Ninety-four-year-old Clara Gantt’s wait to be reunited with her husband ended before dawn Friday on a tarmac at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Calif. But it was not the ending she had hoped for after six decades, NBC Los Angeles reports.
Her husband, Army Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Gantt, died as a prisoner of war in 1951 during the Korean War. For more than 60 years, he was presumed dead until his remains were identified at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and forensics labs in Honolulu, the report shows.
Over the decades, Clara Gantt held out hope that her husband would someday return home. But she sobbed as she stood over his flag-draped coffin, saying she was grateful to finally be in his presence again, the report shows.
“I am so happy that I was living to accept him,” she told NBC. He will be buried in Inglewood, Calif., this month, the report shows.
Read more at NBC Los Angeles.