TREMONTON, Utah, Oct. 28, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) When last the brothers Borgstrom had made headlines, it was in May of this year, as a monument was erected over their Tremonton graves to honor their sacrifice — the four brothers all died during a six-month period fighting in World War II.
The Memorial Day ceremony had moved Tremonton Mayor Lyle Holmgren to share his research on their demise.
“For the Borgstrom family, the course of 1944’s events were laid out in several newspaper headlines,” he wrote online in the city’s website.
“’Clyde Borgstrom reported killed in South Pacific,’ one reports.
“Then, ‘Second Borgstrom son killed in action’
“Another reported, ‘Box Elder parents lose third son in battle’
“”Mourn 4 sons, want 5th home,’ a subsequent clip adds.
“Still another, ‘Last son denied furlough’.
“Finally, ‘1 of 5 Borgstrom boys is coming home – alive.”
Gov. Spencer Cox and other dignitaries attended the dedication of the $30,000-plus monument now spanning the Tremonton Cemetery graves of Leroy, Clyde, and twins, Rolon and Rulon
The fifth son, Boyd, was sent home from the war when military brass decided the family of Gunda and Alben Borgstrom had suffered enough. A sixth son, Eldon, too young for WWII, was also exempted from any military service.
Comparisons with the storyline of the 1998 Oscar-winning movie “Saving Private Ryan” are inescapable. An Army detail is assigned to find and send home a fourth Ryan in the European theater after his three brothers are killed in the D-Day invasion.
Accolades had followed for the Borgstroms as the war closed, as media accounts of the time note. A letter from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Life magazine spread on the family that had given so much, plus what amounted to a state funeral in 1948 in Tremonton attended by generals and admirals, Utah Gov. Herbert B. Maw and LDS Church President George Albert Smith.
That was more than 75 years ago. In 2022 author and veteran Mark Hutson wrote a book detailing the Borgstrom story he had stumbled across researching military flags. In “So Costly A Sacrifice” the author writes he was appalled at how the Borgstrom story had become anonymous, forgotten.
News accounts in 1998 say Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” was based on the deaths of three sons from the Niland family in New York state, with a fourth son sent home after the deaths. The Nilands ordeal was part of historian Stephen Ambrose book on the D-Day invasion, on which the movie’s screenwriter relied.
But in a review of Hutson’s book on Amazon last year, Angela Hawkes said Wilma Hawkes, sister to the Borgstrom brothers, and Angela’s grandmother, was involved in the movie’s production.
“She told the story many times, but never without emotion,” Angela wrote. “She was one of the people flown in by Steven Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan to talk about their family’s experience.
“I am honored by their sacrifice. Not only for the country, but what the family lost … and never recovered. My grandma said they were never the same, and how could they be?” Then Wilma Hawkes had to experience the flashbacks she had with her brothers when her son Dennis, Angela’s father, served in Vietnam. Wilma passed away in 2008 at age 88.
This past weekend dignitaries were in town again for the announcement that Highway 102 in northwest Box Elder County would be renamed Borgstrom Brothers Memorial Highway. The highway is also Tremonton’s Main Street and runs by the former Borgstrom homestead just west of Tremonton.
Gov. Spencer Cox was on hand again for the ceremonies, which he summed up in a Saturday post online.
“The Borgstrom family gave four of their sons to defend our freedom, as the only four-star Gold Star family on record in World War II.
“This weekend we announced upcoming legislation to rename the highway that passes by the old Borgstrom Farm in Thatcher as Borgstrom Brothers Memorial Highway.
“May we never forget the sacrifice of those who fight for our freedom.”
