!”

But Glenn still wasn’t done. On the inside flap of the envelope, he wrote, “College education on my mind. What about yours?”

The second letter, from Glenn to the family, was more general. He mentioned Lawrence at the beginning, and it was clear from context that Lawrence had left home, but it wasn’t entirely clear where he’d gone. The only clue was that it must have been somewhere cold.

So I started searching to see what I could find out about this family that once had owned Erika’s and James’ house. First, I Googled Glenn Merideth — the author of the letter – and found his 2006 obituary. Glenn had worked as a parts manager for Central OK Equipment Co., and the obit noted that he was preceded in death by two of his brothers, one of whom was named Lawrence. He was survived by his wife and two sons, the eldest named Larry.

When I searched Lawrence Merideth’s name, the website “6thbeachbattalion.org” was among the results, with a link to a specific pagethat, when I read through it, caused me to audibly gasp.

Lawrence Merideth was one of seven children — four boys — born to William Edward and Metta Alice (Witt) Merideth. Lawrence was born in Perry, Okla., but the family moved to Oklahoma City, about 65 miles south, when he was a toddler.

He was the second-youngest Merideth boy, behind Ray and Glenn and older than Harold. Harold went on to play college football at Central State (now known as Central Oklahoma) and eventually became a longtime football coach at three high schools in Oklahoma City.

Lawrence attended Central High at the same time as Paul Fauks, who would go on to become the St. Louis Cardinals’ director of minor league operations; Dee Andros, who played football at Oklahoma, then became Oregon State’s football coach and later athletic director; and Cal McLish, who pitched for 15 years in the major leagues. All three also served in World War II.

Lawrence’s nickname was “Goon” because of a chipped tooth caused by a sports injury. At some point, folks started calling him “Galloping Goon” because of his athletic prowess.

In the football section of the 1942 Central High yearbook, it reads, “Goon, known for his defensive ability, was one of our best men.”

A few pages later, in the basketball section, it reads, “The Goon was our team’s main backboard hustler. He is a good tip-in artist and always likes to rough it up a bit. This tall rugged boy played two years on the first team and was always in there fighting till the last second.”

He lettered three years in football and two in basketball at Central High, which changed to a junior high in 1968 and closed a few years after that. Today, the four-story stone building at 817 West Robinson Ave. houses Oklahoma City University’s law school.

Lawrence suited up for the South team in the 1942 Oklahoma All-State Game, played Aug. 28, 1942, at Oklahoma City’s Taft Stadium. He had graduated from Central a few months earlier, and when he played the final football game of his life, Lawrence was just a few weeks away from receiving that lecturing letter from Glenn.

On the Sixth Beach Battalion website, I read a 2005 letter written by Fauks to Ken Davey, whose father served with that unit. Davey, who has become a Sixth Beach Battalion historian, runs the website and writes a newsletter for surviving members and their families.

In his letter, Fauks noted that he had served with the Seventh Beach Battalion and was “close friends” with Lawrence.

“During the year-end awards assembly we sat side by side on the stage as Larry, a truly versatile athlete, received the award as ‘Best Athlete’ & I for journalism,” Fauks wrote.

Below Fauks’ letter was one from Albert Seychel, who was next to Lawrence in the foxhole when he died. Seychel was injured by the 88 shell and writes that he “crawled over to Merideth and was horrified. I completely forgot my own injury, rolled Merideth over face down and covered him up with something.”

Seychel further wrote that he and Lawrence had become close friends and that “Merideth was a full-blown 6′ 2″ athlete with college football potential.”

Others referred to the two buddies as “Mutt and Jeff” — a popular comic strip at the time — because Seychel was much shorter than Lawrence.

I also found an 2008 video interview with Seychel for the Veterans History Project. He discusses Lawrence’s death beginning at around the 49-minute mark.

At this point, I knew we needed to find someone in the family so we could hand over the letters. The natural choice was the Larry Merideth mentioned in Glenn’s obit, who I correctly assumed was named after his Uncle Lawrence. I found Larry, who lives in Broken Arrow, Okla., on Facebook and sent him a long message. I also found Larry’s daughter, who lives in Dallas, and sent her a message, too. The next morning, I found a phone number for Larry online, called and left a message.

Four days later, my phone rang. The caller ID said, “Broken Arrow, OK”

It was Larry.

Larry Merideth is 70 and a retired pastor who lives with his wife Brenda in Broken Arrow. He spent about three decades as minister of pastoral care and senior adults at First Baptist Church in Tulsa. He has two adult children, Stephanie and Andy, and three grandchildren.

He speaks with a steady, soft voice, and a couple of minutes into that first phone conversation, I realized that I was so excited that I might have come off as a little overzealous. He said he recognized my name — Larry is a die-hard Sooners football fan — and told me my call was serendipitous. A couple of weeks earlier, he had started digging through some of his father’s old things and discovered all kinds of priceless heirlooms related to Lawrence. During the same weekend that Erika, James, Annie and I were reading the letter inside his grandparents’ old home, Larry’s cousin Joe had paid him a visit.

Harold — the former Oklahoma City high school football coach — died in 2014. Harold’s son Joe and his wife had been going through some of his parents’ belongings; they discovered a framed portrait of Lawrence that, following his death on Omaha Beach, hung for years in the living room in the house in Oklahoma City. Joe knew Larry would want that portrait (which is featured at the top of this story), so he brought it over.

My primary motivation for finding the family had been to get the letters to them. But near the end of that first phone conversation, I realized all this made for a good story and asked, “Would you mind if I wrote about this?”

“I would love if you wrote about this,” Larry responded.

A couple of weeks later, I drove to Broken Arrow and met Larry and Brenda. Larry showed me all of his recent discoveries. There were old family photos. There was a Western Union telegram sent to 1318 W. Park Place from the government, advising the Merideth family that Lawrence’s remains were en route to the United States. There was a small program from Lawrence’s memorial service, held more than three years after his death.

 

I handed him the letters and watched as he read them.

“This all happened, just boom, boom, boom,” Larry said. “Here I am going through things, and then (Joe) comes with that picture, and then you call.

“It’s almost too much to take in.”

Larry said he had no idea his father had so passionately begged Lawrence to go to college.

“I’m not sure any of our family knows that,” he said. “Dad never talked much about Lawrence.”

Over the past couple of months, I’ve researched more about Lawrence’s life and exchanged dozens of text messages with Larry. He’s tackled this whole thing with lots of passion, calling and asking other family members what they’ve heard about Lawrence.

One thing that made this research tough is the frequent misspelling of the family’s last name. It took me a while to realize that in the Central High yearbook and several old newspaper articles, the name was misspelled “Meredith” rather than the correct “Merideth.”

“That is a frequent occurrence,” Larry says wryly.

One example: It took a while to find the old Daily Oklahoman notices about chapter meetings of both the Gold Star Mothers and American War Mothers. All four of Metta Merideth’s boys served during World War II, and she was active in the local chapters of both organizations. One notice from Feb. 1, 1968, announced that she would host a meeting at 1318 W. Park Place.

Last week, I drove back to Broken Arrow because Larry said he went to visit his cousin Duane in Durant, Okla., and discovered more things of interest.

As the oldest of William’s and Metta’s 16 grandchildren, Glenn George, 76, the son of one of Lawrence’s sisters, probably knows as much about Lawrence as anyone alive. He was an infant when Lawrence died, and heard a lot through the years from his grandmother, parents and uncles. George says that according to his grandmother and his Uncle Harold, SMU told Lawrence that if he accepted their athletic scholarship, he could avoid World War II; Lawrence, though, told SMU he wanted to serve. At that point, SMU told Lawrence his scholarship offer would be waiting for him when he came home.

“Harold always said that of the four boys, Lawrence was undoubtedly the best athlete of all of ’em,” Glenn George says.

There are no records of scholarship offers from back then — it isn’t like there is a Rivals database from 1942 — but Dee Andros, Lawrence’s Central High classmate, was one of several Oklahoma football players in the late 1940s who played after serving in World War II.

During this visit, I saw the Croix de Guerre certificate, a French military decoration posthumously awarded to Lawrence and others who stormed Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. It reads, in French, “for exceptional war services rendered during the liberation of France.”

Larry also opened the case containing Lawrence’s Purple Heart.

I’ve learned a lot over the past few months about Lawrence Robert Merideth, whose sacrifice cost him his life at age 20. The level of bravery it took to join the Navy during wartime, ride across the English Channel aboard a USS LCI(L)-89 and then get off on Omaha Beach is something I can’t possibly comprehend.

I wish I could have known him. I am glad I got to know his namesake, the other Lawrence Robert Merideth.

Saturday, Larry attended the Oklahoma-Iowa State game with his son, Andy. On their way from Broken Arrow to Norman, the two stopped at 1318 W. Park Place to visit the house in which Larry spent so much time as a child.

Larry got out of the passenger door of his son’s truck and gazed at the big hackberry tree just off the street. “This tree has been here forever,” he said.

Inside, he looked at the hallway between the bedrooms — behind the big opening from which the letters fell — and talked about how he and his cousins used to bend coat hangers into makeshift hoops and play basketball there.

He told us about how every Wednesday and Sunday, the whole family would attend services at Olivet Baptist Church, then walk one block together back to his grandparents’ house for dinner.

Larry said family lore has it that on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, Lawrence and his brothers were in the backyard playing football when news of the Pearl Harbor attack reached them.

Larry told Erika and James that every year, all 16 of the cousins and their families get together for a Memorial Day picnic in Oklahoma City, and said he’d love them to join with the family next year.

This experience has made me want to dig more into my own family’s history. It’s also made me want to write more letters. What is cooler than receiving a letter from someone you love?

Lastly, it has helped remind me to be more observant. You never know what might fall out of the wall.

 

https://theathletic.com/1366166/2019/11/11/the-letter-in-the-wall-the-story-of-radioman-3rd-class-lawrence-merideth/