Dale married Joy C. Huffstutler on 18 Apr 1953 in Pinckneyville, Perry County, Illinois, USA. Joy (daughter of Carl Huffstutler and Ruth Shoemaker) was born on 1 Jan 1936 in Pinckneyville, Perry County, Illinois, USA; died on 4 Jan 2004 in Pinckneyville, Perry County, Illinois, USA; was buried on 10 Jan 2004 in Antioch Cemetery, Tamaroa, Perry County, Illinois, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Pamela married Frederick Charles Eisenhauer [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Willie Anderson. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

DEATH: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/page3.html
Pfc. Wyatt D. Eisenhauer 26 Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division Pinckneyville, Illinois Killed on an escort mission when a roadside bomb detonated near his Humvee while crossing a bridge in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, on May 19, 2005

Army Pfc. Wyatt D. Eisenhauer
Wyatt D. Eisenhauer had dyslexia, so he picked up all kinds of knowledge the way he could -- by listening. He taught himself how to play guitar and did well enough in school to earn a scholarship to college.
"Wyatt was like a sponge. He'd seen something or heard something and he absorbed it because he couldn't depend on reading it," said his mother, Gay. "There wasn't anything he couldn't master."
Eisenhauer, 26, of Pinckneyville, Ill., died May 19 in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, on an escort mission when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle. He was based at Fort Riley.
Eisenhauer placed first in a state diesel equipment technology competition and earned a scholarship to attend Southern Illinois University for automotive technical training.
When he was 21 and his youngest sister, then 8 1/2, was diagnosed with rare autoimmune disease that required chemotherapy treatments, he would lie on the floor with her, clean up after her and change her clothes.
"Wyatt was never about him," his mother said.
He is also survived by his father, Fred.


BIOGRAPHY: http://wyatt-eisenhauer.memory-of.com/About.aspx
Blagojevich, Quinn ask military to better serve soldiers' families
BY NICOLE SACK THE SOUTHERN
A Chicagoland press conference between the governor and the Army's top official Wednesday was spurred by the grief of a Pinckneyville family.Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn met with Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey to describe problems Illinois families had with the Army's procedures for notifying next of kin when a soldier is killed. Before the meeting, Blagojevich and Quinn spoke with the family of Army Pfc. Wyatt Eisenhauer, who was killed in May 2005 while on an escort mission in Iraq. The Casualty Assistance Officer sent to notify the Eisenhauers had never before been assigned to a casualty call and had little training. He read his lines from a book using a very impersonal manner, which compounded the tragic news he was delivering. "Losing a family member is one of the most painful things any of us can go through. I can't imagine how much more difficult the news of a death would be if it's delivered late or by someone unprepared for the task," Blagojevich said in a statement Wednesday. "Unfortunately, some families of our fallen heroes have had to deal with these amateurish and completely unnecessary problems."Blagojevich and Quinn presented recommendations for improving the Casualty Assistance protocol in Illinois, which include better training for grief counseling for families, better organization to ensure proper body transport and monitoring programs."More than 100 Illinois men and women have given their last full measure of devotion in service to our country and out Gold Star families deserve to be informed of their loved one's death in an immediate and respectful manner by trained professionals," Quinn said.At the close of the press conference, Blagojevich said he hoped the Eisenhauer family's ordeals were not in vain. "Their willingness to share their frustrations gives the Army an opportunity to improve its handling of soldiers' deaths," he said.

BIOGRAPHY: Gay and Fred Eisenhauer, of Pinckneyville, Ill., whose son, Wyatt, an Army scout, was killed last May in Iraq by an improvised bomb, are still hoping to receive their son's watch, eyeglasses and cellphone. The phone is precious because it holds a recording of their son's voice. A combat patch they were promised has never arrived. "I know these are little things," Mrs. Eisenhauer said. "What makes it important to me is that my son was good enough to go over there to fight, but he is not important enough to get his stuff back to his family." Colonel Torgersen said the Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operation Center "aggressively monitors the movement" of personal effects. Mortuary specialists inventory, photograph, clean and then ship belongings to the center via Federal Express. Soldiers, in their coffins, usually arrive from Dover Air Force Base in the belly of a commercial flight. But honor guards have not always been present as the coffins come off the plane. The Eisenhauers had hoped to take comfort in the military rituals. Instead, the airline placed Private Eisenhauer's coffin in a cargo warehouse with crates and boxes stacked high around it. There was no ceremony, no flag over the coffin. Only the airport firefighters did their bit to honor him, hoisting flags on their ladder trucks. "I just wanted to scream," Mrs. Eisenhauer said. "My son was owed that. He was owed that."

Insensitivity Surrounded Return of Pinckneyville's Fallen Son, Wyatt Eisenhauer
Friday, October 14, 2005 11:04 PM CDT

After Gay and Fred Eisenhauer of Pinckneyville learned their son had been killed while serving in Iraq in May, the couple traveled to the cargo area at Lambert Airport in St. Louis to get his body. Army Pfc. Wyatt Eisenhauer's flag-draped coffin was delivered to his parents in a crate-filled area of the airport where workers on break sat nearby smoking cigarettes. For Gay Eisenhauer, it was an impersonal place to meet her 26-year-old son on his final trip home. "When we bring them home and we call them heroes, let's treat them like heroes all the way and not pull them into a cargo section and bring them home to the family that way. Let's make them heroes," she said Wednesday. She told the governor that when she and her husband were notified about their son's death, the officer delivering the heartbreaking news fumbled with paperwork in trying to determine which parts of the protocol applied to them. Other family members heard about the death in the news media instead of the Eisenhauers being given time to tell them. Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn have taken up the cause, meeting Wednesday with U.S. Army Secretary Francis Harvey and urging him to improve how the military works with families of those killed in the line of duty. "To have that reunifying moment in a place like that I think is symbolic of the need to change some of the policy so there's more sensitivity," Blagojevich said. Some of the suggestions Blagojevich and Quinn made to Harvey included better training for officers who interact with distraught families and prompt delivery of service members' medals and awards to surviving family. "Mistakes have been made and they need to be corrected immediately," Quinn said. "Our soldiers who have given their lives for our country and the families that raised them deserve not only the gratitude of Americans but the honor of a proper notification of the death of their loved one." Army spokesman Paul Boyce said the Army has been assessing how to improve the process of notifying families of the deaths of their loved ones. The review is expected to be done in January, he said. "Our largest concern is to make sure information is conveyed expeditiously and accurately to family members. We're looking at new ways to improve it throughout the Army," he said. Joan Neal, mother of 21-year-old Army Spc. Wesley Wells of Libertyville, said she has battled the Army for more than a year to get information since her son's September 2004 death in Afghanistan.The Gurnee woman said the Army also tried to change the date of her son's funeral because the timing of the flight to return her son's body to Illinois was inconvenient. She also said the Army did not arrive at her son's funeral in time to drape the flag over his casket, and the Army gave her a certificate incorrectly listing her son's service in Iraq instead of Afghanistan. Boyce said he could not address individual family concerns or provide details of Wednesday's meeting. But Quinn said Harvey acknowledged there was an "unevenness and inconsistency" with how casualty assistance officers notify family members of a death. According to Quinn, Harvey said the Army would assess the performance of casualty assistance officers and deploy mobile training teams to help the worst performers. Quinn said Harvey also planned to create a phone number military families can call if they are unhappy with how they were notified of a death. More than 100 Illinois men and women have given their last full measure of devotion during current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.