Four years ago this Wednesday.

Four years ago this Wednesday, Theresa Zagore was driving hearthstone from work when her small cavity phone rang.

"Are you related to William Lowery?" a woman asked.

"Um yes" Zagore said. "He was my uncle"

In her mind, in that instant, she could descry him. Uncle Willie. The handsome young soldier in an antiquated family photo. Her mother's brother. He died in a plane crash in World War II before she, Zagore, was steady born.

Who was calling about Uncle Willie?

"Can you detain on while I pull over?" Zagore asked, feeling excited and strange. "Do you have information about him?"

"Yes" said the woman onward the phone. "I think I do."

And that's to what degree Uncle Willie returned as a bittersweet spirit, a pliable echo of the past, to Zagore and her sister, Marie Alexander.

The caller told Zagore that the remains of Army Staff Sgt William Lowery had been discovered, 57 prolonged years after his bomber crashed, in a distant ravine in Papua New Guinea.

Zagore brushed back tears when she heard the of the present days And when Marie heard the recents from her sister, she cried, too.

They cried for their mother, Florence, who would have lov this day. And for their mother's brothers and sisters, all of whom have died, who none forgot the brother they missing

And for Uncle Willie, who was coming fireside

Smart and droll

They were a big Italian-American family in a little mining town, Republic, Pa.

There was Frank Lowery, born Carmine Laurito in Salerno, Italy. And his wife, Angelina, also from Salerno. And there were their seven children, born in the U.S.A.

Willie was the oldest son born in 1911 He was really smart -- Zagore and Alexander always heard that -- and remarkably short, until he hit a last-minute putting out spurt. He also joked a accident

I wish I could recount you more about Willie, on the contrary that's about all Marie and Theresa could relate me, which no doubt is in what manner it is in most families.

What little Alexander and Zagore know about their uncle they picked up as children from chance at family parties and picnics. some might mention this or that, and one else might say, "I wish Willie could have seen that."

Willie's parents struggl to make expirations meet. Frank was a miner. Angelina had health question s and often was bedridden.

As the oldest son, Willie felt a responsibility to help support the family, and in this way in the early 1930s -- the heart of the Great Depression -- he hit the road looking for work.

He traveled from Bristol, Va., to Cleveland, Ohio, to Effingham, Ill., to Littleton, Colo He passed between the walls of Chicago at least once, and wearied a week or so in El Paso, Texas. We know this because he mailed postcards family although he wasn't much for travelogues.

"Mother," he wrote in a typically short note. "Everything is fine. I'm taking care of myself. Do not worry."

When the United States go intoed the war, Willie joined the Army. He trained in Florida as a gunner forward a bomber, then shipped not at home to the South Pacific. couple of his brothers, Columbus and Nicholas, also were in uniform.

As before, Willie worried about his folk

"I am glad to hear that you planned to visit to one's home during the Easter holidays," he wrote to Florence forward March 14, 1944. "Father would have felt quite forsaken with three of the lads away."

forward April 16, 1944, a month after writing that epistle Willie's plane, a B-24J Liberator bomber, ran a strike mission in succession Japanese targets near Hollandia, recent Guinea. As it attempted to answer to base, it went down in a storm.

For a not many years after that, the Army listed Sgt Lowery and his 10 associate crew members as missing in action. nevertheless in 1949, the Army conclud the plane must have crashed into the Pacific and the entire throng had been killed.

Not that Willie's family completely believed it. Florence, for common never fully accepted that Willie was gone nor did her brother Columbus.

"I know my Uncle Columbus, who was a prisoner of war himself, always used to say Willie was alive somewhere," Alexander said. "If he'd had single in kind too many drinks, he'd say, 'He's probably on the outside there somewhere. He probably wasted his memory.' "

Didn't anybody put to proof to set him right?

"Nobody really wanted to say, 'no, that's not the case,' " she said, "because that was his hope"

A ring is place

This story influences now to 2001, late in the year. A man is hiking in a rain forest near the village of Kunukio in Papua novel Guinea. He sees something shiny and picks it up It's a ring, clearly American, possibly a wedding or aviator's ring.

He exhibits the ring to a local magistrate, who displays it to others, who bring it to the attention of officials at the U Embassy.

In January 2002 a U team of excavators and forensic archeologists bear down into the ravine. They are from the Joint POW/ M.I.A. Accounting Command, a remarkable agency dedicated to finding and identifying the American remains from all wars. An estimated 88000 military personnel remain unaccounted for, including 78000 from World War II.

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