By Beth Eberth
Jack Green was born the year his uncle, Lt. James F. Sullivan, ’49, graduated from St. Bonaventure College. Four years later Green would be standing graveside, equally scared and excited as a 21-gun salute boomed into the Boston air and signaled the end of Sullivan’s funeral.
It’s been 70 years since Sullivan’s remains were identified and returned to his family following his death in a North Korean prisoner of war camp. And it’s been nearly that many years since Sullivan’s beloved class ring from St. Bonaventure made it all the way from eastern Asia to his family in Massachusetts.
In mid-May, that ring made its way back to St. Bonaventure as Class of 2023 graduate Grace Foley proudly kept Sullivan’s legacy alive. Foley’s stepmom (and Jack Green’s sister), Bernadette McKinsey, had a brooch created with the stone from the ring, and Foley wore it during Commencement exercises on campus. “I said I would love to wear it and represent him,” said Foley, who is from Somerset, Massachusetts, and earned a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication.
Foley, who has visited the Veterans Monument on campus to see Sullivan’s name etched on the stone, said she wanted to wear the memento as a tribute to McKinsey and her family “because they have been a major part of my life.” “I wanted to keep the tradition going. Bernadette has been a part of my life since I was in middle school,” she said. At St. Bonaventure, Sullivan would major in art, fall in love, and join ROTC.
According to family history, the class ring was given to Sullivan by a college girlfriend. When his unit was facing combat, the men were stripped of their possessions. Sullivan kept the ring under his tongue for days, and gave it to a service member who was returning back to Massachusetts.
At a post-war rally, Sullivan’s mother, Katherine Sullivan, was approached by her son’s friend, who delivered the ring fully intact. As a young child, Green recalls his grandmother calling other Gold Star Mothers, sharing remembrances of James and retelling the stories of receiving life-altering telegrams about her only son.
“I think it helped her as some type of catharsis,” Green said. Around Dec. 1, 1950, Sullivan’s unit was out of ammunition and surrounded in a Chinese attack in Kunu-ri. Ninety of the men from the unit were withdrawn successfully, but 50, including Sullivan, were listed as missing in action. Later that month, Sullivan’s parents would receive a telegram indicating he was MIA. In a Feb. 11, 1951, letter to his parents, Sullivan wrote, “I am alive and well. I am a POW in North Korea. The Koreans and Chinese People’s Volunteers are treating us well and showing us every consideration.”
The date of Sullivan’s death is unknown. Growing up, Green, McKinsey and their two siblings had been told their uncle died of starvation as a prisoner of war. Other reports indicate the camp he was being held in may have been hit by an Allied Forces airstrike because the North Koreans failed to mark the area as a POW camp. He was missing for a couple of years before his remains were identified in 1953.
Born in Boston, Sullivan attended the highly competitive Boston Latin School, where he was an impressive athlete as a member of the football, baseball and hockey teams. After high school graduation, Sullivan enrolled at St. Bonaventure, at the time still several years shy of becoming a university, to pursue a degree in art.
Sullivan’s aunt, Sr. Mary Assunta Leonard, O.S.F., was an important part of the Franciscan community and a top administrator at the nearby St. Francis Hospital. This may have been how he knew of the area and decided to attend St Bonaventure. Sullivan’s body was identified by X-rays he had voluntarily given while working as a repair person at St. Francis while he was in college.
Green is moved by his niece’s gesture to honor Sullivan’s short but impactful life. “He had such a short life; the least we can do is spend some time remembering him and respecting sacrifices at such a young age,” Green said.
(Beth Eberth is director of university communications at St. Bonaventure.)
* Some historical information for this article was provided by St. Bonaventure’s Archives.
Above: An ROTC yearbook photo from the late 1940s, courtesy of University Archives. James Sullivan is pictured in the back row, fifth from the left. At right: Grace Foley is pictured following Commencement with her stepmom, Bernadette McKinsey, and her dad, Tom Foley. A strategic communication major, Grace was honored in the spring as the School of Communication’s 2023 Woman of Promise.
