MADERA -- The telegram came on Thanksgiving Day all those winters ago, when Elsie Tiller was trying to get her children ready to visit her sister. Plane shot down over Korea, the telegram read. Her husband missing. Possibly taken prisoner. Possibly killed.

In the first weeks, months and years afterward, Elsie Tiller held out hope that her husband was alive. She held out hope during the prisoner exchanges of the Korean War. And after the war, she held out hope when newspapers ran stories about prisoners possibly being held in Siberia or elsewhere in Russia.

But Horace Nelson Tiller never came home. His body was never found.

"It was just as time went by, it was just too much time had gone by," Elsie Tiller said. "Hope just died."

Without a body, there was never a funeral.

On Saturday, at a ceremony in Madera County, Elsie Tiller was honored when the military gave her a ceremonial flag and a set of her husband's medals. "It will be something that we will remember," Tiller said. "It will be a closure."

The Tillers' story begins more than 50 years ago when Elsie met Horace -- his friends called him Terry -- when he was stationed in Merced during World War II. A friend brought him to Elsie's house in Madera. They married three months later on May 10, 1943. Terry Tiller was not sent into action during World War II. After he got out of the service, he never felt at ease in civilian life. He joined the Air National Guard. After the Korean War broke out in 1950, Terry Tiller returned to active duty in the Air Force.

"By that time we had our four kids, all small," Elsie Tiller said. "I had to sign a release for him saying it was OK for him to go." During the war, Tiller attained the rank of master sergeant, serving as a flight engineer.

It's been many years, so some of the details are fuzzy for Elsie Tiller. She knows he flew in a bomber. Her son, Pat, thinks it was a B-29. She knows her husband was on one of his last missions when his plane was shot down Nov. 19, 1952.

"They were training other crew members to take his place, and that's when it happened," Elsie Tiller said.

A couple of crew members were found safe. A couple were found dead. Six others, including Tiller, were never found.

She has never received a definitive acknowledgment of her husband's death from the government, other than a two-line letter she could use to receive federal benefits.

In the months that followed the arrival of that fateful telegram, Tiller collected veterans benefits and Social Security payments. More than a year after her husband disappeared, she was given an insurance check for $10,000. "It didn't last very long because I put it down on a house, and it was gone before I knew it," she said.

Over the years, as hope faded, Tiller continued with her life, moving from Madera to Fresno to Hollister, where she's living now until she can find a new apartment in Fresno.

She never remarried, in part because she was too busy raising her children.

In 1985, Pat Tiller, who lives in Sandy, Ore., began using the Freedom of Information Act to collect information about his dad and the fatal flight. He said he learned his father was listed as both "killed in action" and a "prisoner of war." He even tracked down one of the two crew members known to have survived the flight -- retired Col. Richard Winchester, who now lives in Florida.

The Tiller children began asking questions among themselves, such as why their mother never received a ceremonial flag or any type of ceremony. "It was just a question that we had kind of mentioned," said Candice Cotterill, Elsie's daughter who lives in Hollister. "On TV, we'd see a military funeral and flag, and we thought that's kind of crazy because Mom never got one."

On Memorial Day, the Tillers' other daughter, Elizabeth Avedesian, who lives in Fresno, approached U.S. Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, at a ceremony in Madera and asked about the flag. He got her in touch with his staff, and they were able to get the family in contact with Air Force personnel in Texas. The family discovered that they were entitled not only to the flag, but also to 11 medals and citations.

"We never knew that he had any of these awards or citations or anything," Cotterill said.

The family arranged for Elsie Tiller to be presented with the awards Saturday. Trevor Dean, a civilian who works for the Air Force Mortuary Affairs program who came to Madera County to present the flag and medals, said it's unusual for families to have to wait for years, even decades. "I don't know necessarily that it was an oversight," Dean said. "I don't know the circumstances -- it just didn't occur."

The Tillers' children said they're happy their mother finally received the tribute. "She's been living with this for about 48 years," Avedesian said. "So it's about time."

The reporter can be reached at jmdavis

@fresnobee.com or 675-6805.