I drew this sketch of my brother, Willis, on the back of a piece of used wrapping paper. It was sketched when was 13 years old in 1944. I sketched most all of the pictures that my Willis sent home while he was in the navy. During the next few years, I lost track of my drawing and more or less forgot about it.

My mother, sister and I visited the relics of the old farm back in the 80's, a cow or something had kicked a hole in one of the partially remaining walls of the house. Mama spotted some papers protruding from the hole and broke away more of the wall board where she found a hoard of things my dad had placed under a false bottom of a cabinet he had made on the other side of the wall. The contents had dropped to the bottom of the inside wall, hidden from sight.

Daddy died in 1960 and mama moved to Cherokee in 1963, so his cache remained hidden for all of those years. We were never sure when daddy put the things in the wall, but it had to have been before 1960. A toy pistol belonging to Willis's son, Jerry, was found amid the treasures. I had forgotten about my sketch until I visited my brother in 2008 when I was looking at his photo albums. I did not know mama gave the sketch to him until then. I told Willis I would love to have a copy. He told me to take the sketch as he knew how much it meant to me.

If you will note, there are worm holes at the top right of the sketch and you can still see the folds of the old wrapping paper. The lead print has faded some and shows the strokes from the pencil, but all in all, the picture is in great shape for being over 55 years old.