Skip to main content
Cloudy icon
61º

Man visiting wife's grave cares for grave of fallen soldier

Jake Reissig waters grass around gravesites at Garden Park Cemetery

CONROE, Texas – At the Garden Park Cemetery in Conroe, there are two gravesites where the grass is a little bit greener.

It's all thanks to Jake Reissig. The 86-year-old visits his wife's grave every day, bringing her flowers and watering the grass surrounding her headstone.

After 65 years of marriage, she passed away in May 2014 due to heart issues.

"She has been gone a year and three months, and I still miss her," Reissig said.

One day as he was visiting his wife's grave, Reissig spotted a woman crying over another grave. Later, he took a look at the headstone and realized it was the grave of a fallen soldier, so he started watering the grass around his grave as well.

"It was the least I could do for him, you know," Reissig said.

Joseph Villasenor was a member of the United States Air Force. He passed away in August 2010 after his car crashed in South Carolina. He was 35 years old.

"He was a good kid, he loved children, he was really caring with other people," said his mother, Rachel Villasenor.

Whenever she and her husband visited Joseph Villasenor's grave, they started to notice the grass was more green.

"We noticed his plot was kind of moist, and we were thinking maybe it's the dew, but looking around, Joe's was the only one that had dew on it, and I thought this can't be right," Rachel Villasenor said.

She liked to believe there was an angel watching over her son, and recently, she learned that angel was Reissig.

"It was just incredible to know that a stranger would take that much time and care for our son who he didn't even know," Rachel Villasenor said.


Loading...