A young Sgt. James Williams, pictured here in a Christmas greeting for The Birmingham News. Williams was a News carrier before he enlisted during World War II. He was killed over Germany and is buried in a Dutch cemetery. (c/o Wendy Meader)

When Sjaak Beerendonk took flowers to a grave near a little town in southeastern Netherlands earlier this month, he knew little about the man buried there, other than his name and hometown.

On Sunday, when Beerendonk visited the grave again for Memorial Day, he held a letter of memories from the last surviving sibling of Sgt. James Williams, a Birmingham boy who lost his life in World War II.

Beerendonk is one of thousands of locals who have adopted the graves of fallen American soldiers at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, one of several American cemeteries established across Europe after both World Wars.

After caring for Williams' grave for years, he hoped to track down any family he could find. Amateur sleuths and genealogists reached out after reading al.com's article, and several were able to track down Mary Meader.

Meader, who now lives in Tennessee, is Williams' youngest sister.

"I was overwhelmed learning from Sjaak that he adopted James' grave and had been searching for family members for over 13 years," Meader said. "It is like my brother has reached out to his last family member."

Though Meader was quite young when Williams enlisted in 1942, she wrote down memories of him she heard from her mother and sister. Beerendonk read her memories at Williams' grave Sunday.

The Birmingham News' death announcement for Sgt. James Williams, who had previously been declared MIA.

Meader has Williams' last letters he sent to her older sister, and she is currently searching for a picture of James in his uniform. She hopes to send it to Beerendonk.

According to a 1940 census, Williams worked as a newspaper carrier for The Birmingham News when he enlisted at Fort McPherson on Feb. 2, 1942. He was 19 years old.

Kenneth E. Tilley, a military historian based in Pearl Harbor, said Williams was a left waist gunner in a B-17F based out of Kimbolton, England.

According to military records, Williams' plane was hit by anti-aircraft flak on Aug. 12, 1943 while flying a mission to bomb Gelsenkirchen, Germany.

Four officers were able to bail out (and were taken prisoner in Germany) but the others, including Williams, did not survive.

Locals buried Williams and the other soldiers in a nearby cemetery, and he was reinterred after the war at Margraten.

Back in Alabama, his family was told he was missing in action before he was declared dead in 1944. His name is inscribed on a World War II memorial in Avondale Park along with other local boys who lost their lives.

"My mother never stopped grieving over her beloved son," Meader said.

Margraten

On Sunday, thousands of people gathered at the 65-acre cemetery, commonly know as Margraten, in a Memorial Day commemoration.

"We say thank you to our liberators," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a tribute, according to the Associated Press. "Thank you for enabling us to stand here today in freedom, and we bow our heads in memory of the fallen."

The cemetery was established in 1945 shortly after the end of Nazi occupation. In the early days of the cemetery, The Washington Post reports, as many as 500 bodies a day arrived to be buried.

Local villagers, who were already hosting American troops in their homes, assisted in the burials.

The idea was born for Dutch, Belgian and even German citizens to care for the final resting places of young men who died thousands of miles away from their own loved ones.

According to the adoption foundation, Stichting Adoptie Graven, every one of the 18,764 graves had a local family or individual to care for it within the first year of the program.

On the cemetery's first annual Memorial Day in 1945, 60 Dutch villages contributed flowers and hundreds of people gathered to decorate the graves.

Today, the foundation maintains a waiting list for people who hope to contribute in the future, and many names etched on a "Wall of the Missing" have also been adopted.

"You as adopters -with your loyalty and dedication- fulfill an honorable task," Dieudonne Akkermans, Mayor of Eijsden-Margraten, wrote in the foundation's 2015 newsletter. "Thanks to you and many others, the story of our liberation is told again and again through numerous visits to our cemetery. And this will go on for several more generations."

The responsibilities of grave adoption are often passed down through generations as family members age and many Dutch families, like Sjaak, have made contact with American kin.

70-year-old Arthur Chotin traveled to Margraten this year to meet the couple who has cared for his father's grave for years, the Washington Post reports.

"What would cause a nation recovering from losses and trauma of their own to adopt the sons and daughters of another nation?" Chotin said. "And what would keep that commitment alive for all of these years, when the memory of that war has begun to fade? It is a unique occurrence in the history of civilization."

Meader's daughter, Wendy Meader, said she hopes to one day visit Beerendonk and see her uncle's grave.

"Thanks to this angel hero Sjaak Beerendonk my family knows our lost soldier has been cared for and recognized for his sacrifice," Wendy Meader said. "This makes me realize humans can be kind and love one another without prejudice."