Years after Katrina, wooden box finds its way back to Biloxi family ...

TAMMY SMITH/SUN HERALDFrom left, Kaydon Lucas, Janice Manning, Tony Manning, Annie Pearl Thompson, Dan Zwerg and Bob Rashka talk about a wooden box Thompson's husband made several years ago to hold family papers. On the afternoon of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in 2005, Zwerg found the box on the beach in Ocean Springs. It was returned to the family on Friday.

On the afternoon of Aug. 29, 2005, Dan Zwerg carefully ventured from his home to the foot of Washington Avenue in Ocean Springs. The destruction from Hurricane Katrina was unbelievable. As he walked along the beach, he saw something dark and rectangular.

It was a wooden box with a snug metal latch. Zwerg took the box home, planning to find out who it belonged to and get it back to them, if he could. But post-Katrina life on the Mississippi Gulf Coast was chaotic, and Zwerg hit dead ends in his attempts. The home of Lee Thompson at the Biloxi address was gone after the storm. Eventually the box filled with

papers and small mementos was put on the shelf, literally, in the garage, although Zwerg's hopes remained.

One day he mentioned the box to his friend Bob Rashka, also of Ocean Springs. They pored over the contents, and Rashka too became interested in tracking down the family.

That's when things got interesting.

One day Rashka was in Biloxi City Hall and was mentioning Thompson's name to someone there. A man, Lucien Brown, overheard the conversation.

Brown said Lee Thompson was a relative. He got Rashka in contact with Tony Manning, Lee Thompson's grandson, and the men began working out a way to return the box to Lee Thompson's widow, Annie Pearl.

Annie Pearl and Lee had lived on Bowen Street in Biloxi for years and raised their family there. Lee, who worked at Ingalls, also had worked as a chef. He enjoyed cooking and woodworking as pastimes, and among his projects made a storage box for the family's important papers. As often happens, other little family things found their way into the box, which was stored in a closet.

Lee Thompson died June 30, 2003. A little more than two years later, his wife had to relocate after Katrina destroyed their home and eventually settled into a snug house in D'Iberville.

That's where the "reunion" took place Friday evening. Zwerg and Rashka met Tony Manning outside Pearl Thompson's house, where her daughter, Janice Manning (who also is Tony's mother) awaited. She had left work early from Keesler Air Force Base under the assumption her son had received some sort of recognition and wanted to share the news with his mother and his grandmother.

Zwerg and Rashka, who brought the box hidden inside an empty feed bag, explained to the two women why they were there, then removed the box from the bag.

"On the day of Hurricane Katrina, I went down to the beach in Ocean Springs and saw all the destruction. While I was there, I found something on the beach. It looked valuable and important," Zwerg said. "I searched for you, but you had moved away. Bob, my friend, said, 'Maybe I can find them.' He's retired, so he has time, so I put Detective Bob on the trail."

Janice Manning opened the box and began looking through its contents. Some of the papers had gotten moist, but they were dried out in the days following Katrina.

"This is amazing," she repeated as she pulled out a will, insurance papers, a ledger carefully listing weekly church tithes. There was a small plastic bag of flashbulbs used in an old camera.

"Whoa, this is from my little cap gun," Tony Manning said, picking up a small leather holster.

"My daddy was always building stuff," Janice Manning said between cries of delight.

Annie Pearl Thompson quietly watched as they explored the box's contents, then gently touched the opened lid.

"He built a lot of things. A whatnot shelf, the lawn chairs outside, tables. Anything you wanted, I would say, 'Tell Daddy,' and Daddy would make it," his wife said.

Tony Manning remembered the box sitting in a particular closet "along with the gun, and you were not supposed to go in that closet or touch anything in there. Nobody was supposed to touch that box but him," he said, laughing. "But you know how that goes."

A tear shimmered in the corner of Annie Pearl Thompson's eye as she looked at the papers and the box itself.

"I feel like I've got my husband back again," she said, smiling.

Source: http://www.sunherald.com/2013/03/25/4551777/years-after-katrina-wooden-box.html

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