Talking Spirits III
Scripts for a Forest Hill
Cemetery Tour
by
Callen Harty
[Clara Proudfit was a civic and community leader in
Madison. She was involved in many
organizations to assist the war effort and stayed involved in many civic
organizations after the war.]
CLARA: I
wasn’t from here originally. I was
raised in Indianapolis, a similar kind of city with similar values. I only moved here after marrying my husband,
Andrew Proudfit, but I carved a niche for myself after my arrival. I became involved in the community and its
many civic organizations. I was a
charter member of Madison Woman’s Club, an organizer of the Madison Orchestral
Association, a member of the Juvenile Protection Association, Colonial Dames,
Daughters of the American Revolution.
You get the idea. I also helped
organize the Public Opinion Committee, which sought to regulate dance halls and
public dances. I was an involved
citizen of my adopted community.
During
the war I was a member of the organizations that allowed women to assist the
war effort at home, most notably the Woman’s Committee of the Dane County
Council of Defense, the local branch of the National Council, and as the chair
of the Speaker’s Bureau. The
centralization of women’s assistance to the war had never been done on such a
massive scale before. Our involvement
in the effort was immediate and very well organized. In fact, as in the case of some food conservation efforts, we
were ahead of the government. It was simply a matter of turning to the
already existing women’s clubs the country over.
If
you look back at the way women helped the Civil War effort we had come a long
way. While they did much, we did more,
in a more concentrated, studious, and far less haphazard manner. We demanded that the time we donated was for
real purposes, that the completion of our tasks would be vital to the war
effort. We did not want to be left
solely with mundane tasks such as putting together fruit baskets to cheer up
the men. While those things were
kindnesses that could improve morale, they were not material to help bring the
war to a successful conclusion. We
wanted to be as much a part of the war as the men, as the soldiers on the front
line. In fact, more women went to the
battlefield as nurses and in other capacities than at any time previous in our
history.
Often,
we were not supported as we should have been.
Sometimes businessmen would not assist us as they didn’t believe we had
much to offer. Generally, after we had
proved ourselves, they would come to see the importance of our work and then
decide to help us. However, many of us
gave not only of our time, but of our possessions. We opened our houses to meetings, provided rides with our cars,
and paid for our own correspondence. We
did what we had to do.
Wisconsin
was one of the states recognized for the work its women did in the war
effort. This was particularly pleasing
to us given that the state had been considered suspect for the anti-war
position of its senator and the heavily German population of many parts of the
state. Once the war started, however,
we were as loyal as any Americans and we were as committed to doing our part
for victory as anyone.
Women
on the home front had many tasks, many ways to contribute to the war. We grew gardens, canned food for the troops,
did what we could to conserve food at home.
We worked for the Red Cross and for other relief organizations, the work
that was more typically associated with women in wartime. It was hard, hard work, but we knew that
somewhere in a trench in France or elsewhere a young man lay in need of the
bandages being wrapped back home.
Another way that we women contributed was to go to work in factories,
stores, in virtually every industry imaginable. Never before had there been such an influx of women workers in
our nation.
For
myself I did my share with the Defense Council and I was also comfortable with
the Speaker’s Bureau. Speakers were
asked to go to groups all over the county to talk to them about
Americanization, food conservation—an issue that was important to me—Liberty
Loans, the Red Cross, and more. Its
purpose was to stir patriotism and a zeal for doing whatever was possible to
help the men overseas come home and the country to win the war.
I
especially enjoyed talking with children about saving food. They were willing students, many of whom had
relatives on the front. We would talk
to them about being little soldiers themselves by doing their part. One phrase in particular they always got a kick
out of—“I’ll lick my plate and that will help to lick the kaiser.” Generally they understood the lessons and
the necessity of wasting nothing.
When
the Armistice finally came most of us were exhausted. Many of the women’s organizations collapsed because the women
were tired and there seemed to be nothing left for them to do. A few of them managed to stay together long
enough to organize homecoming dinners or the like, but most simply
collapsed. Our Defense Council
reorganized in 1919 and became the Dane County Community League, in order to
carry on some of the good work we had begun during the war.
Mostly,
though, we had done our job for the time that it was needed and most women were
content to go back to their former lives, exhausted, thankful, and ready to
respond again if ever necessary. We
simply prayed to God above that it never would be.
[Marion Cranefield was a University of Wisconsin
student when he answered the call to duty in 1917. He was killed in action in France. The Madison V. F. W. post was named in his honor.]
MARION: When the Great War started I was still a young man, a student at the University of Wisconsin. I had graduated from old Central High School in 1914, about the time the war in Europe was starting. At that time there were many vocal opponents to American involvement in the war. As a country, our tendency was toward isolationism. As a result, the United States took quite some time before committing itself to action. In fact, President Wilson had been re-elected primarily because he had kept us out of the conflict. But by the time we finally declared war most of the nation was behind it.
I enlisted as a private on
August 5, 1917, a little more than half way through the years of my college
education. Sometimes, for the
betterment of everyone, a person has to put his own ambitions on hold and
commit himself to something more honorable.
After the sinking of the Lusitania, after our country had declared war,
there was no choice. A young man like
myself could do nothing but volunteer and serve as honorably as possible. Don’t get me wrong. Those of us who enlisted wanted to do so, to
defend our country and the world. I
think also that none of us at the time believed it could take long to finish
off the Germans once America got involved.
And then, of course, there was the invincibility of youth. I knew I would go and kill others and face
no possible harm from the enemy. It was
the Gerries who would suffer, not us.
Many Madison boys enlisted
and many were killed and wounded. The
suffering was immense. It was a new
kind of war. We were very intensively
trained in the new warfare, which included such things as trench occupation,
grenades and bayonet training. Bayonets
were nothing new, of course, but grenades, mustard gas and the like were
definitely new methods as far as the conduct of warfare was concerned. Since the Civil War fifty years previous, we
had become fully industrialized. It
meant that warfare had come into the mechanical age as well, with modern
weapons and modern methods of using them.
Military strategists have throughout history devised new and efficient
means of killing other men. But there
has never been a weapon devised that wasn’t eventually shared by all. If someone could invent a lasting peace it
would do all of us a lot of good.
The war was meant to be the
means to that end. We believed we were
fighting for peace. It was the war to
end all wars and we believed it would.
Nothing so massive, so all encompassing, had ever occurred before. Certainly its conclusion would contribute
enormously to a lasting and permanent peace.
It was peace for which we
fought. In a war all anyone thinks of
is peace. It is only natural. World leaders dream of treaties. Front line soldiers dream of reunions with
their loved ones. Those back home dream
of a return to the way things were.
During wartime you
contemplate the meanings of war and peace and even of the simple act of
living. But before you can come to any
reasonable answers the cold night air of a foreign land slaps you in the face. You wake up and realize that regardless of
the larger questions and answers you are in a foreign land, you’re hungry and
tired. So you wait, wondering when your
first engagement will take place, when you may have to use your gun or bayonet
for the first time in a real battle, when you may be facing someone on the
opposite side who is also facing that moment for the first time. Peace comes to you not as sleep or comfort,
but as an idealized notion, an abstraction that is not something in and of
itself, but simply the absence of war.
There is not a man in war
who is not afraid of dying. Let no man
tell you otherwise. Courage comes from
ignorance of danger. Bravery comes from
denial of the odds. When you don’t know
how dangerous a situation is there can be no contemplation of the
consequences. No man would willingly
charge up a hill to face inevitable death if he truly thought that death was
inevitable, unless, as in moments of true courage and selflessness, he realizes
that his act, while resulting in his own death, will ultimately save countless
others from suffering.
I honestly don’t know what I
thought of when I led my platoon on a charge during the Battle of Grimpettes
Woods. I led them up such an inevitable
hill. I imagine I believed that we
could do nothing but repel the German forces and take the woods. After all, we were on the side of God and
justice. We were Americans of the Iron
Jaw Division. We were young and
invincible.
At some point on that charge
we were met with a barrage of machine gun fire from the Germans who were
entrenched there. As a soldier you
always know that it is possible that you may die in a war, but there is no
sense of the reality of that when your adrenaline is pumping, when you are
surrounded by your own men, when you are charging forward with rifles and
bayonets ready and God’s sun shining down on you. There is no thought of death under a blue sky. It is only when that blue sky is covered
with smoke in myriad shades of gray, and blood, as deep and red as red can get,
is pulsing from your body, only then that you accept the inevitability of
death’s shadow.
Nearing the top of the hill
on my final charge up it I was faced with that inevitability and had to accept
it. I walk now in that shadow with you.
[Col. Joseph Jackson grew up in Madison and moved to
North Dakota as a young man, where he learned the cattle business. During the war he organized the last
American mounted cavalry unit. He had a
wife and six children. His descendants
still live in the Madison area.]
JOSEPH: I’m
a horseman. I’ve always been a
horseman. I was even a horseman during
the Great War, one of the last of the cavalry.
You’re probably a little surprised.
Normally when you think of the First World War you don’t think of
horses. Instead, you think of the first
air war, grenades, chemicals and poisons, the first use of tanks,
submarines. You think of all the
weapons that resulted from the mechanization that first began with the dawn of
the industrial revolution. Horses, the
great symbol of the American West, didn’t seem to fit it. They seemed to be from an earlier time;
maybe even a more innocent time.
But
in reality horses were still a primary mode of transportation early in this
century. Automobiles had not yet taken
full hold of the nation’s imagination.
Most any person would be likelier to own a number of horses than a
single automobile. Farmers would be far
likelier to plow their land with a horse-drawn plow than with a tractor. It would take another decade after the war
before these things became efficient and inexpensive enough to be available for
the general populace.
Still,
when your country is in a war the military and government leaders are going to
spend vast amounts of money on developing even newer and deadlier means of
combat. People like me become remnants
of a past that has no place in a modern world.
I guess it was part of my lot in life to be always behind the times, a
relic of a bygone era. It was too
inefficient, too costly to use a mounted cavalry in a modern war. Horses and mules were used most effectively
as draft animals, to pull munitions and equipment. By the middle of the century they weren’t used at all.
I
grew up around horses. My father had
one, Dan, which I loved dearly. It was
always a treat for me when Father allowed me to sit on his bare back on the
vacant lot by the barn. My love of
horses started there in my childhood and stayed with me my whole life. My respect for soldiers started in
childhood, too, as I heard stories of my father’s service in the Civil
War. He became a hero to me through
those stories.
I had many heroes in
childhood and in later life—my father, my grandfather, Dr. Joseph Hobbins, my
father-in-law, Mr. Morris—these men all helped shape me into a respectable
man. Mr. Morris, my wife’s father, was
always a man of honor, integrity, and moral courage. Most of what I am, as far as that which is good, I owe to him for
the example he gave to me with his ideals and character. I won’t blame him for my many shortcomings.
Throughout my life I would always ask, “What would Father Morris do?” when
faced with a moral dilemma or difficult situation.
He helped me decide to move
west as a young man. Many were moving
from Wisconsin to the Dakotas at the time.
I am forever grateful for his advice. Though I was homesick at first I soon settled in and learned most
of what I know about horses by working as a cowpuncher in the west. I learned roping, wrangling, and such. It was where I really learned how to handle
a horse. And I learned that horses are
very much like people. A horse is the
most ornery in the morning as if, like most of us, he doesn’t want to wake up
from a peaceful sleep or have to start in on work. The time spent there taught me a great deal about working and
about life in general.
Unlike my decision to move
west my decision to enter the military was an easy one. When I saw the events unfolding I knew that
for my country’s sake, for my wife and children’s sake, I could not stand idly
by. While it was the most difficult
thing in my life, to leave behind Julia and our six children, it was
necessary. I felt it was my duty to
enlist and to serve, and so I volunteered to serve in any capacity that the
army might see fit to use me. I suppose
it was due to my ranching experience that they commissioned me and put me in
the Remount Service. I soon learned
that the Remount Service had to do with animal supply and transport and that a
remount was a horse fit for military service.
I didn’t know that
before. I learned in the army the same
way I had in Dakota, through experience.
You get thrown from a horse you hopefully learn a lesson. Like my ranching days I made mistakes in the
army that helped me learn. Once I sat
on my mount and talked to a general and colonel for an hour and only found out
later that it was a breech of etiquette to have stayed atop the horse while
talking. It turned out they didn’t
mind. Another time I disobeyed a
major’s order because I knew that we needed a rail spur. When he called me in to ask about it and I
gave him my reasons for doing so he told me that the army needed more men like
me. Through many such mistakes I never
once was taken to task. I think it was
because I got things done. I got good
horses for us. I recruited good men to
ride and train them.
I have to relate one other
story from camp. A very heavy set
general had asked me to get him the best horse available, which I managed to
procure from a woman off the base. We
had a review scheduled and in front of 30,000 men marched horses, mules, caissons,
ambulances, and more without incident.
At least it was without incident until the general rode in on that
beautiful chestnut horse I had gotten for him.
All eyes were turned to the general and his incredible horse when the
horse suddenly reared up and dumped all 250 pounds of the man to the
ground. I had never seen the horse
behave in such a way and of course was very embarrassed. I called him later to apologize and he told
me that it had been his fault. He
hadn’t been satisfied to look like a million dollars—he wanted to look like a
billion—so he stuck the horse in the side with his spur and the horse reacted.
It was not too long after
that incident that our 91st Division was called to service in
Europe. We built a depot in France very
similar to the one we had left near Tacoma, Washington. We supplied many thousands of horses and
mules to the troops. Not many think of
it, but there were thousands of animal casualties in the war as well as
human. Animal ambulances would
constantly bring in dying or wounded animals.
Some had been gassed, blinded, shot.
But they were the best our country had to offer. They never complained. They became grizzled veterans as much as the
men. Those that died we buried,
eventually numbering in the thousands, and the smell of that military
veterinary hospital stayed in my nostrils for years. Fortunately the veterinary division was eventually split off from
the Remount Service.
We did our best, throughout
the time we were there, to supply the A.E.F. with the finest horses and mules
that we could. Like our remount depot
back home the depot in France had to be built practically from scratch. We had to do whatever we could to make it
happen. I had to get some things done
by simply going ahead without approval and then hope that there would be no
consequences. But we were in a war, and
I knew that a war sometimes requires action and damn the consequences.
I made it through the war
okay, as did most of my men. My own
mount, Red, made it through as well.
But as I mentioned before, thousands of our horses still lie buried in
France, forgotten veterans of the Great War.
They did their part as courageously as most men and suffered losses for
their country in great numbers. Some
were wounded several times and sent back to the front each time. Their service record was impressive and I am
proud of my part in that. I wanted you
to know about it. I wanted you to know
what some of our animal friends sacrificed in the war effort for us. As a horseman I’d like them to be remembered
for what they gave to the cause of democracy.
[Robert La Follete was a Wisconsin governor just after the turn of the century. He was a United States Senator during World War I, and was one of only six Senators to vote against U. S. involvement in the war. He was a member of the Progressive Party and ran as its Presidential candidate in 1924. His wife, Belle, was the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin law school. She was active in many progressive causes throughout her life, including the struggle for peace. She was one of the founders of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, on organization that is still active to this day.]
BELLE: What
is freedom if one’s conscience is not free?
ROBERT: How
can one represent the people if their voices are silenced?
BELLE: What
kind of peace is achieved through war?
ROBERT: The
first World War, the war to end all wars, forced Belle and I to face such
questions. We were both Progressives
and we were both against the war, but our opposition was dangerous.
BELLE: We
paid the price for it.
ROBERT:
Being one of only a handful of Senators to vote against American
involvement in the war I was vilified at the time. Students at the University burned me in effigy. The Senate censured me. It wasn’t until after the war that I was
cleared of all disloyalty charges, but in the meantime my name had been dragged
through the mud.
BELLE: Bob
and I stood our ground. Neither one of
us had ever been the type of person to back down from an unpopular position.
ROBERT: I
believed that discussion of the issues was a healthy thing for the nation,
especially on such a monumental issue as war.
But there were those who wanted to quell all possible disagreement, even
all discussion.
BELLE: They
believed the President should be backed without questioning whether he may be
right or wrong.
ROBERT: “For
myself I have never subscribed to that doctrine and never shall . . . it is
infinitely more important for us to speak and vote our convictions when the
question is one of peace or war, certain to involve the lives and fortunes of
many of our people and, it may be, the destiny of all of them and of the
civilized world as well.” Besides, I
also believed that I had a mandate from the people of Wisconsin, whom I had
been elected to represent.
BELLE: He
had been elected in 1916 with the largest plurality in Wisconsin history.
ROBERT: I
believed that meant the people stood behind my well-known opposition to the
war. It seemed to be a mandate. I received 15,000 telegrams on the subject
and nine out of ten of them were supportive of my stand.
BELLE: By
the time war was actually declared Bob and his position on the war proved to be
very unpopular back home and around the country.
ROBERT: It
seemed we were always a little out of step with the majority. We were mostly ahead of the majority in
advancing the causes of our citizens, as far as I could tell. In fact, Belle was so far ahead of the rest
of the country that she stood for Negro rights as far back as the 1880’s. She was an early suffragist. She was a beacon for the cause of peace.
BELLE: We
were partners, from the moment we married.
ROBERT:
Though she laughed when I asked her to marry me.
BELLE: I
must admit I did, but only because I believed him to be joking. I never knew when to take him seriously back
then. But as you can see, I did
ultimately agree.
ROBERT: With
some reservations. One was that she
asked if we could take the word “obey” out of our vows. That was in 1881, mind you. A century later most women are still
agreeing to obey their husbands when they marry.
BELLE: I
must admit, though, that despite that, Bob usually got his way in things.
ROBERT: Yes,
but in most things we were of the same opinion. She was “my best and wisest counselor, altogether the brainiest
member of the family.” She was the
first woman to graduate from the UW law school, that’s how brainy she was. I helped her, she helped me. From the moment we met we worked very well
together.
BELLE: “We
two have kept together because . . . well, because our minds and hearts
matched.”
ROBERT: Very
well. We shared the same interests, the
same humor, the same politics.
BELLE: “It
has always seemed to me very natural that women and men of the same family
should have somewhat similar views on political questions.” How else could they be compatible as mates?
ROBERT:
Peace was the foremost of those shared political views during that
period. As I mentioned, I voted against
the war. Belle actively organized women
around the world in opposition to it.
She was one of the founders and charter members of the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom.
She remained with it when many women left the organization due to the
war hysteria. At the same time as we
were urging peace, laws were passed against those who spoke out against the war
effort.
BELLE:
Simply questioning the necessity of war could be enough to have you
arrested, though the government did tend to focus more on the Socialists and
Anarchists.
ROBERT: One
man in Madison was sentenced to 17 months in jail for stating his honest belief
that the war was being used to benefit the capitalists and industrialists,
which history has proved it was. It was
simply his opinion. What kind of
freedom of speech does not allow for an honest opinion to be uttered? What kind of freedom of speech does not
allow for honest discourse and debate on a topic of such importance to the
nation? We should always let all of our
voices be heard and let the people listen and decide. The majority would likely have decided to support the war in the
end, but the opposing voices should not have been silenced.
BELLE: There
must be a better way to settle differences.
As a people we should not tolerate war.
It is an idea from the dark ages.
ROBERT: “We
are all cavemen under the surface I guess.”
BELLE:
Slowly we have moved from those dark ages to enlightenment. Change comes about ever so slowly. One needs to be patient. As a Progressive I believe that you need to
keep fighting until your cause, whatever that cause might be, is won. It will be won if it is just. I believe that wholeheartedly.
ROBERT:
She’s more stubborn than I.
BELLE: I
would call it patient. There are ways
to win your battles. I first used these
theories in the fight for peace, but they can work as well for any cause. “You must organize locally. You must get down to the people; everywhere
there should be little groups formed so that individuals may study and think
and talk about these questions—and then you must let the government know the
will of the people.” Ultimately, change
can come from the people on a grass roots level, though it may take time.
ROBERT: She
is more patient than I, and she is right.
BELLE: For
example, it took years for one old sailor, with Bob’s help, to end the unjust
servitude of sailors. It took many
years for suffrage to win out. It took
decades to end the disenfranchisement of the Negro. The fight for peace is not yet won.
ROBERT: A
just cause will always be just.
BELLE: And
will ultimately prevail. We believe
that peace will yet come. We must keep
the beacon lit. We must continue our
vigilant efforts in that cause.
DUANE BOWMAN:
[Duane Bowman was a civic leader in Madison. He was the owner of Bowman’s Dairy and was
involved in many businesses and organizations.
He was particularly interested in baseball and was involved in a number
of teams, including the Milwaukee Braves.
He was a veteran of the first World War.]
DUANE: While I was a veteran of World War I, it really was a small part of my entire life. I was a man of many interests—the dairy that my father and I operated, involvement in the city I loved, baseball—these were things that occupied my mind. Outside of family and friends baseball, I think, may have been my first love in life.
Prior
to the World War America had not necessarily been considered a world
power. We were isolationists who preferred
to keep to ourselves and let the rest of the world move along as it may. I think it was this attitude that allowed us
to develop such a game as baseball, with its slow, leisurely pace, without a
care in the world, a game which failed to notice the comings and goings all
around it. If international
disagreements could be settled with a game of baseball we would all be better
off, and America would have been a power much sooner.
It
is the ultimate game, where one individual can be pitted against an entire team
of others and can win a game for his team.
Think of that. A game is zero to
zero, there is no one on base, it’s the last of the ninth and down to the last
batter. That batter can win the game
with one swing of the bat. Now he
couldn’t have done it if his teammates hadn’t all helped by holding the other
team scoreless for nine innings. He
couldn’t have done it by playing the whole game by himself. It does take a team to play, though an
individual can emerge a hero.
War
is like that also. It is comprised of
thousands of individuals, any one of whom at any time can deal a crushing blow
to the enemy. But without working in
concert with his fellow soldiers he could not be in such a position that that
would happen. He needs his soldier
teammates to help get him into position to become that hero.
I
found this same philosophy evident in all my endeavors in life, from the dairy
I worked with my father to all the civic organizations to which I belonged—the
Lions and Elks, the Madison Club, American Legion—to my far-flung business
dealings. I was a director of M G &
E, the Bank of Oregon, First Federal, and others. The philosophy of baseball helped me in all of those things.
My first lessons in teamwork
were learned by playing baseball as a young man. That is the value of sports, and lessons learned young are not
soon forgotten. I saw the absolute
importance of my lessons in teamwork by observing the necessity of working
together during the war; the war, of course, being of far greater consequence
than anything our society had faced up to that time. Baseball, as much as I always loved it, seemed trivial next to
the life and death matters of a World War.
A young man coming home from war is a far wearier man than one coming to
home plate for sport. Wins and losses
in sport mean nothing when compared to the importance of winning the war and
protecting the world we knew.
And we did it. We won that war, with teamwork from all the
other American soldiers and sailors and marines, with teamwork from all the
nations joined together in a common cause.
After the war I went back to
the dairy to work again with my father.
In the early 1920’s I left again for the allure of baseball. For three years I managed to make a bit of a
living playing minor league ball. It
was three years I would not have traded for anything. After that I went back to business for good and over the years
built up a sizable fortune.
But despite settling into
the business world I never forgot my love of baseball. In the 1940’s I was associated with the
Blues, Madison’s baseball team. In the
early 50’s I was President of the Wisconsin State Baseball League. I was also a director of the Milwaukee
Braves, Wisconsin’s professional baseball team. These activities were vastly important to me. As I mentioned I think baseball may have
been the first love of my life. If I
had had the opportunity, or been just a little bit stronger or better, I think
I would have pursued a major league career.
As it was I ran my dairy and
led it to sales in the millions with a hundred employees. I think one of my greatest contributions to
Madison was not my service in World War I, or even my years of dedication to
baseball or civic organizations. I
think it may have been the milking parlor we installed on Fish Hatchery Road in
1952. We put in a glass wall and as a
result, a couple hundred people a day would come by and watch the cows being
milked. These were people, especially
children, who otherwise may have never seen a cow in their lives, despite living
in the dairy state. It allowed them to
get close to that and I was always proud of it, as proud as I was of anything
else in my life.
Well, thank you for
listening to me. I’d like to stay a bit
longer and chat with you some more, but it is October and the season is winding
down. Now, for most that means summer
is almost over. As you may have
guessed, for me that means baseball will soon be over. The season is winding down, but I’m sure
there’s a game today, and I want to go watch it. I want to hear the crack of the bat one last time before the
season winds to its close.
[William Middleton served as a doctor during both
world wars. He was dean of the
University of Wisconsin medical school for twenty years. In 1955 he was named Chief Medical Director
of the Veterans Administration. His
wife, Maude, served as a nurse during the war.]
WILLIAM:
When I was a child I had a natural dislike of violence and war. I think it’s only natural in children.
But there was family history
with which to contend. There had not
been a single American war in which some one of my ancestors did not
participate. I was in both World
Wars. My wife, Maude—Mother Hazel, I
used to call her—was a nurse in World War I and I was a doctor. The one exception to our long line of family
service was my grandfather, Shainline, after whom I had been given my middle
name, William Shainline Middleton. He
had been rejected for service in the War Between the States, a tremendous
disappointment to him.
Carrying
on the family tradition I left for duty on May 24, 1917. I wished that Grandfather Shainline “might
see me in uniform. Not that I would be
glorified but that his greatest disappointment might be less felt.” I knew he would have beamed with pride at
the sight of his grandson stepping forward for the cause of his country, though
my first service was actually for the British Expeditionary Forces.
Before
departing for Europe I left a note for Mother Hazel. I let her know my true feelings for her, things I hadn’t been
fully able to express before that. Then
I told her if I died whom she should marry, and I asked her to name her
firstborn son Anthony Wayne, after the Revolutionary War general, a distant
relative of mine. Shortly thereafter I
sailed for England. Oh, and I told her
only to open the letter if I did not return.
My
war experiences were not typical, just as later Maude’s were not. Being a doctor or, as in her case, a nurse,
one doesn’t see the same kind of action that most of the boys see. I tried, believe me, and each time my
appeals were rejected. I attempted to
become an aviator and to volunteer on the front lines in a combat unit. Each time my request was rejected due to my
medical experience. They didn’t want to
lose a trained doctor to the danger of the front.
There was one period in
particular, my last assignment with the British before being reassigned to the
AEF, American Expeditionary Forces, that “I felt that I was really contributing
to the war effort. It’s very much like
the situation that exists in sports. A
man can be on the sidelines, or a spectator, and have a feeling that the closer
he gets to the heat of the action, the more involved he is, and emotionally the
more a part of the affair.”
Though I don’t have many
typical war stories, there were some interesting stories from my time
there. For example, I served with
Alexander Fleming, a staff member at the same base hospital, but never met
him. Had I known that he would later
discover penicillin I may have made a point to introduce myself. I guess you never know what a man may
become. I did meet Harvey Cushing, the
famed neurosurgeon and author. He was a
bit of pompous man. I would rather have
met Fleming.
Of
course, not everyone I met became famous.
There was one Alabama boy I recall, who badly needed a blood transfusion
and happened to share my blood type. I
gladly gave of my own blood to help save him.
When he discovered the source the next day he asked to be bled, as he
didn’t “want any damn Yankee blood” in him.
I didn’t have time to concern myself with it. Most of the time we had to make do like that, transfusing our own
blood, applying simple dressings, temporary splints. In large part it was first aid more than medicine.
Later,
when I was with a surgical unit, the work took on greater importance. I was responsible for more seriously wounded
men. I can’t accurately describe the
horror of the sights of some of those patients. I can’t describe the atrocities for you. Doctors and nurses are used to seeing
horrible pain and suffering, but nothing in civilian life compares to the
devastation of war.
What
stand out in my recollections of the war are certain odd images. For example I recall once after seeing the
fiery explosions of German artillery in a nearby city I noticed “the contrast
of the peace of poppy decked fields a few miles back of the line.” When peace finally came I don’t remember if
I jumped up and down, hugged anyone or anything. I only know “the most vivid recollection I have of that day was
the appearance of lights, fires lit by the soldiers at many points over the
countryside, and lights on the automobiles and in the houses.” You see, for years, everything had to be
dark at night due to the bombings.
Again it was the contrast that struck me and stayed with me.
It
was not the horror I brought home, but the hope.
[Mina Togstad was the mother of the last Madisonian
killed in World War I. Her son, Morris,
died on the battlefield less than 24 hours before the Armistice was
signed. She stayed active in veterans’
organizations after the war.]
(A Gold Star Mother sings the first verse and chorus
of Keep the Homes Fires Burning, then
Mina speaks.)
MINA: I
think that every woman with an adult child wanted to display a service flag
with at least one blue star during the war.
It was a matter of pride. But
the gold star was a different matter.
Yes, there was pride in it too, but also a deep and unforgiving
sorrow. Oh, yes, those with the gold
star were marked as being somehow special, and they were treated accordingly,
but at the most horrible price a mother could pay.
You
may not know this, but during the World War there were things called service
flags which families flew proudly at their homes or places of business. The flags had on them a deep blue star for
each child who was serving his or her country in the military. They didn’t have to be on the front lines or
even in Europe. They simply had to
serve. The blue star meant that a child
was fulfilling a patriotic duty as a member of the armed forces of this
country, so the families flew those flags proudly, announcing to all the world
that their sons or daughters were doing their part, that the family was giving
of itself for the cause. Flags with
blue stars flew on countless houses in countless neighborhoods across this
great land.
But
no one wanted the gold, the greatest source of pride.
I
hesitate to talk about it now. I became
a Gold Star Mother the day before the Armistice. What that signified, in its simplest terms, was that my son died
in the war. When a man died in the war
the deep blue star on the service flag was stitched over with a gold one, in
such a way as to entirely cover the blue, and the woman inside that house
became a Gold Star Mother. For
mourning, she would wear a black armband with a gilt star for each family
member who had died in service.
It seemed odd how we Gold
Star Mothers received the most respect and attention, how the community made us
feel like queens of the world. Yet, not
one of us would hesitate to trade our gold stars to have our children
back. I had considerable pride in
knowing that my son died in valiant service to his country. Both the American and French governments
commended him for his bravery in leading his men on that fateful day. The local Disabled American Veterans’ post
was named for him. He was a hero. When he died I became the mother of a
hero. And, knowing that his service
helped us keep the world safe for democracy, I would see him do it again.
Still, night after night God
heard me ask unanswerable questions.
Why Morris? Why the day before
it ended? Was it really necessary then? It seemed so pointless. Don’t misunderstand me. I am a woman of faith. I question God because I believe in Him,
even when I don’t understand the way He moves.
I am also a patriotic woman. I
am proud of what my son did, and I count my blessings. I am grateful that he died quickly instead
of suffering. I am thankful that I have
letters from him and photographs. But I
am a mother first, and there is no sorrow deeper than the sorrow of a mother
who has lost a child. There is a hole,
a pit, an empty spot within your heart and soul, a void that cannot be filled
by anything. It is bottomless. You can’t even begin to fill it.
You
try, of course. You involve yourself in
organizations like the Gold Star Mothers, the Disabled American Veterans, and
such. You speak to people about your
son. You do everything you can do to
keep his memory alive because without that memory there is no meaning. I remember that thirteen years after he died
I was asked to plant a blue spruce at Capitol Park in honor of the American
boys who died in the war. So I went,
thirteen years to the hour after his death.
It’s
one of the reasons I’m talking to you now.
I want you to know that my son died for his country. I want you to remember him. You can’t know
how my heart warmed just at the sight of my baby’s face. You will never know his smile or his
laughter as a little boy. You won’t
know the things he did that pleased me as a young man. You can’t know how it felt to receive
letters from him on the front lines.
But you will know that he did his part.
You will know that he was a man of honor and valor.
I guess you will also know that if you see a woman
flying or wearing a gold star that she has suffered. I imagine you will treat her with a greater respect. What you might want to do is ask her about
her son or daughter. Let her talk with
you as I have. Let her keep her child’s
memory alive for the world and for herself by sharing something of their life
with you. She will regale you with
stories, from childhood all the way through to the end. It may not fill the emptiness in her heart,
but it will make her child alive again for a moment. It will make her alive again.
Like me, she will thank you for listening with such respect. Thank you for listening.
[Harrison Garner was the longest-serving Madison
city council person in history. He
served on numerous important committees and belonged to several local civic
organizations. During World War I he
was involved in the first-ever gas unit.]
HARRISON:
Most Madisonians knew me as the longest-serving City Councilman in
Madison history. I served for 35
consecutive years before retiring and headed up many committees while
serving. I always believed that it was
the duty of citizens in this country to give service back to their
community. “Sometimes it was a little
boring, but I was interested in city government."
So that is how most remember
me, as an old dinosaur who had been around since before the beginning of time,
and who seemed like he would never leave.
I think I may have been the only person in city history to have had a
park named in his honor while still alive.
Either they thought I was never going to go, or they were trying to
encourage me to do so, I never knew which.
It was an honor for me, a
poor young man from southwestern Wisconsin.
I had come a long way—perhaps not as long as some—but a long way
nonetheless. “I was born in a
three-room log cabin on a small farm about three miles southeast of
Lancaster. Abraham Lincoln and I
started out with equal opportunities.
Somewhere along the path of life I must have taken the wrong turn.”
But really, I had many
interesting experiences in my life and held many interesting and important
positions. For example, I participated
in the Mexican border campaign in 1916 and in World War I. During World War II, I was connected with
the Selective Service system and was named a Colonel at that time. After the Second World War I oversaw the
veteran housing loan program and I was also involved in the Wisconsin Reserve
Officers’ Association and the American Legion.
This doesn’t take into account all of my civilian experiences, though I
almost made the army my career.
During the First World War I
had a most unusual job. At least it was
unusual, or novel, for that time. When
I first entered the service I was immediately placed in the engineering
corps. Prior to the war I had done a
lot of work in the field, “a very poorly paid profession in those days.” I had surveyed large parts of western
Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. I was
both a civil and hydraulic engineer, so it was natural that the military would
put me in with other engineers.
But
at the end of June, 1918, orders were received from the War Department in
Washington that removed ten of the student officers, myself included, from the
Engineer Reserve Corps, and placed us as students in the new Gas Service. We also went from reserve to regular army
automatically. Within a week we were
required to report to Virginia for Gas Defense Training and we lost “our
engineer insignia and get a new one composed of two crossed shells in the center
of which [was] a dragon.”
Now,
I didn’t know anything more about gas warfare than anyone else at the time,
which was very little. The Germans had
started using it first, with great success.
The United States and its allies had to defend against it and then, of
course, develop it as a weapon of their own.
That was about the extent of my knowledge.
I immediately wrote my
girlie back home—that was what I called her, and she called me boy—and I asked
her to send me copies of recent Saturday Evening Post articles on gas
warfare. I knew there had been at least
five or six between May and the time of my appointment. I told her, “I can’t get these without going
to Washington and the only way to get there is to swim up the Potomac.” She already thought I was all wet, so she
sent them along. I studied them before
my gas training started. I wanted to
know as much as I could about my upcoming appointment.
Little did I think that I would end up being on the ground floor of a whole new branch of the army. It seemed to me that there might be opportunities for promotion and to do very well, and my girlie was excited by that, too. She supported me in everything I did. In return for her and the army’s faith in me I committed to my new job with all my heart.
But aside from personal
matters, what I did in the Gas Corps was
an incredibly important job. After my
training I was sent to Michigan as the Chief Gas Officer for a new division
there. It was my duty to oversee the
training of 40,000 men in gas warfare, in how to protect themselves from the
chemicals, as well as how to use them as weapons. It was vital information for them, and everything had to be
thought out. The training was comprised
of 15 hours of lectures, questions, demonstrations, and tests. We would not let the men pass if we felt they
did not have a full understanding of the subject at hand.
The
training covered all aspects of gas warfare, from the various types of
chemicals used—and there were many besides the mustard gas you hear so much
about—to the protection of horses, dogs, and pigeons. Believe it or not there were specially designed masks, even for
the pigeons. Oddly, the colored men
couldn’t wear the British style SBR masks that the U. S. Army ordered due to
the nose clip. They had to wear a
flimsier French version that was banned for all but the Negroes, those who were
unconscious, and those with head wounds, who could not wear the better mask.
The men’s training continued
with protection of equipment, breath holding exercises, first aid, how to clean
up after an attack, and more. It ended
with two tests and a night march while wearing respirators. Men did things like play baseball games
while wearing the masks, to get used to how they felt. It was vital training for all enlisted
men. I was comfortable in my role as a
teacher during the war, and proud of my contribution. I saw the importance of the lessons and how thorough we
were. We not only explained what to do, but why. It was critical that
the men saw the purpose of everything we taught them. Without it our country would have suffered far more casualties in
the war. I felt that my work led to the
salvation and ultimate freedom of many lives.
Maybe Old Abe and I didn’t deviate from the paths of our original cabins
as much as I had thought.
[Morris Togstad was a young soldier who was killed on
the last day of the war. The Disabled
American Veterans’ post in Madison was named in his honor. When his body was transferred from France to
Forest Hill Cemetery, some 3,000 citizens showed up to pay last respects to
him.]
MORRIS: Was
there ever a more mournful tune, a more beautiful tribute than the simple notes
and exquisite brass of Taps? It always moved me, though I heard it too
often. An elegy in sound. It was played for me when I was brought back
home to Madison from France. Some 3,000
people came to wish me well.
I
think a lot of people felt they knew me because I had been a sports writer and
political journalist in Madison before leaving for the front. Even after going to Europe, I continued to
write letters, which the papers published.
People read what I wrote and came to know me like a brother or
friend. For those who didn’t often hear
from loved ones in Europe it was perhaps a way for them to understand how their
brothers, sons, and friends were feeling and what they were experiencing. They followed my travels as if I were a
member of their own family.
I
left Wisconsin first for Camp MacArthur at Waco, Texas, a camp that I believe
was not as well-suited to military training as the one we had left at
home. I believed the rain and cold of
Camp Douglas was more an advantage to training than a disadvantage. The weather was too good in Texas. Waco was nice, a good clean city, with
mostly pleasant, kind people. However,
I must admit my anger at a few of the shopkeepers who had raised their prices
to take advantage of the situation of war.
It was not as if the soldiers would not be spending their money in the
town, so I hardly felt it was right or fair to raise prices simply due to the soldiers’
presence at the nearby camp. It was the
lowliest form of robbery and, unfortunately, the thing I remember most about
the place.
Many
of Madison’s doughboys, like myself, sailed across the Atlantic on the
Leviathan, which had formerly been called the Vaterland. There were thousands of men on the ship, and
it was an incredibly fast voyage, taking only twelve days to cross the vast
Atlantic expanse. I was anxious to engage
the enemy from the moment I joined the military to the time the ship landed in
Europe. It was the reason thousands
upon thousands of us young men had enlisted in the army. All of us only wanted to meet the enemy and
defeat him in battle. Landing in
England made us feel that we were close to getting that opportunity.
Still,
we had to continue waiting after arriving in France. There was some time for repose.
There was time for satisfying hunger.
Even though the French cooks made delicious breads and soups, I must
have had the hunger of many men within me, as all my extra francs were spent on
even more rations. You could buy many
things, strawberries and other delicacies, from the peasants. The surprise to everyone was that the wine
was not as good as we had been led to believe.
For myself, a malted milk would have been appreciated more.
It didn’t matter. I thought more of food than drink. I ate as if eating for an entire
company. But I needed the energy from
all the food I ate. Every day after
arriving in Europe we drilled all day, ten hours straight, with school at night. When we marched we had to carry packs, guns,
and ammunition as we hiked along and moved to our different positions. The war was a war of position, a matter of
moving troops to the right place to have an advantage. That meant a great deal of hiking with many
pounds of equipment.
A
couple of other things made life even more miserable and impossible. None of us minded the hard life of a
soldier, because we saw a greater purpose in it. But there were irritants beyond the scope of war. For instance, it continuously rained upon
us. Once I asked a Frenchman if there
was a dry season and when it would come.
He responded with, “It began this morning and probably will be over this
afternoon.” But far worse than the
weather was the rats and other pests. Cooties
I could at least tolerate, but the rats were huge, and did their best to keep
us awake at night with all their scurrying about in the darkness. All night long we could hear their tiny feet
scratching the tin roofs above us as they did their best to deprive us of
sleep. Some were as large as cats and
some of the men practiced with their bayonets on the horrible things.
At
the same time there were comforts. It
was not all bad. One thing that helped us
immensely was the newspapers. For many
of the soldiers receiving hometown newspapers was the next best thing to being
home. It helped you remember your town
and its people and kept you in touch. I
found it interesting that we read the papers to stay informed about everything
on the home front, while those at home read the papers to stay informed about
the war. Our lives, military and
civilian, were meeting on those pages in a way that they could not
otherwise. For both the soldiers and
their loved ones the newspapers were a comfort throughout the war, though
occasionally for everyone the news was not good.
For
example, just as those same hometown papers were reporting the armistice I was
reported as missing. Who would think
that as the enemy was preparing to surrender they would also continue to
fight? Who would imagine that you could
serve for so long, that the war could be winding down to its last hours, but
that less than one day before its end would be your last? What mother or father could live with that
dark irony for the rest of their lives?
One could imagine that for the remainder of their days they would think
repeatedly, just one more day, one more day.
There were many mothers with the same lament. 51 other men were buried the same day from the same
engagement. 1,500 others died from the
same engagement. How many others
perished in last second battles elsewhere I cannot hazard to even guess.
There
was one small blessing near the end. I
had sent a letter home earlier in the day.
In it I had told my mother that though the armistice was near the shells
were still exploding, the guns were still firing, and the armistice seemed as
far away as the day I had joined the military.
I told her I felt how close the peace was, but it felt like I was still
too far to reach it. Then, a little
later in the day, around 3:00, on that last day of the war, enemy shellfire
managed to reach me. Several were
killed and several were wounded by it.
It happened so fast. I barely
had time to call to my friend, Cliff Bewick, who had been badly wounded by the
same shell. “Cliff—Cliff—I”—that was
all I could manage to utter. He crawled
to my side, shrapnel in his knee, and I tried again, “Cliff—I”—and again that
was all I could say. It was over in
less then two minutes.
One could hope that a mother
might be comforted by the lack of suffering and by receiving a letter written
on the same day. One could hope that a
father might be proud that his son died in the service of his country and for
the good of humanity. One could hope,
perhaps, that both fellow soldiers and fellow countrymen might whisper a simple
prayer and shed at least one tear for a young soldier lost less than one day
away from coming home.
I
think those hopes were realized. Some
3,000 people greeted me when I finally made it home. Taps was played, a mournful tune, an elegy in sound, and yes, oh
yes, some tears were shed.
(He salutes; a soldier plays Taps.)