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.

Rebuilding

I want to begin this post with an explanation of my absence. We’ve been fixing up our old house. My thoughts (and sometimes my laptop) disappeared into the dust and chaos that disturbed our lives for weeks. Grandpa would have understood. I remembered these old photographs and realized what a metaphor it offered for the thoughts I share below.

My grandparents’ home in Effingham, Kansas, 1952.

In 1952, Grandpa and Grandma fixed up this house in Effingham, Kansas. It’s the house I associate with them and all the many wonderful days I spent there. Next to Grandpa is a workman, and on his other side, my mother, Grandma with me as a baby, and, in front, my brother and sister. At the time, my grandparents ran a lumber yard. They knew their way around construction. They knew how to fix things up.

These were the kind of skills they needed in 1919, after Grandpa came back from war. Their wartime romance was falling apart and, I suspect, they didn’t have the tools they needed to repair it, at least not initially. In my last post, I introduced Stanley Brown as one possible cause for the tension. Here, I want to explore another, namely Grandpa’s need to make sense of his war experience. He wasn’t the same man who had left this small town 17 months earlier. My grandparents couldn’t build a life together, I think, until Grandpa rebuilt his own. He did that work, in part, by going public with his stories of war.

Grandpa returned to King City on April 9, 1919, arriving unannounced. “I don’t want the people to make a fool of me at the train,” he wrote Grandma in a letter dated April 5. He succeeded in staying under the radar, but only for a short week.

On Friday, April 18, word spread through King City that Maurice Sealy—one of Grandpa’s war buddies—was arriving on the evening train. A band assembled at the station. Rufus Limpp, a prominent businessman, arrived in his “big truck” (so named by the newspaper) and drove Sealy through cheering crowds to the reception up town. Judge Sullinger was providing welcoming remarks when someone interrupted him, pointing to Grandpa in the crowd.

This young man came forward and was invited to take his place on the truck that he, too, might be given a recognition even if a little late. Then three hearty cheers were given for the returned heroes. . . The talks by the returned soldier boys were listened to with marked attention and interest. We hope to hear from them again. King City Chronicle, April 25, 1919, p l.

That impromptu talk was the first of several Grandpa gave that spring and summer. On May 2, after the morning train delivered “professor” Finley, a high school teacher, the ritual repeated itself, with the band playing patriotic songs and Rufus Limpp providing transportation in his “big truck” to the site of the reception, this time the auditorium of the high school. Returning soldiers Finley, Ferris Keys, Paul Turner, and Grandpa were all invited to speak. After the others declined, Grandpa took the stage and stole the show.

Thos. Alderson made a splendid and much appreciated talk, giving quite an outline of his war experiences, and it was listened to very attentively. He told the story so interestingly that we wish thousands could have heard it. Chronicle, May 9, 1919, p 1.

As the “presiding officer” at the 4th of July festivities, Grandpa spoke on behalf of the soldiers in attendance. “Thomas Alderson always pleases his audience and he did so again on this occasion.” Chronicle, July 4, 1919, p. l.

I sense from these newspaper accounts that Grandpa enjoyed telling his war stories to the people he knew around town. He also–and perhaps unwittingly–participated in government efforts to get these same people to pay war debts. In May, for example, he agreed to give a talk at “Victory Day,” a fund-raising event for the fifth and final Liberty Loan drive. Here’s an ad for that campaign. Grandpa’s name appears, lower left, on the list of “reported wounded.”

Chronicle, April 18, 1919, p. 3.

I try to picture my grandfather as a small-town celebrity. Did he enjoy that attention? It’s hard to say, but maybe he did. I wonder, though, if he really liked being cast as a hero. How did he respond to the patriotic language used in this ad?

Sixty thousand Americans died in this war. The bravest and the best we had. They gave all they had for their country. Our country. They gave it gladly. It is our sacred duty to see that these dead shall not have died in vain. We must carry on the task they left for us. We must pay our share of the cost of Victory. Their share is paid.

More certain to me is Grandpa’s affection for the men he served along in battle. On June 4, he went to Kansas City to attend what the Chronicle called the “great home-coming welcome and reception” for members of the 89^th Division. Grandpa wrote about this trip in the one surviving letter I have from this time.

Kansas City, Mo

Sat morn

My Dear Inis, I know you think I am mean the way I am staying away, and I kinda think so myself, I intended coming home today but they talked me in the notion of staying over until Mon as my co will be here then with the 356th Inf. I am not doing much running around just taking it easy, am going to the ball game this afternoon. I hope it has dried up at home by now, or by the time I get there. I stay in St. Joe Wed night and Thurs. Saw Lieut. Carson on the street was glad to see him, also heard that Harry Carder was in the states. Well I think I will be home Mon or Tues and I will try and get down and fuss with you as I believe you were feeling that way when I talked to you Wed, from town.

so I close with Love

Tom.

This letter suggests to me that Grandma felt over-looked. She wanted “fussing,” Grandpa’s word for paying her some attention. While Grandpa was making sense of his war experience through speeches and reunions, I imagine Grandma was sorting out her own feelings, including her expectation that they would been engaged by now.

One day, or maybe over a couple of days, those feelings came back to her in an unexpected and haunting way. In the mail, she received two letters she had written Grandpa in February, when he was still in France. Those letters, which I posted on March 9, 2019, had gone to France and then come back to Camp Funston, Kansas, in search of Grandpa. He never read these letters, but now she would, again.

Two letters came back to Grandma, one (above) postmarked June 20, from Junction City (Camp Funston) and the second (below), postmarked on reverse, June 19, also from Funston.

Grandma wrote in one about her friends’ happiness when a boyfriend or husband returned. “Believe me it is one happy one I’ll be when you come home too.” She wrote about how busy she was with her mother away. “But any way I like it, the experience I’m getting.” Grandma was ready to welcome Grandpa home, and start housekeeping. That’s how I understand these passages.

In the other letter, written just two days later, she referred to something Grandpa had written.

February 16, 1919 letter Grandma sent to Grandpa, returned mid-June.

In your letter you spoke about taking a sleigh ride or that a Ford wouldn’t be bad. Well so far as that is concerned it wouldn’t make any difference how we were going just so it was you I was with, or whether we were going any place at all.

She folded the letters and slipped them back in the envelopes. She put them in the box with all the others, tied with a string. Did she feel sad at these memories, so sweet, so certain? Or did anger cloud her feelings at a time she felt he was pushing her away? In less than two weeks, on July 3, Grandpa would make what he later described as “the mistake of my life.” The damage would take months to repair, and require tools to understand how the war had changed them, as individuals, and changed the kind of  future they dreamed of building, together.

Photo by Charlene Reichert.

Broken Hearts, Shattered Dreams

Not long after Grandpa returned to King City, on April 9, 1919, he and Grandma had a falling out. This surprised me. The letters they exchanged over the spring, just weeks before his return, were filled with a shared dream, it seemed, of settling down. In time they did make a life together, but it would take nearly ten months—from April, 1919, to January, 1920—to break and repair their wartime romance.

Daddy with Grandma, 1977, on a vacation in Wisconsin.

Many years later, about the time this photograph was taken, Grandma cranked a piece of paper into her portable typewriter and began recording her memories. Grandpa had died–in 1967–and I imagine my father thought it was time for Grandma to fix her life story in print. I pulled out the transcript to see if she wrote about Grandpa’s return.

She did recall Grandpa’s discharge from Camp Grant, and how he didn’t let them know when he’d be home. Her recollection matches Grandpa’s, who wrote in one of his last letters that he didn’t want people to “make a fool of me” when his train came in.

When he reached King City he called me, rented a horse and buggy and came out to our house for dinner. I went home with him for a few days. We dated only a few times when we had ‘a little tiff’ and he went his, and I went mine.

She gave no details on the nature of their quarrel. What could have gone so wrong? I only have two clues.

The first clue is a name I’ve shared on this blog: Stanley Brown. Like Grandpa, he had been drafted for service in Missouri (in Madison, which lies to the east of King City), trained at Camp Funston, and sent to France, where a war injury placed him in the same convalescent facility as Grandpa. It was there, in a hospital complex that served thousands of American soldiers, that the two men first met and discovered that each had the same picture of Grandma tucked in their wallets.

I found a notice in the King City Chronicle, dated August 1, 1919, that mentions a visit by Stanley Brown to King City. In the clipping shown here, the names of Mr. and Mrs. Lucian Frank are those of Grandma’s uncle and aunt (Aunt Susie being the sister of Grandma’s father).

King City Chronicle, 1 August 1919, p. 3.

Grandma vividly recalled a summer visit with her aunt and uncle, one that apparently started before this August event reported in the newspaper.

Early that summer Uncle Dot Franks were up from Madison. They insisted that Mary, me and Dorothy and Sidney go home with them for a two weeks vacation, and they would bring us back. What was supposed to be two weeks lasted most all summer. What a time we had, for they were fine hosts. (. . .) Aunt Susie was also good at seeing that everyone had a date. She didn’t have to worry about me for I began dating a boy I had met there before—Stanley Brown.

Had Stanley Brown crowded into her friendship with Grandpa? Maybe. It’s possible, too, that Grandpa’s war experience had introduced new, unexpected elements into their relationship. He was injured, tired, burdened now with helping his 72-year-old father run a farm. Maybe he was restless, too, “like a bird out of a cage,” the term he used to describe soldiers coming home from France.

Without knowing what caused my grandparents’ quarrel, I think it’s fair to imagine it came along the frayed edges of expectations. The dreams they held during the war, the ones that sustained them over the long months, didn’t materialize at the time of their reunion. The war had changed both the dreams and the dreamers.

That second clue as to what caused the tiff? That’s the subject of my next post.

Adding Insult to Injury

The year ended on a sour note for Grandpa. Out on a walk one afternoon with his buddy, Tom Wright, both recuperating from battle injuries at the Mesves Hospital Center in the Loire Valley, they ran into a man named Stanley Brown.

Undated photo, probably near Camp Funston, 1917-18. Grandpa is standing next to Wright.

Tom Wright, a fellow from Co C that is here with me and I went over to see Wayne yesterday afternoon and on our road back stopped at the Canteen to get some candy. The line was real long so we decided to come back without it. And just as we were starting, there was a nice looking fellow saw the 356 on my cap and says, “Say” what co are you out of? So I told him. After talking a few minutes with him he says do you know Tom Alderson in that co? I laughed and then said this is him you are talking to. He then stuck out his hand and says, this is Stanley Brown.

Like Grandpa, Stanley Brown had been recruited for service in Missouri (Madison, county of Monroe), trained at Camp Funston, and deployed as part of the 356th Infantry, 89th Division (Company E). Also like Grandpa, Stanley Brown had an interest in my grandmother. In a letter Grandpa wrote on December 29, he recounted how he “was showing him a picture of yours . . .

December 29, 1918 letter to Grandma.

I was showing him a picture of yours that I have in the back of my watch, and he pulled out his pocket book and showed me the same picture. So Wright has been teasing me all day about it.

My grandfather was a proud man. I’m pretty sure he didn’t like the teasing, and pretty sure he didn’t like the surprise.

A couple of weeks later, on January 6, 1919, Grandpa reported that Stanley Brown had undergone another operation, “A piece of dead bone taken out of his leg, is what a boy was telling me.” Then he admitted, “I have been laying off going up to see him.” That’s the last time Grandpa wrote about Stanley Brown.

This story might end on the wards of the Mesves Hospital Center, Grandpa’s feelings hurt. But that seems unfair to my grandmother.

Undated photo of my grandmother as a young woman.

Pulling out the lens to see the many women on the home front–charged with letter-writing and knitting and purchasing Liberty Bonds and keeping up the spirits of their soldier boys, as they kept up their own lives and livelihoods–it’s not hard to imagine the emotional burden they carried during the long months of separation from the men sent off to a distant war.

Consider the slow pace of the mail, which took weeks (months) to find its way to the battlefield and back home. After Grandpa was wounded, his mail was sent first to his company before being routed back to the hospital, a journey that didn’t always result in delivery. (More on that in a later post.) So, it was difficult to stay in touch, and perhaps difficult to maintain a friendship.

And then there’s the Midwestern farming culture of Grandma’s family, one that expected young women to marry and have children and set up a farmstead of their own. Were young women like Grandma expected to put their lives on hold, to wait for men to return, some injured, others dead?

In Grandma’s case–and here I struggle to find a word that gathers up what I picture as her family’s concerns and expectations, perhaps even pressure, to maintain a sensible course in her life at this time. Maybe they counseled her to keep open her options. Or maybe Grandma had questions about Grandpa, whom she met just before he set off for training. In any case, it was her family (and his) who set up introductions. That’s how she came to know Grandpa, through his Aunt Ettie (Hale). And Stanley Brown came into her life when her Aunt Susie (Dykes) Frank, who lived in Madison, introduced them there.

Why did Grandma write to these two men, and why did she give them each the same photo to carry with them into battle? I don’t know. Nor do I know the intentions of Stanley Brown, only that he was more than a wartime pen pal. He would stay in the picture of my grandparents’ sometimes bumpy romance in the months ahead.

 

Christmas with Grandpa

Postcard sent to Grandma, December 1918.

Christmas brings back lots of memories for me. Today, I’ll remember three memorable Christmases that feature my grandfather–1918, 1943, and 1960.

 

Christmas 1918, France

Grandpa spent Christmas at a hospital south of Paris, recovering from the injury he sustained in battle, just days before the Armistice. Although he couldn’t identify the location, other than “some place in France,” most likely he recuperated at the Mesves Hospital Center, in the Loire Valley. The clue to his location can be found on the other side of this Christmas card. The number 798, stamped in the upper right corner, is the APO (Army Post Office) for village of Mesves-sur-Loire, a detail explained to me by a researcher at the National World War 1 Museum and Memorial (Kansas City). (1) Hospital buildings stretched between the two small villages of Mesves and Bulcy. In November 1918, more than 20,000 American soldiers were hospitalized in this area. Grandpa scribbled a short note on the card:

Dec 26

Just a word to let you know I had a Merry Xmas and am feeling fine am still in the Hospital will write soon.

Lovingly,

Tom

On December 23, Grandpa sent a letter to his parents. I found it printed in the King City Chronicle, February 7, 1919. Mail from France usually took 4 – 6 weeks to arrive.

Some Place in France.

Dec. 23, 1918.

Dear Folks:

I am still in the hospital but am just like a well man, feeling fine, have plenty to eat and sleep good. I am working in the diet kitchen about six hours a day, and that is just enough to make it interesting for me.

I think I will go over to the town tomorrow, as we boys have all pitched in and are going to buy the two nurses in our ward a present, as they are awfully nice and are working hard to make Xmas pleasant for us. We have our ward all decorated and are going to have a Xmas tree. The Red Cross is working hard getting ready for Xmas. I saw what they were fixing. This afternoon they are taking a pair of new socks and filling them with nuts, candy and cigarettes for each soldier.

I don’t think I will be able to get my package from you as my mail will go to the Company and they are so far off.

In fact, Grandpa didn’t receive any mail for months. All letters and packages went to his “official” address, to the location of the remaining members of his Company C, 356th Infantry, 89th Division. Most, he would learn, were in Germany, along the Rhine, as part of the Army of Occupation.

But even without incoming mail, Grandpa kept writing and managed to send one small gift to Grandma–a silk-embroidered postcard. These cards were especially popular during the war. (2) Some were hand-embroidered on a mesh support (here, the area of the flowers), others by machine. Some had only embroidery and others, like this one, featured a pocket to tuck in a card and/or a handkerchief (this one is too small to be anything other than a suggestion of a usable handkerchief). After being embroidered, the piece went to a print shop in Paris to be attached to a cardboard frame that served as a postcard, with a mailing address on the back. Grandpa chose to put this one in an envelope, postmarked December 12, 1918.

On the back of the small card, he wrote, “Dec 10. Dear Inis. How are you? I am getting along fine but still in the Hospital. As usual it is raining today. Hoping this reaches you O.K. Lovingly, Tom”

Grandpa reported on the festivities of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in a December 29, 1918, letter to Grandma, which included “we had a splendid Xmas” . . .

Portion of letter he wrote on December 29, 1918.

We had a splendid Christmas had a tree and we decorated the ward so things had a real Xmas spirit. About nine o’clock a bunch of nurses mixed with a few male Voices went through all the wards singing Xmas carols which was very nice. Then after that the Red Cross workers went through and put out the stockings, which were filled with nuts, candy and cigarettes, and after we had our Santa Claus and giving the presents to the nurses and our ward surgeon which we boys bought, we sang a few songs and went to bed.

Then the next day we had a turkey dinner, then in the afternoon we were given candy, nuts, apples, oranges and white grapes. Then that night we had a Minstrel show in the Recreation Hall put on by a bunch of engineers (3) and they were good.

I carried a fellow that was crippled over on my back to see the show.

Christmas 1943: Nortonville, Kansas and King City, Missouri

Grandpa and Grandma were living in Nortonville, Kansas in 1943. They may have had Christmas there with my father, home from college (University of Kansas). There’s a better chance they celebrated the holiday with their families in Missouri. In any case, Grandma and Daddy had some fun at Grandpa’s expense. I know about this joke because  the Associated Press circulated the story on their wire. And I know about that because Grandma’s sister, my great Aunt Mattie, contacted the AP with what she considered a funny Christmas prank.

My great Aunt Mattie glued clippings of her published newspaper stories in a scrapbook. She carefully annotated each one.

What Aunt Mattie hadn’t imagined (couldn’t have imagined) was the appearance of the article in a newspaper in Springfield, Missouri. That’s where a World War 1 buddy of Grandpa’s, a man named Clifford Melton (Ozark, Missouri), saw it.

From Aunt Mattie’s scrapbook. She taught English and journalism at Northwest Missouri College (now Northwest Missouri State University).

Christmas 1960: Lawrence, Kansas

Christmas memories from my childhood include my grandparents, who would load up their car (or pickup truck) in Effingham, Kansas, and drive to our home in Lawrence.

Christmas in Lawrence, Kansas, 1960. My first bike, from Grandma and Grandpa.

Christmas Eve that year, if my memory is true, I checked out the presents under the tree and didn’t see much for me. As we opened gifts on Christmas day, I went to bed a bit concerned. But that mood changed in the morning when I saw what Grandpa and Grandma had brought–a bicycle named the Pink Lady. The frame was pink. Shiny fenders framed whitewall tires. A little medallion at the front featured the “pink lady.” I was eight that Christmas, maybe a bit young for a big bike. Mother recalls that Grandpa thought I was ready for a bike, as my older brother and sister already had theirs. He and Daddy assembled it, but not properly. It landed in the bike shop not long after Christmas! But the Pink Lady saw many good years of service. I still have her.

Older, but still fine, the Pink Lady mostly stays in the garage. Occasionally we go out for a spin.

Merry Christmas! I hope the holiday is filled with your own fond memories of family!

 

NOTES:

(1) The National World War 1 Museum and Memorial has been so helpful to me. https://www.theworldwar.org

(2) I like the overview of the silk embroidered postcards at this site from the Netherlands. Click on each picture and learn more: https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-digital-exhibition/index.php/silk-embroidered-postcards

(3) By engineers, I presume he means men serving at the Mesves complex as construction and repair specialists, men who had done important work at the front in creating and maintaining roads, rail lines, water supplies and mechanical equipment.

 

November 3: Wounded in Action

November 3, 1918. Sunday morning. 5:30 am. Grandpa and the members of Company “C”, 356^thInfantry, 89^thDivision, prepared to advance on German troops. From historical accounts of the division, I place him in an area roughly 60 miles east and slightly north of Reims, between the northern edges of the forested area called the Barricourt Heights and the small villages known as Le Champy Bas and Le Champy Haut. (1)

The Germans had long held this part of France and knew how to take advantage of the dense woods (for traps and hiding spots for snipers) and the hills (to follow the enemy) and the open fields (to pick off advancing troops).

That morning, on November 3, the American infantry troops set out with extra supplies for what the army expected to be heavy fighting: “two bandoleers of small arms ammunition, one automatic rifle clip or the equivalent number of cartridges, two hand grenades, two rifle grenades and one white panel.” (2) They followed behind the artillery, whose deadly shells added a smoky haze to the foggy, wintry morning. Advance, always march forward, they knew. Use a compass, as needed. Stay with your group. If a comrade falls, leave him. Don’t give the enemy an inch.

Major General Charles P. Summerall, in a daily briefing, explained.

The best way to safeguard the wounded is to push ahead and defeat the enemy. Pitiful examples have occurred in the present offensive wherein units have allowed their strength to be weakened by details for carrying wounded and in the face of a counter attack have been driven back, leaving their wounded to die. To halt plays the enemy’s game, since he is fighting a defensive action with machine guns and artillery. To halt means losses. (3)

On that November day—one hundred years ago today, one of those machine guns fired at my grandfather. He fell to the ground. The only information I have on the nature of that battle and his injury appears in a letter he wrote six weeks later.

Letter written December 12, 1918. The second page includes the section shown above.

My arm don’t bother me a great deal only is weak. But there is a good cause as I had a gash about five inches long cut to the bone just above my wrist which cut a leader [tendon], and a bullet through the muscle of my arm which cut an artery, which almost bled me to death before got off the field. We were in the front wave going over the top at this time and the Germans had a large number of machine guns just about three hundred yards ahead of us. And they were sure using them. Ha. Ha.

Historical accounts describe the advance by the 356th Infantry as coming under “severe fire from the woods in front and from the village of Le Champy Haut.” (4) Grandpa told Grandma, in a letter from November 28, that “our whole bunch was hit hard.”

I’ll never know who saved my grandfather, or how long he lay on that field, nearly bleeding to death by his own account. Was he carried off? Did an ambulance transport him, over muddy, rutted roads, to safety and care?

In an earlier post, I noted the levels of care established during World War 1. It was a  system that saved the lives of men like my grandfather. Medical personnel were stationed in trenches, to evaluate injuries. Advanced dressing stations, 400 yards away from the fighting, to stabilize bleeding. Field hospitals, 1 ½ miles away, for emergency operations. Evacuation hospitals, 8 – 13 miles away, for more serious operations. Base hospitals, 23-28 miles away, for convalescence and physical therapy. (5)

Grandpa nearly came through the war without injury. His luck ran out that November day, so close to the official armistice. People tell me that he was lucky because he received medical attention and survived. But it’s also true that his luck was scarred by a wound that would never fully heal.

Notes

(1) English, George H. History of the 89th Division, U.S.A. War Society of the 89th Division, 1920, pp. 196-200. To explore the November battles, visit the online map collection of the Library of Congress, especially the map of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, day by day, noted by Major General Charles P. Summerall. You should be able to enlarge sections, and when you do, follow the 89th: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g5831s.ct004281/?r=0.115,0.528,0.473,0.199,0

(2) English, p. 171.

(3) English, p. 168.

(4) English, p. 199.

(5) National WW1 Museum and Memorial, exhibition notes.