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Some Stuff I Wrote (2001) H. Morris Williams

firm and fair - and compassionate. Ray liked the young Austrians, many of whom were still in their
teens. Some of them saw him as a “father figure.”

When the war ended two years later, Karl was repatriated to Austria. He got a job as a
customs inspector, married Mitzi, raised four children, sent them all to college and retired. Ray

Morgan stayed in White Springs. They never saw each other again.
Ray and Karl wrote many times and exchanged Christmas cards and each planned to some

day visit the other, but it never happened.
I came into the picture in 1965 when Ray told me about Karl. 1 was living near Austria so

I decided to visit the Planko family. Karl welcomed me like a long-lost friend though we had never
met. He and Mitzi showed me around their towns of Leibnitz and Ehrenhausen. We saw the grapes
harvested and attended the wine festivals. Karl wanted to know about White Springs, Lake City and

Walt Disney World. But mainly he wanted to know about Ray and Nancy Morgan.

It turned out there were several men in that area who had been POWs at White Springs and
they all had the same dominant memory: the goodness of Ray Morgan. Everywhere I went I got the
same message: “This man is Ray Morgan’s friend. We want to show him our appreciation for the

goodness Ray Morgan showed us.”
My visit ended and I returned home. I have not seen the Planko’s since. The Planko children

are now all college graduates. One daughter has danced with Austrian National Ballet. Another has
taught homeless children of Yugoslovia who became helpless when that country started to fall apart.

Ray and Nancy did well, raising fine children and helping to parent the Florida Folk Festival
and the Suwannee Valley Cloggers dance group in their spare time. I just wish Ray and Karl, those

two fine men, could have seen each other one more time.
One day I did get a chance to ask Ray why he was so good to those young men who were

at the time the enemy in war. Ray said, “I never saw them as the enemy, just as young boys a long
way from home, caught up in something not of their doing. I knew I would appreciate it if my son

had been over there and somebody had been good to him. And the Bible does say to love your
enemy.”
The funeral preacher said Ray was such a good man “he preached his own funeral by the way

he lived.” Preacher, you sure got that right.

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