When I started work on Crosses of Iron four years ago, one of my biggest fears

Fred Becchetti

was that one or more of the people I would come to know might not be with us by the time the book came out.

That wasn’t me being paranoid. It was a realization that many of the people I interviewed for this book were in the later stages of their lives, many in their 90s.

And there’s few people I got to know more than Dawson-born Fred Becchetti, who after more than a quarter century in the foreign service became one of the community’s ambassadors and a fixture at many a Dawson reunion.

Fred, or “Freddie” to family and close friends, passed away on Oct. 24, three weeks after the book’s official release and six weeks after losing the love of his life, Vivienne, in Virginia Beach, Va. Fred was 99. Vivienne was 96. They had been married for 77 years. (Obituaries: Fred and Vivienne.)

While I had come across Fred’s name in my early research, it was Fred who first reached out to me in September of 2020 upon learning that I was working on a book about his old hometown. In that email, he asked me to sign him up for my newsletter and offered to share some of his personal collection of Dawson materials.

“Five days later, my inbox was bursting with all things Dawson: stories, speeches, photos, drawings, paintings and the like — many of his own creation,” I wrote in my October 2020 newsletter. “If that weren’t enough, he emailed me a week later to ask for my mailing address, so he could send me some additional documents better suited to the U.S. mail.”

It wasn’t long before our relationship transcended Dawson. Later that year, after Fred had mentioned a few of his World War II experiences — he flew 35 missions as a bombardier and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross — he agreed to let me write a freelance article for the Albuquerque Journal for Veterans Day weekend that was later picked up for national distribution by the Associated Press. (Here is the online version that appeared in his hometown newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot.)

Two months ago, I received an email from Fred’s daughter, Carole Gardner, who informed me that her Mom had passed away and that her Dad was now in hospice care. That was followed several weeks later by another email, this one notifying me that her father had died earlier that day.

I had mailed Fred a copy of the book in early October with a personal note to thank him for all his help. In her initial email, Carole said he had received it, but his health had declined to the point that he was unaware of it.

“Hopefully someday when he is in good spirits I will be able to show him the book,” she wrote.

Sadly, that someday never came.

Thirty-five years earlier, after returning to the old Dawson townsite for the first time in more than 50 years, Fred wrote a personal reflections article, “Home Again to Dawson,” that appeared in a special supplement to the Raton Range on Sept. 2, 1988.

At the end of that story, in a small accompanying box, Fred wrote about that weekend’s reunion and his plans to be there:

Save me a place near the irrigation ditch, where the water can tell me stories of Dawson. Somebody please be prepared to show me where I lived in Number Seven Camp. It would be good to know where the orchard was. Maybe somebody can tell me where we moved in 1929 just before leaving Dawson for Raton for good.

Let’s hope that somebody plays the accordion at the reunion. Dawson accordions have many stories to tell, too.

Finally, it would be good to have the two magpies at the picnic. They could tell us of a happier time in Dawson.

It will be nice to get home again!