Two Minnesota brothers, side by side, gave all in WWII

The bleeding heart plant, with its pink heart-shaped flowers, was first grown by Elizabeth Style Sullivan's grandmother. Liz's mother, Mary Style, subsequently transplanted some in the family's backyard in Fairmont, Minn., and over the years, Liz acquired some cuttings of her own.

In 1979 she dug up a couple of the bleeding hearts, roots and all. She stuffed them in a plastic bag and, at a time when airline security was a little looser, hid them in her luggage for a trip to Belgium with her three sisters.

An airport taxi delivered them directly to the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery near Liége, where Liz used her hands to plant the flowers between the crosses marking the side-by-side graves of her brothers, James and Robert Style.

"That was before they X-rayed everything," said Sullivan, 92, from her Minneapolis apartment. "I just thought they needed a little Fairmont dirt with their plants at that beautiful place where they were laid to rest."

Wednesday marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Style brothers were two of the 9,765 Minnesotans killed or missing from the war, but they're also among more than 200 sets of brothers buried together in overseas American military cemeteries who are featured in a new coffee-table book titled "Brothers in Arms" (brothersinarmsbook.com).

While visiting an American WWII cemetery in Italy with his family 10 years ago, Connecticut author Kevin Callahan came across the adjacent graves of two brothers killed in combat. The poignancy inspired Callahan to research brothers buried side-by-side at 14 American WWII cemeteries around the globe, from North Africa to the Philippines. That's how the Styles' story emerged.

Sullivan was 16 when she lost her brothers, something she said the family never thought would happen. Three other brothers — Army Capt. Rodney and Navy sailors William and Charles — all came home from WWII.

James was 24, living at home in Fairmont and driving a Dr Pepper bottling truck when he registered for the draft in 1940.

"He'd take Cathy and me for a ride in the rumble seat, bouncing in the open air to town, where he'd buy us ice creams and get himself a beer," said Sullivan, the fourth-youngest of the 12 Style kids; only she and her sister Catherine, 90, are still alive.

Their dad, Glenmore Style, the son of an English immigrant, worked as a Martin County iceman, cutting lake ice six days a week in the winter, wrapping it in sawdust and delivering the frozen slabs in the summer. Sullivan can recall the thrilling chill of her dad's icehouse and the burgers her mother would fry up in a cast-iron skillet on summer trips to the lakes around Fairmont.

After he was drafted, James Style became a staff sergeant in the 32nd Armored Regiment in what was known as the Spearhead Division, leading the U.S. Army through France in 1944.

James was killed in combat during the Battle of the Bulge, on Dec. 29, 1944. He was 28. His wife, LeEtta Helen Smith, was widowed after one year of marriage.

Robert, the fourth of the Style siblings and four years younger than James, had died nearly six months earlier just after the D-Day invasion. A paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, Bob was on his first combat mission — part of a Douglas C-47 transport crew heading to Normandy — when an anti-aircraft tracer bullet struck a grenade in his pocket, setting it off. He was killed instantly, before he could bail out with his parachute.

"He was such a gentle guy that my mother would say, if he hadn't been killed on his first day in combat, he never would have been able to kill enemy soldiers," said Sullivan.

A chaplain who had been with Bob that morning sent the Styles a letter on his death.

"Tell his folks that he always talked about them and loved them deeply," wrote the Rev. Francis Sampson, a Catholic chaplain who survived the anti-aircraft barrage that killed Bob.

That letter, Sullivan said, always gave her mother comfort. And after losing two sons, she passed that comfort on to others.

"When another of our neighbors in Fairmont died in the war, his mother came over to thank my mother for showing her how to act," Sullivan said.

Among Sullivan's most treasured mementos is a newspaper clipping of a letter Bob wrote as a kid to Santa Claus in 1928 for a Christmas promotion.

"Please don't forget to come to our house and bring something nice for all of us," 8-year-old Robert wrote, adding that he hoped Santa also wouldn't "forget our baby Elizabeth Ann. We didn't have her last year."

Sixteen years later, two of her brothers were gone. And 35 years after that, Liz Sullivan was planting bleeding hearts in a Belgium cemetery. James was outgoing and gregarious, she said, while Bob was sweet and thoughtful.

"It sure doesn't seem like 75 years," Liz said, "since the war came to an end."

Curt Brown's tales about Minnesota's history appear each Sunday. Readers can send him ideas and suggestions at mnhistory@startribune.com. His latest book looks at 1918 Minnesota, when flu, war and fires converged: http://strib.mn/MN1918.