Vets exposed to Agent Orange honored with Quilt of Tears

Vets exposed to Agent Orange honored with Quilt of Tears
The News Herald
Christ Olwell
November 7, 2013

Sheila Snyder helps her husband Henry hang quilts at VFW Post 2185 on Wednesday. The quilts are comprised of blocks created by families of the veterans who have died or are sick from Agent Orange contamination during the Vietnam War.
HEATHER LEIPHART News Herald

HILAND PARK — Henry Snyder came home from the Vietnam War and put his experiences there behind him. For nearly 40 years he didn’t talk about the war and he didn’t associate with other veterans — until one day when his wife convinced him to go to an event for men exposed to Agent Orange.

When he arrived, a small woman came right up to him, planted a kiss on him and said something no one else had said to him before: “Welcome home.” The greeting was a stark contrast to the one many Vietnam vets received when they returned.

“You just fall in love with her,” he said.

Snyder and his wife, Shelia, began to frequent Jennie LeFevre’s events. In 1998, LeFevre stitched a quilt that became an organization called the Agent Orange Victims and Widows Support Network. After awhile, she began to call the Snyders her “angels in training,” but they just thought it was nickname.

But LeFevre had been ill, and after she died in 2004 they realized what she meant when she said “in training;” she had been grooming them to take over the network and the Quilt of Tears, which the Snyders brought to Panama City this week from their home in Davenport.
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