Parachute Wedding Dress Tells Concentration Camp Story

Volga - Before the Nazi concentration camps survived Talapina Sprague Frances died in 1975, not only his daughter, Darlene, her cheap wedding dresses, but also the incredible story behind it. Frances made silk dress with two parachutes of an American soldier who helped liberate Germany and her husband was employed.
"My mother," said Murphy Darlene Sprague, 61, has a finger gathered corset dress, "said the parachute was made by Dad."
It's a beautiful dress - made a small silk-covered rectangular buttons on the back, a long skirt that flows - from a parachute that has yellowed and has remained incredibly built white.
"My mother," says Darlene, "was an amazing woman. She was very, very determined. I think that's what she did. "

Frances was born November 24, 1922 in Riga, Latvia born. 13 before his birthday, hit the Nazi soldiers at the door of his parents, if they were Christians, and took three of the seven young children - Peter, 15, Frances and Freda, 12, Peter was never seen again , is Frances and Freda nearly a dozen years in concentration camps.
"They told us when we were kids in the garden," said Darlene. "When she speaks of him, could not sleep for days. She had to live again."
"One night," said Darlene husband of 42 years, Roy, "we did a few years. I asked him about it. He talked all night until dawn. "
The Holocaust, the deaths of millions and millions of survivors of trauma, in that sense.
"You would not believe how many people can not believe what happened," said Darlene.
Frances knew.
Sewing and mending the uniforms of soldiers.
Peel the potatoes, often lazy, and witnessed the shooting of a man sitting at his side when he took a bite.

She used her cup to clean the latrines.
Frances A total of three different regions was made most of his time in Dachau.
"She said that when he removed the cars had a table and a chair on it," said Darlene. "You have the world at a time, striped naked and shaved."
Frances collected human hair to knit socks for soldiers.
She helped the horses in the battle to be slaughtered for food get killed.
He brought the body of the gas chamber of crematorium.
"I never knew if he would be killed or not," said Darlene.
Frances cleaning cars, removal of corpses to be buried in trenches.
Ate nettles, a noxious weed, to feed.
She survived more than a decade, losing control, but taking care of his sister.
In the course of 1945 the camp was liberated.
"When they opened the doors and told everyone they were free, were afraid to leave," said Darlene.
Wild dogs had kept the doors. The soldiers shoot anyone who tried to escape. Many of these prisoners, to malnutrition, they are bursting with food and died.
Frances was 5 feet 7 inches and weighed 80 pounds. But she had kept her mind, she learned to speak seven languages ​​and worked at the American Hotel Bad Tolz, Germany.
Gilbert "Buck" Sprague was born in Greeley, Iowa, was born in 31 October 1923. He grew up around Colesburg, he joined the army and became a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. One of its tasks would be the country beyond the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and to help the Germans out of France.
After the war Buck joined the military police in restoring Germany to support. He landed in Munich, where he fell in love with Frances.
On January 1, 1946, with a half-dozen other couples, and Buck married Frances. They start their families in Germany, before near Colesburg in 1948. Buck started out as contract work, but use the GI Bill to get a college education and was able to buy a farm in 1961. They have ten children (one died in infancy), work hard, be successful and really loved Frances Iowa, where he was free.
"Undoubtedly," said Darlene. "It was very hard. Mom was the brain and keeps it all together. "