Honoring a Vet in Paper and Ink: La Palma woman writes biography of D-Day chaplain

By Ellyn Pak
Westside Weekly

It was March 11 when Janelle T. Frese had an epiphany. It was her birthday, and she figured out the meaning of the relationship she had forged with a stranger four years ago.

She sank to her knees and sobbed on that hill where Col. Chaplain George Russell Barber was buried months before.

She felt guilty that her friend didn't get to read the final version of the book she wrote about him and his experiences as one of the youngest chaplains during World War II.

"That really rocked my boat when he died. He was 90. I wasn't really able then to get over my loss," she said.

The book, "O Chaplain! My Chaplain! Man of Service: Conversation, Prayer and Meditation with the Last Living D-Day Chaplain of Omaha Beach," was recently published and released - a bittersweet moment for Frese, 38, and English teacher who lives in La Palma.
She met the retired chaplain in 2001 during an event honoring D-Day survivors. Barber, the last living D-Day chaplain at Omaha Beach, was the featured speaker.

She attended the ceremony with her father, with fresh memories of her own grandfather who had died two years before.

That day, Frese approached Barber, then 86, and greeted him with a long handshake.

She was meant to meet this person.

Shortly after, she started talking to him every day. She visited him at his mobile home in Whittier. She picked him up for lunch. She took her two young daughters, Mikayla and Marlena, to meet him. Her journey of documenting Barber's experiences had begun.

"Here I was his unofficial biographer, and he never questioned how I was going to write it. I felt like a chosen one," Frese said.

Frese, who had dabbled in writing, decided to write a book about the man.

Barber had survived Normandy's bloodiest beach battle. Armed with a Bible and his faith, Barber marched across Europe for nearly a year. He cradled dying soldiers in his arms.

He had witnessed hellish situations, and he wasn't bashful about talking about his experiences. He had listened to many stories and counseled young soldiers. It was his turn to talk.

It was his method of coping, Frese said. And it was her way of coping with her grandfather's death and learning that life was too short to worry about the mundane.

"Keep it simple, Ji-Neel and get the job done," Barber would say in his Southern drawl. That was his mantra.

Frese has adopted that mantra.

"Out of that memory, I had a new appreciation for life and recording on paper our appreciation of our loved ones," she said.