Finding Pvt. Hernandez Becomes a Community Affair

Mrs. Hernandez was home in Buena Park when the first call came just after 7:30 in the morning. A call that early can’t be good. Must be some disaster.

It was her old friend Socorro calling from south Los Angeles, all excited about something.

“They’re looking for your husband in the newspaper!” she exclaimed like a town crier.

That’ll wake you up. Socorro had just read my column last week about the search for Jesus Hernandez, a onetime Army recruit from East Los Angeles. He was being sought by a former service buddy named Ray Miller, a retired school psychologist now living in Palos Verdes who had not seen his old friend in four decades.

The two men had been drafted together, survived basic training at Ft. Ord and were stationed together in Germany during the mid-1950s. After returning to Southern California, they resumed separate civilian lives, drifting apart with the expanding metropolis.

The two men had lived almost parallel lives, but worlds apart. Now in their late 60s, they occasionally asked themselves the question that tugs as time slips away: “I wonder whatever happened to . . . “

An old friend. An ex-lover. A long-lost uncle.

We’ve all wondered. So when Miller contacted me to say he had been trying hard to find his buddy, “Chuy,” for a reunion of their Army unit, his search hit a chord. With me and several readers who offered to help Miller’s nostalgic, needle-in-a-haystack hunt.

People were anxious to reunite these strangers. A few offered tips. Call Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, one woman suggested, to get access to church records. Or check with the American Legion.

One genealogy buff recommended a visit to the downtown library for old city directories listing phones by street, which was all Miller remembered about his friend’s former address. Another woman who had lived “up the hill” in Hernandez’s East L.A. neighborhood urged a check of high school yearbooks for Garfield and Roosevelt, his likely alma maters.

A roll call of veterans also called to help in the hunt--Christian, Medrano, Morales. Leo Mercado of Pico Rivera, who had also served in Germany, read the story and saw a close family tie: His wife, Lupe, is the missing soldier’s first cousin.

A man named Martinez didn’t say anything about being in the service when he left this message: “My name doesn’t mean anything to you, but I’m a homeboy from Venice. I was taken by your article today. I want to find this guy too. I’ll probably have to do some legwork. . . . I feel like I want to meet him myself.”

Steven Kingston, a sleuth from San Clemente, checked https://www.rootsweb.com and found just three babies by the name Jesus Hernandez born in Los Angeles County between 1934 and 1936, the likely birth years for our lost soldier. Kingston called Miller directly to give him the news. But by then, former Pvt. Jesus Hernandez, born Jan. 19, 1934, already had turned up the barrio way--through the grapevine.

Thank God for folks like Socorro and Antonio Juarez, a retired auto worker, who still read the paper cover to cover. They spotted clues that gave it away: Shy Army man from East L.A. who worked at a mattress factory. That’s Adeline’s husband, all right.

Ray and Jess were reunited Thursday over lunch at a hotel across from Knott’s Berry Farm. The meeting was low-key, like their friendship had been. They were both quite reserved, which is what they had always liked about each other. Just smiles, a hug, a few remembered words of German and some casual catching up.

Both had remained married to their original wives, both bought suburban homes, both had three children, both retired after many years with one employer, Ray with L.A. Unified and Jess with Southern California Edison, where he employed the skill the Army taught him, vehicle maintenance, not the one he had preferred, electronics.

Jess still looked fit, despite heart surgery; Ray had hurt his back. Ray had completed college; Jess was Garfield High, Class of ’53. They both still loved to travel. Ray, whose family hails from Germany, had been back to Europe. Jess preferred the open road, from Fairbanks to Mazatlan.

This week, both men are enjoying their Army reunion in Reno, accompanied by their wives. Before departing, Adeline Hernandez told me her husband “has been up in some cloud” from the unexpected excitement in his life, though you wouldn’t know it from talking to this meticulous man of few words.

“I know the feeling,” said Tomas Alvarado, a former state veterans affairs official who called from Sacramento also offering to help in the search for a soldier he never met.

What feeling?

“Connection,” said Alvarado, “Trying to connect.”

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or agustin.gurza@latimes.com