A Thaw at Christmastime 1919

Christmas approached, and homes like my grandmother’s welcomed the holiday. Here’s a picture of gifts around a tree at the Dykes farm, probably taken around 1915-1916.

The weather had changed mid-December, an event that made the front page of the King City Chronicle on December 19: Three Weeks of Winter and It Began to Thaw. Ice covered the roads, it was reported, but cars (or “autos”) could pass with chains. And enough snow remained to create a nice surface for sledding. All in all, the Chronicle concluded, “splendid winter weather tho the coal was short.”

A thaw, with a persistent chill. This also describes my grandparents’ relationship in December. They hadn’t spoken much since mid-July, a conclusion I’ve drawn from the absence of letters. But on a Monday night in early December, Grandpa sat down and wrote a letter asking Grandma to give him another chance (or at least, hear him out). The letter started and ended in uncharacteristically formal language, addressed to “Miss Inis Dykes” and signed by “Thos W. Alderson.” Grandpa requested a “hasty answer.”

King City Mo

Mon Night

Miss Inis Dykes,

If you will allow me to I will relieve myself of a few words this eve. I expect you will be a little surprised, but I feel justified in doing so. I never did figure out the difference between us, whether it was your stubbornness or mine. Sometimes I feel a whole lot of blame on myself, I am not getting down on my knees, please don’t mistake me. I am going to tell facts. I know I have acted Dignified with you, but also respected you above reproach also tried every way to show you I was gentleman in ever respect which I think you will agree. You know just how I feel, although I have been holding out, I think just as much of you as I ever did, and as I have told you before this is a whole lot, now again, I am not asking of you to come back again, all I ask of you at the present is an answer and a true one don’t write me a flowery one, one from the Heart whether it suits me or not, it will be a favor for I am living a lie and have been the last five months, now I have overcome my stubbornness, not asking you to, just asking you to give it to me as you feel and I will make the best of it either way, because I have to. I have told you before which you will well remember I can live without you, but it is not with pleasure. I know about your man you write to and don’t let me interfere with that for that is not my intentions, what I want to know is just how you feel, and you will do me a great favor by letting me know, I also ask you if you would accept a Xmas present from me with pleasure

So with love,

I will close

Thos W Alderson

Hasty answer

Not having Grandma’s letters, presenting her side of the story, I’m left to decipher these matters of the heart from Grandpa’s suggestions. “I never did figure out the difference between us, whether it was your stubbornness or mine.” So, a misunderstanding fueled their separation, and a digging in, it seems, on both sides. An honest response, he writes, would “be a favor for I am living a lie and have been the last five months.” They split up around the middle of July, by his account. I’m not sure what kind of lie he means. But I’m fairly certain that “your man” refers to Stanley Brown.

Grandpa did send her a Christmas gift, with or without her permission.

One thing I know about Grandma’s family, Christmas was an especially important holiday. They gathered every year. I remember hearing Grandpa say, “I always promised to take your grandmother home for Christmas.” On this Christmas, in 1919, her older sister Mattie returned by train from Flagler, Colorado, where she was completing her first year teaching school. The Chronicle noted her homecoming, “Miss Mattie Dykes came in Sunday [12.21.19] to spend the Xmas vacation with home folks.” And over at Grandpa’s place, his people gathered, too. His younger brother Marshall arrived for a visit earlier in December, the Chronicle noted. I believe he lived in nearby St. Joseph, Missouri at the time, selling life insurance.

I can imagine how the presence of family at Christmas may have thawed the ice drawn tight around my grandparents’ faltering romance. Their families, like most, had their opinions, along with their shared hopes and dreams. Grandpa’s mother was fond of Grandma, as was made clear during the war correspondence. In a letter Grandpa wrote after Christmas, he admits that through the “conflict,” the Dykes family had always been nice to him. It’s not hard for me to see some nudging and free advice being passed around their holiday tables.

But I come back to a word Grandpa used in his letter–stubborn. This describes the man I knew, or comes close to describing what I saw as a proud man. Grandma, on the other hand, led her life (at least in my eyes) in a steady, deliberate way. She didn’t have to be right, but she needed to know something was right. She took her time. Once, she told me about fishing, how it was important to go far out in the water and wait, sitting still in the boat, trusting the fish would come to you, in due time. That’s how I remember she lived her life, equal parts trust and patience. That Christmas, in 1919, was she waiting for marriage to be the right decision?

She answered Grandpa’s letter, which made him happy. In his response (a long one), you’ll find references to local gossip and how he resented the way townspeople had meddled over the summer in what was none of their business. He also admits he left the Christian Church in King City because of the “black eye” he’d received. And that mistake of July 3? He doesn’t elaborate.

King City Mo

Dec 28, 1919

Dear Inis

Last evening after a long and hard also muddy trip from Maysville I reached home about eight oclock, finding I had a letter of yours waiting me I was very well pleased. So I am going to answer which I hope will be as gladly received as your’s was. I hardly know what to say but in the beginning I will tell you why I sent you the parcel. As Xmas was drawing near I thought I would not feel right if I did not remember you, although Xmas not being the only time my mind wanders that way and knowing how nice and good you have and always was, and especially during my war period, been to me so my conscience would not allow me to buy any one else a remembrance without remembering you. Now I am a “black sheep” which I guess you know already, and if you would do me the way I deserve you would never speak to me, but I know you have too much sound sense and reconsideration for such as that. Now I am speaking the truth and not trying to flatter anyone. I realize and have for several months that the night of July 3rd last I made the mistake of my life, but you are the first one I have told it too. But I hope I am not the only one that makes mistakes and each day brings me nearer to the idea and thinking how Fickle I was. Now I am not blaming you for anything, only taking on myself what my conscience brings forth each day. Now pardon me for speaking so plainly but you know it my nature, but I have a deep love for you and always will have regardless where I am or who I am with. Now there is one thing I must comment the Dykes family on, is during the “conflict,” as people look at it, was just as nice to me as ever. Now the public in general gave me a black eye, for my actions which I feel it not the business of every one. I have quit the Christian Church at King City and entended to stay quit as they took something on themselves that didnt concern them. Now this don’t cover all them, but during the period which I am speaking I am saying and can say I did nothing that was disrespectful and nothing to be ashamed of even though as I have already told you I made the bad mistake July 3^rd, but you will agree with me it was nobody’s business but yours and mine. Now I am not getting down on my knees any oftener than my conscience tells me too, and think I be a man with lots of nerve to ask you to mark off the past and forgive but one thing I ask you is an opportunity to talk with you. So I am leaving it to you and thinking you will allow me the privilege also if satisfactory you may set the date and I will respond at any time.  Guess you have hard I am seeing a woman at town at present and having a nice time as she is very nice and jolly girl but I am only killing time. Now don’t think that the “window” getting married brought this forth. It did not only put it off but it was coming anyhow. Now I am going to close as I know you are growing weary of such a long letter so I do so sending my love and looking for an early answer

I am as ever

Tom.

Apparently, Grandma responded to this letter with yet more concerns. On the back of a small New Year’s card, Grandpa scribbled this note. His reference to “the program at Winslow” is presumably the Christmas program at the church he attended in Winslow, a little town south of King City.

Dear Girl

I have been undecided whether to ans(wer) your most welcome letter or not as you did not say to. As the rush is over I am going to take a few minutes in writing. I have had a very nice Xmas, hope you were served all right. I helped in the program at Winslow. They say I did real good for a new beginner anyhow I guess. I see by your letter you did not understand me in several places, am real sorry, I tried to make it plain, and I have not room to go to details this time, but I can talk as good as ever, Ha Ha, now don’t think I am crazy for I am not. An answer will be highly appreciated, use your pleasure

T.W.A.

Grandma “used her pleasure” to hear him talk “as good as ever.” She must have liked what she heard because three weeks later, on January 15, 1920, they were married. The Chronicle ran the wedding notice, concluding with this description of their wartime romance.

He answered his country’s call and went to the front in defense of his country’s flag and what it represents. He was at the front in reality and will ever, during life, wear the marks of the hero in the cause of right. She, in the realm of noble womanhood, remained at home, but was ever active and doing and cheering by word and deed, that noble influence and help that are so necessary to encourage and support those at the front. We tip our hat in honor of their “well done” efforts and hope for a bright future and much happiness for Mr. And Mrs. Alderson.

King City Chronicle, January 23, 1920, p. l

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Alderson, wedding photos, 1920.

After the Armistice

November 11, 1918

Grandpa learned about the Armistice from the hospital. He’d been there (or in a series of places) for eight days. On November 15, he had a friend write a letter to his parents; his right arm, injured in an attack, didn’t allow him to hold a pen. As was common among local families with their “boys” at war, his parents shared the letter with the King City Chronicle, who published it on December 13.

King City Chronicle, 13 December 1918, p. 1.

The fighting may have stopped that day in November, but it didn’t end my grandfather’s own battles. He stayed in France until March, 1919, recovering and waiting to rejoin his Company C, 356^thInfantry, 89^thDivision. He didn’t want to leave France without them. After returning to King City, he spent months fighting his way back into the life he’d left for war. The transition was difficult. Upcoming blog posts will look at his life after the Great War ended.

November 11, 2018

I decided to recognize November 11 as a remembrance of the Armistice. That’s how Grandpa’s generation saw the day, as a celebration of peace, as the end of a war meant “to end all wars.”  I flew a flag from the front porch.

And I baked donuts to remember Grandpa’s job (one of his jobs) as an Army cook.

Cinnamon, lemon, and blood orange (glazed) donuts

I shared them with my orchestra, the group that added two World War 1-era songs to our repertoire, Liberty Bell (It’s Time to Ring Again) (1) and Don’t Forget the Salvation Army (My Doughnut Girl). (2)

Music holds a central place in my family—especially in the generations of musicians on Grandma’s side. They sang at church and sang at home, with someone playing the piano or pump organ or violin or mandolin. Into this tradition, my father picked up the cornet. And his children, the trumpet, piano, organ, and violin. So, offering a musical tribute to Grandpa and his generation of soldiers seemed perfect to me. I felt so close to him and all my family as I remembered the Armistice with music (and donuts).

 

 

NOTES

I’ve shared these links before. Enjoy the music again!

(1) Liberty Bell

https://archive.org/details/78_liberty-bell-its-time-to-ring-again_peerless-quartet-joe-goodwin-halsey-k.-mohr_gbia0013538a

(2) My Doughnut Girl

The Last Letter from the Front

Grandma knew the look of “soldiers mail.” Grandpa was required to write the term in the upper corner of every envelope mailed from France to guarantee free postage.

She recognized all the information that covered the front: her name and address, and his, the censor’s stamp, and the postmark: here, November 12, U.S. Army Post Office M.P.E.S. 1918. APO 761. (1)

The postmark confirmed that the letter began its journey on the day after the Armistice. She certainly received it weeks after the end of fighting, and during a time, I presume, Americans were celebrating the end of the war.

She may have looked twice at sender’s box, AM.EX.F. (American Expeditionary Forces), Knights of Columbus (a Catholic charity), only because most of his letters were sent on stationery provided by the Y.M.C.A. Grandpa surely took whatever free paper was offered.

She opened the envelope across the bottom edge, using a long, pointed letter opener that neatly sliced through a single edge without damaging the envelope or the letter enclosed. (I remember watching her open letters with such a tool.) When she pulled out the letter, its two pages neatly folded, she may have first seen Grandpa’s signature.

If I had seen his signature, I would have smiled. He was still alive. He was still writing letters. But I don’t know what Grandma thought. Maybe she was relieved to hear from him, or annoyed that he was writing so infrequently now (as compared to the daily writing they’d established over the months of his service). Grandpa hints at her frustration in this letter.

I wonder if she calculated the transit time, figuring the weeks it had taken this letter, after Grandpa wrote it, to find its way to the censor, to the military post office, and then onto a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, before traveling by train from New York to Missouri. Maybe she did. She was clever and always good with numbers.

“October 31, 1918. Some place in France. My Dear Inis,” the letter began. So, he had written this well before the November 12 postmark, she might have thought, before the Armistice, and before he was safe from enemy fire.

I doubt, as she held the letter and slowly made her way through the contents, that she could have known that–in real time, at the very moment she was reading his letter–Grandpa was lying in a hospital bed in France, badly injured on November 3, only a few days after he wrote her. The news of his injury only made its way to his next of kin—his parents—in December.

“Mr. And Mrs. Alderson received word the first of the week,” the King City Chronicle noted on December 13, 1918, “that their son, Tom, was seriously wounded, Nov. 3rd. All hope they will yet get different word and all extend sympathy to Mr. And Mrs. Alderson.” (2)

Grandma probably read this letter–by my count the 175th one he sent during his service and the last one from the front–around Thanksgiving, before anyone knew he’d been hurt. Her family, gathered at their holiday table, no doubt prayed for his safe return. He would return, but not for months, and not in the same condition he’d known before he was called to serve his country, a solemn duty that changed his life, and hers.

Notes

(1) M.P.E.S. stood for Military Postal Express Service. It was set up in 1918, to expedite military mail sent from overseas. APO, Army Post Office, the number referring to a collection location (which I couldn’t identify), typically the spot near the battle area where the mail could be put safely on a train.

(2) King City Chronicle, 13 December 1918, p4.

October 31, 1918

Some place in France

My Dear Inis,

The orders are for us today to write to no one except our people, but as I written home a few days ago I am going to write you.

I know you think I have neglected you some and I have, but you don’t know what we have been doing since I written you last. We had had some hard warfare.

You know we all write home and send the bright side although you know we are not having a snap. I am daily looking for the time that I can be with you and tell you all.

I have been with Harry Carder several times in the last week. He is only stationed about a mile from where we are now. He is just the same as ever and is a good officer. He brought me back to my co [company] in his car a couple of times. He also took supper with us one night.

This is a beautiful day and we are sure enjoying it as we are just sleeping out on the ground with our blankets over us. We have been on the front going on four months and I think our Division deserves a rest as they have done some hard work.

I got a letter from you last night also one from Mother and a couple of Chronicles. They came in fine as I was sick all day, but am feeling a little better today.

I don’t know whether you will be able to read this or not. I am sitting on the ground with the paper on my Gas mask.

Several of our boys are back from the Hospital. Carl Ketchum, Rube Dunlap and several more you would not know.

I supose you have got the card designating you are allowed to send a Xmas present to a Soldier in France.

(He sent the coupon on October 26. Given the long time mail took, weeks, I wonder if it arrived in time to meet the November 20 deadline. Clearly, the coupon wasn’t used.)

Don’t think I am [word unclear] you for it as every boy sent one and I sent it to you instead of the folks and I thought you might send together and I don’t want you to send a great deal as we can’t carry it only something we can eat. Ha Ha.

Ferris Keys has gone to the officers training camp. I haven’t heard from him yet. Also four have gone from our co. I hear from Marshall [his brother] real often. He is well pleased with Denver.

You mentioned in one of your letters that you felt like you were not doing enough to help win the war. I think you are and if you are not I am doing enough for us both, so just rest easy.

Well we were told not to write big letters so I better quit. So I do so by sending plenty of love x kisses

Tom.

Thos. W. Alderson

Co C 356 Inf

American E. F.

Via N.Y.

Gun Wipes and Pinafores

Gun wipes and pinafores? Yes, and petticoats and a single scarf. These were all part of Grandma’s summer, in 1918, along with the harvest and annual Chautauqua. Grandpa wanted this kind of news, but wasn’t getting mail or newspapers as often as he had at Camp Funston. In the letter he wrote on July 14, from France, he told Grandma he had just received her letter from nearly a month earlier on June 17.

Grandma had enclosed a photograph, which he proudly showed off to his buddies. I don’t know which picture she mailed. Nothing she sent survived the trenches. Here’s one from an old family album, probably taken in the years before the war. I remember my grandmother’s full cheeks, made even rounder when she broke into her sweet smile.

Grandma in undated photo found in an old family album.

Grandpa’s July letters seem nostalgic to me. He wrote about “Dear Old Missouri” and wondered about what was going on back home.

July 8. “I guess the threshing machines are harvesting around home by now.” 

Harvesting brought their small farming community together. Neighbors pitched in to help in the fields. Children and women brought water and meals. Itinerant workers came in to complete the jobs before rain set in, ruining ripened grain. Here’s a rare picture of Grandpa helping with the harvest of blue grass on the Bilby Ranch near Skidmore, Missouri. The bags held the seed stripped from the chaff.

Grandma remembered the threshing machines used to harvest grain. She described the process in an interview my father taped in the 1970s.

Al Vaughn had a big steam engine to operate the threshing machine. It was so heavy that when he crossed a bridge, they had to put planks down first. The kids watched for that and were on hand to get a turn of climbing up on the engine and blowing the whistle a couple of times. Neighbor helped neighbor, so they might be working for several days. Some came with hayrack to haul the bundles from the field to the machine, there were others who pitched the bundles on the racks. Some had wagons to haul the grain to the bins. Women went from place to place helping each other in preparing meals. To feed a big crew, was no small job—and I might add, they were always well fed.

That summer in France, in 1918, when Grandpa couldn’t farm, he took note of how the French farmers brought in their crops.

July 8. The largest implement I have seen is a mowing machine. They haul hay and wood all the time, and milk the cows three times a day and one of the handiest things is that they can open a door from the kitchen and be in the cow barn and all built under the same roof and there is no farm house at all. The people all live in the towns and villages two or three miles apart and go out in the country to farm. I haven’t saw but one farm house since I have been here.

July 31. The people here are harvesting their wheat now. They use cradles and tie it by hand.

As Grandpa thought about home, and what he would be doing this time of year, he mentioned how he would miss being with Grandma at the Chautauqua.

July 23. I suppose by the time this reaches you, you will be attending the Chautauqua. I wish I was there to be with you.

In 1918, the big event was held from August 25-September 1. Famous speakers were brought in, along with popular musical performers. Events were offered all day, and many businesses closed for the duration of the event.

Dressed in their best, some arriving by automobile, people crowd into a tent to attend a lecture or musical performance. Printed in the August 11, 1916 issue of the King City Chronicle.

Again from her 1970s interview, Grandma described the event.

The King City Chautauqua was one of the nicest things we had. When it first started, it ran for ten days. As time went on it was cut to eight and finally to six days, before it folded.

King City hosted its first Chautauqua in 1907, and its last in 1930.

We tented on the grounds several years, and that was so much fun. One year there were forty tents on the ground.

A Chautauqua tent? Grandma sits by the post, her grandfather A.S. Martin to her side. Her younger sister Mary stands, one hand on her father’s shoulder. In front of her is their brother Charley. Grandfather Martin died in March 1918, dating this photo to 1917 or earlier.

For a small place we really had some good talent. We were in a circuit and the talent moved from place to place. One night William Jennings Bryan was to speak. Because of a heavy rain, and dirt roads, he did not get there until late at night. By the time his lecture was over, it was nearly midnight. Very few, if any, left before the lecture. We always had several musical groups. One that was always there was Maupin’s Band from St. Joseph. The very popular piece for Maupin’s was The Stars and Stripes Forever. If they did not play it, then there was a request for it.

Plans were made weeks ahead, and one of the things was, that we have a different dress to wear each day. Those were the good old days.

The war made an appearance at the 1918 Chautauqua. A wounded soldier gave a talk. And this movie was shown.

Advertisement in the August 16, 1918 issue of the King City Chronicle. No additional information was provided on that “rich lady in the east.”

Grandpa could picture the Chautauqua and the harvest. But he had to imagine Grandma doing something new this year–working for the Red Cross.

July 23. You spoke of the Red Cross work you were doing. Keep it up, it sure will be needed here this winter as they say it is an awful cold country and it must be when we sleep cold in July, so tell every one that they will do a great lot by helping with the war by knitting and try to get in early.

In fact, Grandma, her sister Mary, and their mother were making a range of items  requested by their local Red Cross chapter. And they did this work during the busy harvest season, as noted below. Those “refugee dresses?” They were made for Europeans displaced by the war, many in France and Belgium.

August 2, 1918, King City Chronicle

I don’t understand why the Red Cross sent out garments “to make them up,” unless they were gathering old garments to repurpose. In any case, one thing is clear to me. My grandmother, her sister and mother must have understood the full horror of war. In making gun wipes and pinafores, they recognized the needs of both the soldiers and the defenseless victims of their violence. The war may have been thousands of miles away, but it wasn’t far from their minds or their busy hands that summer on the farm.

My great-grandmother, Mrs. S.J. Dykes, front porch of the King City farm around 1915.

 

News from King City, Missouri

Grandpa spent Christmas at home, recuperating from weeks of illness. He didn’t write letters during that ten-day furlough. I decided, in their absence, to read something else: hometown news from the King City Chronicle, the paper delivered to my grandparents’ separate farms, once a week on Friday.

I’d like to think that Trouble, the name given to generations of Boston terriers in my family, is waiting for the Chronicle.

I wanted to read what my grandparents were reading about the war, a hundred years ago, over the summer and fall of 1917. And I was curious to see what coverage, if any, the Chronicle gave to women engaged in the war effort from their homes in King City.

News of the war in Europe showed up in every issue I read. There were reports of battles, matched with maps to identify the locations. Statements by President Wilson were published, including this one, which Wilson issued to the national army on September 3, 1917, when the first recruits were sent to training camps.

“The eyes of all the world will be upon you because you are in some special sense the soldiers of freedom,” Wilson proclaimed. “Let us set for ourselves a standard so high that it will be a glory to live up to it, and then let us live up to it and add a new laurel to the crown of America. My affectionate confidence goes with you in every battle and every test. God keep and guide you.”

In King City, the drum of patriotism beat through every issue. Lists of local men inducted, and this meant all King City-area men between the ages of 21 and 30, ran alongside stories of the celebrations held to honor these brave “soldier boys.” On September 7, the women of the Presbyterian church provided a “big banquet and program” for a “finer lot of young men seldom, if ever, seen together.” A band played, speeches given and prayers offered before the meal was served in the church basement, decorated with flags and bunting. (I smile at this familiar scene, having enjoyed many dinners prepared by my grandmother and her friends in church basements. I wonder (but probably don’t have to) if they served my favorite: bite-sized white bread sandwiches, no crusts, filled with one ingredient: country butter!)

The Chronicle published, several times, the list of exemptions available to drafted men. But they also ran stories criticizing draft evaders, pacifists, and slackers, the term my grandfather used. The paper followed the story of draft resisters in Oklahoma, where authorities sought the death penalty for treason. And, closer to home, the Chronicle reported on draft fraud, running a statement from the county’s Exemption Board, requesting tips on men trying to get out of the draft. “We will see that the man trying to perpetrate fraud is one of the first sent to the front.”

Grandpa enclosed this poem about the “exempted” in a January letter he sent Grandma:

This clipping had no identifying elements–not the name or author of poem, nor the source.

After the King City “boys” left for training, the Chronicle began publishing letters from the soldiers. The one Grandpa penned on October 16 was published the next week. He reported on the Y.M.C.A, “several here,” and all with nightly entertainment, as well as “good desks to write on,” stationery provided. His letter ended with a P.S. “I forgot to tell you I get the Chronicle, and sure appreciate it, and will look forward for it each week.” The newspaper provided issues, free of charge, to soldiers at training camps and also in France. “Boys, we’re for you, either at home or abroad,” they announced in their August 10 issue.

The newspaper played a central role, it seems, in keeping the home folks informed of the war (training and later, combat) and the soldiers connected to their communities. They reported on people driving, or “auto-ing,” to Funston, some 200 miles away. In the November 2 issue, they ran a column, “To Camp Funston Visitors,” informing readers to only visit on weekends, and only after asking permission to visit, and to carry a “box or basket” for their trash. The column concluded with this useful tip: “If possible, delay your visit until completion of Rest House for women now under construction, where toilet facilities will be provided.”

For women who preferred to stay at home, close to the comforts of home, many responded to the slogan of the American Red Cross, to “Do Your Bit!” More on the great work of King City women, including Grandma and her family, in the next post.