Remains Of Local Korean War Solider On The Way Home

Elwood Reynolds was described by family members as a handsome young man with wavy blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He rode around Danville in his 1937 Chevy and knew how to charm a pretty girl with his outgoing personality.

Reynolds volunteered to fight in the Korean War rather than be drafted. It was something he wanted to do. One of the last letters to his mother, Lillian, Reynolds told her he made his life right with God - and didn’t think he was going to get out alive.

The remains of the local Korean War solider should be returning home in mid-April in anticipation of an April 17 funeral, Barbara Scearce, Elwood’s sister, said. He was killed during the Battle of Chosun Reservoir in late November or early December 1950.

The remaining two sisters and one brother recalled their brother while he was growing in Danville and the toll his MIA status took on their family.

Scearce said there will be more Pentecostal shouts of joy than tears shed at his funeral. Wrenn-Yeatts Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements. He will be buried at Highland Burial Park. “This is going to be a Hallelujah time,” she said. Her sister couldn’t agree more. “It’s going to be a happy occasion rather than a sad one,” said Arlene Green. “We just praise God. We’re really happy.”

They remember Reynolds as a kind man who was generous with his siblings. Scearce got his first store-bought coat from Elwood while he was driving a truck for a dry cleaner in Burlington, N.C. Green got her first pair a shoes with heels and a dress to match from her brother.

Elwood worked for his dad, Beverly Thomas Reynolds, selling produce throughout Danville. They recalled how he would give away bananas, grapes and other fruits to when children would ask their parents to buy them. Reynolds knew the families couldn’t afford them.

Stanley Reynolds was about 8 years old when his brother died. He was too young to understand the impact of his brother’s death, but he’ll never forget what it did to his mother.

Scearce was in the hospital after delivering a baby when news of her brother’s death arrived. Hospital staff would not let her look at a newspaper, and her pastor told her about Elwood’s death. “I cried for days and days,” Scearce said.

Reynolds and Scearce admit they’ve had dreams about Elwood all these years. Reynolds said the dreams have stopped since they were told his remains had been identified earlier this year. Elwood’s brother and sister would see him sitting next to them on a bus. They could talk to him, but he was silent. Or they would see him walking on the old family farm on White Oak Mountain. Scearce would call out to him in her dreams, but he didn’t hear her. There were dreams where she would be aboard a troop train thinking her brother had amnesia, but she never found him.

Reynolds was told by a friend he worked with who saw his brother the night before he was killed. This man’s unit was pulled out to another position. He told Reynolds his brother’s position was hit by a bomb during the night and the soldiers were all killed. They came in the next day to clean up the area.
Information provided to the family by military officials, shows that Reynolds was buried in a grave with five other soldiers. They were able to recover most of his remains, but no significant personal belongings were found by excavators.