Looking for Heroes

While searching in his sister’s attic for old sketches his father drew, Ira Dube came across an old dusty folder filled with portraits of soldiers who served during World War Two. Some of the drawings dating back 75 years.

Stan Dube served in the army during World War Two with the 27th Infantry. During that time, he sketched his comrades some dating back to 1943. After finding the drawings, Dube made it his mission to reunite the sketches with the subject’s families. “They didn’t need to be in a portfolio they needed to be on someone’s wall,” says Dube.

Since February of last year, Dube says he has spent at least 800 hours researching the drawings and trying to find out who his father drew. The whole time growing closer to his dad and the men he served with. Dube says the whole process was emotional, “when I saw them I knew there would be a probability of some of them died during war and that was the case of the first one I found.”

Out of the 17 drawings he found, two have been given to family members, “It was a privilege being able to give something to his family that my father spent a few moments on,” says Dube.

As for the others, they’ve been donated to a museum in New York. Something Dube, who is a veteran himself, admits was tough to do after so many months of having them. However, he hopes that final act of generosity will help get these historical sketches where they belong.