Stolen flag returned to widow

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Nancy-Linn Nellis has moved around quite a bit during her 75 years, nearly always settling in small towns, whether in Pennsylvania, New York, Iowa or Maine.

“I like a small town,” she said this week from her home in the quiet hamlet of Stockton Springs. “There’s just something special about them.”

This week, Nellis found out just how special her own small town was.

About three weeks ago, as she and a visiting friend walked through her gardens, they glanced up at the flagpole located 65 feet off the road next to her garage. The flag was not there.

Her friend grabbed hold of the cut rope and said, “This is the scene of a crime,” Nellis recalled.

Most small towns are filled with warm-hearted folks with generous spirits, but there is always a village idiot or two afoot, and one of them, it seems, had paid a late-night visit to Nellis’ home.

It was not just any flag that flew from her flagpole. It was a special regimental American flag given to her when her husband, Herbert P. Elliott Jr., was buried with full military honors two years ago.

It was not a flag that could be replaced at the local department store. It was made of heavy-duty cotton. The stripes were actually stitched together. The stars were embroidered silk.

“I’ll never forget when they folded that flag and handed it to me,” she said. “My husband served his country very well, and this flag symbolized that. It symbolized the gratitude of the country. It was very solemn. Very emotional.”

Herbert Elliott Jr., better known as Jack, grew up in New York just down the street from Nellis. Their mothers worked for the Red Cross together, and Nellis and Elliott were friends.

Elliott was a B-24 pilot stationed in Europe during World War II. His younger brother was supposed to join him as a co-pilot but was killed on his way to Italy. During the Korean War, he was recalled to duty flying P-51 fighters. He was shot at 444 times during fighting before leaving the Air Force as a major with dozens of medals, including the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Meanwhile, Nellis was living her own life, married and raising her children.

In 1986, she was divorced and operating a bed-and-breakfast in Pennsylvania when she started to chat with a female guest. The two realized they were from the same town in New York and Nellis soon discovered that her guest was Elliott’s cousin.

“I asked if he was married, and she said no, that he was divorced and living in Storm Lake, Iowa. She said I’d be hearing from him, and I did,” she recalled, chuckling.

The two old friends reconnected, and married in 1992. The next year, they realized their dream of moving to Maine. Both had spent time here when they were young, Elliott at his family’s cottage at Lucerne. He played on the Bangor Daily News’ company baseball team during summers in the 1930s, she said.

They opened an inn along the St. Croix River in Calais, but it burned down four months after they moved in. All of their photographs and all of Elliott’s medals were lost.

They opened another bed-and-breakfast in Searsport but sold it when Elliott had to go into the veterans home in Bangor.

He died there in March 2006 at the age of 85.

Last week, with the Fourth of July fast approaching, Nellis still was pondering what to do about her missing flag.

“I was trying to decide if I was angry or sad,” she said.

She wrote a letter to the editor, which ran in the July 7 edition of the BDN, asking the culprits to return the flag. Some businesspeople in Stockton Springs saw the letter and decided to offer a reward for the return of the flag.

Holly Lane and Tammy Tracey got busy on the phones and within 20 minutes had raised $650.

“We have some pretty special people here,” said Lane, who said residents and business owners in Stockton Springs, Belfast and Searsport all chipped in.

As in many small towns, the presence of TV news trucks in the area can cause a stir.

So it was when a WABI-TV news crew was parked in Nellis’ dooryard earlier this week to do a story on the missing flag.

Having driven by while the crew was there, one young man tuned in find out what was going on.

It was someone Nellis knew well.

“He said he saw the story and got a chill because he realized that he had my flag,” she said.

The young man had been walking along Fletcher Hill when he saw a grocery bag on the ground. Inside was the clearly special flag.

On Thursday, Nellis had her flag back. The young man turned down the reward, and Lane said she planned to return the money to those who contributed.

“They’ll have it, and we’ll know where to go to ask the next time someone in our community is in need,” said Lane.

Nellis has yet to raise her flag.

Originally she liked the idea of taking it out of its box and letting it blow in the wind. Today, she’s not so sure that it wouldn’t be safer tucked away from the village idiot – whoever it may be.

reneeordway@gmail.com