By: Anna Trusky

It all started when Bahria Hartman was a 14-year-old girl growing up in Norwich.  World War II had been brewing for two years, but so far the United States had only watched from afar with as the conflict spread and intensified overseas.  Then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the US became directly involved in the bloody struggle that would rage on for nearly four more years.

Two young men from Norwich – Michael Quarto and Harry Carlson – were stationed on the battleship USS Arizona and were among the 1,177 American lives lost that day; Bahria knew them personally.  When articles about the deaths appeared in the Norwich Bulletin, she lovingly cut them out and pasted them in a scrapbook.

This was the first act in a labor of love that continued through the First Gulf War.  For 50 years, Bahria kept track of every serviceperson from Norwich who was killed in a war and memorialized them in her scrapbook with newspaper clippings; photographs, letters and poems provided by family and friends; and gold stars, American flags and the religious symbols of their faiths.  All-in-all, the scrapbook, which consists of three volumes, commemorates the wartime sacrifices of 123 Norwich residents who served in World War II, 50 who served in Korea, 15 who served in Vietnam and a handful from the Iraq, or Gulf War.

Bahria, who is of Lebanese descent, was born in Utica, New York and moved to Norwich as a young child when her father George Harb got a job at a wool mill.  ”I always felt a close tie to the military because my father served our country in the infantry in Germany during World War I,” she explains, showing photographs of her father who she included in the scrapbook.

Bahria’s close ties to the US Armed Services continued when she fell in love with Herbert Hartman, a young Navy man stationed at the Subase in Groton, at a Base dance.  Herb, from Memphis, TX, attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander during his lifelong career in the Navy.  ”It’s interesting that my name in Arabic means ‘sailor’ or ‘navy,’” Bahria  says.  ”After I married my husband, we traveled the world for 15 years and then returned to the United States.  We eventually moved to Norwich and I worked as a bookkeeper.”

Originally the scrapbook was in one huge volume, but time took its toll on the pages and it began to fall apart.  The book was divided into three volumes and restored with the help of contributions made on the occasion of the Hartmans’ 50th wedding anniversary on September 7, 2007.  He passed away the following February.

“The books are dedicated to the memories of my husband and father,” Bahria says.  ”I honor their service, as well as, the service of all those brave men and women who gave their lives for our country.”

The Veterans’ Memorial Scrapbook is available for viewing at the Otis Library at 261 Main Street, Norwich.

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