Dozens of people gathered Monday at Cherry Grove Baptist Church to bid farewell to a man most of them had never met.

Those in attendance who knew Watertender 2nd Class Edgar D. Gross when he was alive were but a few. The majority of people were there because of how and when he died — aboard the USS Oklahoma during the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

It was a somber but joyous day for Gross’ relatives and well-wishers who came to pay their respects to the Limestone County native who died for his country. Though technically a homecoming for Gross, some of those who spoke referenced the fact Gross was already home and had been since the day he died — 77 years, five months and 20 days ago.

Stephen Gross, the great-nephew of Edgar Gross, didn’t know his great uncle personally, but said he shared his DNA, as did the rest of his family.

“He was real. He wasn’t just a name in a history book or a name on a page in somebody’s Bible,” Stephen Gross said of his great uncle. “He was born and raised here in Athens, Alabama. He went to school in Athens, he went to church in Athens and he worked the fields surrounding this church. He breathed the air we’re breathing now. He’s home.”

The funeral represented a chance for surviving members to share who Edgar Gross was and how he lived his relatively short life. Gross was born Oct. 25, 1901, in the Carriger community and never had more than a fifth-grade education.

Another great-nephew and Stephen’s brother, Tom Gross, shared Edgar and his family were poor and lived off the land. On days when there was no flour for biscuits, Edgar’s father, George, would keep the children out of school to avoid them being ridiculed for only having cornbread to eat.

He enlisted in the Navy at age 22 and served aboard the USS Fanning. He received $59.40 per month from the Navy and sent $10 home to his family in Limestone County.

After his first stint in the Navy, Edgar returned to Limestone County and became a businessman, of sorts. Tom Gross said though he looked at his paternal family through “rose-tinted glasses” as a child, he heard tales of “business transactions and stills out in the deep forest” as he got older.

“When the business transactions occurred on the front porch, my dad said suddenly there would be food to eat, at least for a little while,” Tom Gross said.

Edgar married Anne Pearl Marbut and lived in Elkmont prior to moving to California.

“I don’t know other Gross men would admit to it, but I’m pretty sure Ed married up,” Tom Gross joked.

Gross eventually re-enlisted with the Navy, though Tom Gross said the family believes he may have lied on his enlistment paperwork. His enlistment paperwork shows his birth year of 1902 as opposed to his real birth year of 1901.

He was 40 years old when the Japanese torpedoed the side of the USS Oklahoma.

“It’s been a long road that has been traveled to bring us together today,” Tom Gross said. “It is my hope, my prayer that many, many years from now you’ll tell your children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren their nation didn’t forget and you were there on Memorial Day under the azure blue of Sweet Home Alabama when Uncle Ed came home.”

A long time coming

Stephen Gross remarked that Monday’s funeral and burial represented the third for his Uncle Ed. From December 1941 to June 1944, Navy personnel recovered the remains of the deceased crew, which were subsequently interred in the Halawa and Nu’uanu cemeteries.

In September 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service who were assigned to recover and identifying fallen U.S. personnel in the Pacific Theater disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from the two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks. Gross said 27 people service members were identified, but the government had a policy at that time that only complete remains would be turned over to families. Because of that, the 27 were again reburied and marked as unknown.

DNA technology introduced in the 2000s allowed more service members to be positively identified. By that time, the government began allowing partial remains to be returned to families for burial.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reached out to Stephen Gross in 2011 in hopes of securing DNA that could allow Edgar Gross to finally be identified. After securing samples from females on Edgar’s side of the family, his remains were positively identified last September.

“No longer will (Ed) be in a grave marked as unknown,” Stephen said. “From this day forward, everyone will know where Uncle Ed is buried — at Evans Cemetery, next to his father, George.”

Edgar Gross’ grave will be marked by a white marble headstone noting the fact he died in Pearl Harbor.

“Welcome home, Uncle Ed,” Stephen said. “We love you, we’ve missed you. Welcome home.”