Linda Wicksten of Sparks holds a sketch of former Cpl. Tom Roth as his widow, Wilma Roth, points out a detail on the helmet at her Kearney, Neb., home on Aug. 11. The sketch’s subject was unknown for more than 50 years, and Wicksten vowed to present the sketch to the subject or his family after the artist, her father-in-law, Layton Wicksten, died in 1997.
KEARNEY, Nebraska (Reno Gazette-Journal), August 22, 2006:
The final chapter of a 55-year-old mystery closed in the living room of Kearney resident Wilma Roth.
Propped near a couch was a pencil sketch of her late husband, former Army Cpl. Tom Roth. The sketch's arrival on August 11 in Kearney concludes a saga from World War II, from India to the atomic test ranges of Nevada and the pages of LIFE magazine.
The undated and unnamed sketch, drawn in the early 1950s, hung for decades in the studio of artist Layton Wicksten in Palo Alto, California. The late artist regretted not knowing the soldier, said daughter-in-law Linda Wicksten of Sparks. He thought the man was one of the hundreds of soldiers he had drawn during World War II. While stationed at Bengal Air Depot in India, he often drew portraits of soldiers passing through the base for its newspaper. Layton Wicksten wanted to present the sketch to the man or his family.
Upon his death in 1997, Linda Wicksten felt it her duty to fulfill that wish.
"The sketch was hanging on the studio wall for almost 50 years," said Wicksten. "His eyes just looked at me and said, 'Find me.'"
More than seven years and 17,000 e-mails later, Wicksten found a name and then Roth's widow, Wilma.
After flying into Lincoln, Nebraska, Linda Wicksten drove to Kearney. Sitting in Roth's living room, she opened the foam-board case she'd brought as Roth looked on.
Linda Wicksten unfolded the sketch's story, showing Roth newspaper and magazine reports chronicling the search as it narrowed.
She then turned over a weathered cardboard frame.
Tom Roth was home.
Linda Wicksten had found the trail to Kearney littered with dead-ends.
She had contacted military agencies, veterans groups, specialty publications, newspapers and television stations to no avail.
Then, earlier this year, "Military," a small specialty newspaper in Sacramento, ran a story and the drawing.
One of the paper's subscribers, 85-year-old Neil Cantwell of Wheatridge, Colorado, contacted Linda Wicksten and said, "It looks like my cousin in Nebraska."
He gave her the name of Tom Roth and after several phone calls, Linda Wicksten was able to find Wilma Roth in Kearney.
But then, "My heart sunk," she said.
The time period when Linda Wicksten thought the portrait was sketched didn't match Tom Roth's service.
"When I got that e-mail, I knew it could not be my husband because he was not in the service between 1942 and 1945, so I just disregarded that e-mail," Wilma Roth told the Gazette-Journal in July. "I went ahead and waited a few days and told her it could not be my husband. Then, a few days later, I printed it out, and when I saw the drawing come out of my computer printer, then I knew it was Tom."
Tom Roth was drafted into the army in 1951 and served as a paratrooper with A Company of the 188th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division stationed at Camp Campbell, Ky.
He was among the first army troops exposed to an atomic blast in November 1951 at the Yucca Flat test center in the Nevada desert.
"... the GIs were shaken in their observation posts six to 10 miles from the burst," reported the Associated Press, November 1, 1951.
That month, LIFE magazine printed photographs of Roth's and other soldiers' reactions to the blast, which cracked store windows in Las Vegas, more than 75 miles to the southeast.
Tom Roth's awe-stricken face, with a cigarette resting in his open mouth, caught Layton Wicksten's attention.
"When he saw faces he liked ... they had character, he would draw them," Linda Wicksten said.
Wilma Roth rubbed her fingers across a corner of the aged paper.
"A lot of people mentioned to me, 'It's so exact,'" Wilma Roth said of the sketch's resemblance to the magazine photo. "We noticed the shading right away."
Tom Roth, a Hastings, Nebraska native, was discharged from the Army in 1953. He and Wilma moved to Kearney in 1972, and he died of cancer in 2002.
Linda Wicksten said she was disappointed she couldn't give Tom Roth the sketch in person. But she said she's grateful she could fulfill her father-in-law's wishes.
"My soldier story finally has a final chapter," she said.
Sam Burris of the Kearney Hub newspaper in Kearney, Nebraska, and Guy Clifton of the Reno Gazette-Journal combined work on this story.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal,
August 23, 2006
USA: Mystery of 55-year-old Sketch of Soldier Solved
Linda Wicksten of Sparks holds a sketch of former Cpl. Tom Roth as his widow, Wilma Roth, points out a detail on the helmet at her Kearney, Neb., home on Aug. 11. The sketch’s subject was unknown for more than 50 years, and Wicksten vowed to present the sketch to the subject or his family after the artist, her father-in-law, Layton Wicksten, died in 1997.
KEARNEY, Nebraska (Reno Gazette-Journal), August 22, 2006:
The final chapter of a 55-year-old mystery closed in the living room of Kearney resident Wilma Roth.
Propped near a couch was a pencil sketch of her late husband, former Army Cpl. Tom Roth. The sketch's arrival on August 11 in Kearney concludes a saga from World War II, from India to the atomic test ranges of Nevada and the pages of LIFE magazine.
The undated and unnamed sketch, drawn in the early 1950s, hung for decades in the studio of artist Layton Wicksten in Palo Alto, California. The late artist regretted not knowing the soldier, said daughter-in-law Linda Wicksten of Sparks. He thought the man was one of the hundreds of soldiers he had drawn during World War II. While stationed at Bengal Air Depot in India, he often drew portraits of soldiers passing through the base for its newspaper. Layton Wicksten wanted to present the sketch to the man or his family.
Upon his death in 1997, Linda Wicksten felt it her duty to fulfill that wish.
"The sketch was hanging on the studio wall for almost 50 years," said Wicksten. "His eyes just looked at me and said, 'Find me.'"
More than seven years and 17,000 e-mails later, Wicksten found a name and then Roth's widow, Wilma.
After flying into Lincoln, Nebraska, Linda Wicksten drove to Kearney. Sitting in Roth's living room, she opened the foam-board case she'd brought as Roth looked on.
Linda Wicksten unfolded the sketch's story, showing Roth newspaper and magazine reports chronicling the search as it narrowed.
She then turned over a weathered cardboard frame.
Tom Roth was home.
Linda Wicksten had found the trail to Kearney littered with dead-ends.
She had contacted military agencies, veterans groups, specialty publications, newspapers and television stations to no avail.
Then, earlier this year, "Military," a small specialty newspaper in Sacramento, ran a story and the drawing.
One of the paper's subscribers, 85-year-old Neil Cantwell of Wheatridge, Colorado, contacted Linda Wicksten and said, "It looks like my cousin in Nebraska."
He gave her the name of Tom Roth and after several phone calls, Linda Wicksten was able to find Wilma Roth in Kearney.
But then, "My heart sunk," she said.
The time period when Linda Wicksten thought the portrait was sketched didn't match Tom Roth's service.
"When I got that e-mail, I knew it could not be my husband because he was not in the service between 1942 and 1945, so I just disregarded that e-mail," Wilma Roth told the Gazette-Journal in July. "I went ahead and waited a few days and told her it could not be my husband. Then, a few days later, I printed it out, and when I saw the drawing come out of my computer printer, then I knew it was Tom."
Tom Roth was drafted into the army in 1951 and served as a paratrooper with A Company of the 188th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division stationed at Camp Campbell, Ky.
He was among the first army troops exposed to an atomic blast in November 1951 at the Yucca Flat test center in the Nevada desert.
"... the GIs were shaken in their observation posts six to 10 miles from the burst," reported the Associated Press, November 1, 1951.
That month, LIFE magazine printed photographs of Roth's and other soldiers' reactions to the blast, which cracked store windows in Las Vegas, more than 75 miles to the southeast.
Tom Roth's awe-stricken face, with a cigarette resting in his open mouth, caught Layton Wicksten's attention.
"When he saw faces he liked ... they had character, he would draw them," Linda Wicksten said.
Wilma Roth rubbed her fingers across a corner of the aged paper.
"A lot of people mentioned to me, 'It's so exact,'" Wilma Roth said of the sketch's resemblance to the magazine photo. "We noticed the shading right away."
Tom Roth, a Hastings, Nebraska native, was discharged from the Army in 1953. He and Wilma moved to Kearney in 1972, and he died of cancer in 2002.
Linda Wicksten said she was disappointed she couldn't give Tom Roth the sketch in person. But she said she's grateful she could fulfill her father-in-law's wishes.
"My soldier story finally has a final chapter," she said.
Sam Burris of the Kearney Hub newspaper in Kearney, Nebraska, and Guy Clifton of the Reno Gazette-Journal combined work on this story.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal,
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