History Snoopin': Forgotten Voices of WWI

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23 December 2019

Christmas in France - The Great War

Christmas in France

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, December 23rd 2019

For the first time in nearly six months, Corporal Ted Fish wasn’t jolted awake by the bugler’s cornet, blasting out another early-morning rendition of Reveille. It was the U.S. Army’s way of giving the men a gift on Christmas Day.

The 22-year-old farmer’s son from Phoenix had

just returned from a four-day pass, where he had journeyed through the countryside of WWI France. “Of course, we all wanted to go to the center of fashions (Paris),” he said in a letter to his parents, “but we were forbidden.”

From Gien, near his assignment along the La Lorie River, he randomly chose the town of Angers as his destination, some 190 miles away by train.

“I had to change cars twice and had to stay all night at a little town halfway to my destination,” he said.

Back on the rails, early the next morning, Ted arrived in Angers four hours later. He strolled through the town and had lunch at a small cafe. There he realized that there wasn’t much to see or do. He decided to hop back on the train and continue on to the larger town of Nantes. The town had double the population and was only 55 miles farther east.

“I left at 3 p.m., and after the slowest ride I ever took, I reached Nantes at 10:30 that night; too late, because everything closes at 9 p.m.”

By the time he managed to find a hotel he was beat, and that, combined with his long journey, kept him in bed until 10:30 the next morning.

“There were many interesting things to see,” he said, “but I was getting homesick, so I left for

Christmas in France - 1917

camp. I arrived late on Christmas Eve and was rewarded by finding your Christmas package waiting for me.”

Even before the first selective service draft registration in June 1917, Ted had seen an advertisement looking for “forest men,” and urging them to join the U.S. Army’s 10th Engineers Forestry Regiment.

“The men will work behind the lines in France,” it said, “and will be made up of woodsmen and sawmill workers. Its duties will be to convert the French forest into railroad ties, bridge timbers, pilings, telephone poles and lumber.”

Ted signed up and left Southern Oregon by train July 11, 1917. Less than a month later he was aboard a ship on his way to France.

After breakfast on Christmas morning, and surrounded by his friends, Ted opened the Christmas package his parents had sent.

“I was greeted with, ‘Ho, you lucky devil,’ on all sides,” he said. “Canned tobacco, you see, is unknown here. I’m certainly thankful for such thoughtful parents; even though I’ve only been using this filthy weed for two months.”

War duties were on hold for a morning baseball game followed by a Christmas feast in the afternoon.

“We all lined up 15 minutes before time and, when the mess call whistle blew, a cheer went up that startled all the natives. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, pie, nuts, figs, dates and coffee.”

While the men waited in line, Lt. Walter Blair, the regiment’s leader, walked by carrying an overloaded dinner plate. He looked at the men with a big grin and shouted, “Who said war is hell?”

Ted returned home in January 1919, married, and raised a family. He died in 1967 and is buried in Medford’s Siskiyou Memorial Park.

“Well I hope you all had a fine Christmas,” he said, “and I know you did. Must close now and write thank-you letters to all those who remembered me. Merry Christmas to all.”

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “Forgotten Voices of WWI.” Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.

27 May 2019

History Snoopin': Memorial Day--1919

Memorial Day, 1919

by Bill Miller for the Mail Tribune

Monday, May 27th 2019

“This is not a day of the glorification of war, but a solemn recognition of the supreme sacrifice and terrible cost of war.”

The Rev. Myron Boozer, pastor of Medford Presbyterian Church, had begun his Memorial Day address on a day the Mail Tribune called “the most notable Memorial Day observance and the most deeply sentimental in its significance in the history of Medford.”

Friday, May 30, 1919, marked the first Memorial Day observance since the Nov. 11 Armistice of the previous year. Although the Armistice had ended fighting during WWI, it would still be almost another month before the Treaty of Versailles would formally end the “war to end war.”

The day began in Library Park (today’s Alba Park) with school children, Red Cross women dressed in white uniforms, and hundreds of residents gathering in front of the Carnegie Library. They circled around a floral column dedicated to the 40 local men who had died in the name of freedom and democracy.

Nearly 20 feet high, the patriotic memorial was fashioned from thousands of local flowers by the women of the Red Cross. Red roses were woven into its base, white roses in its middle, and clusters of blue “snakeheads” (Fritillaria) that had been hand-gathered from Jackson County forests, were molded into a tall shaft at its top. Attached on all sides were the names of the area’s fallen soldiers.

A bugle sounded and Junior Red Cross members, accompanied by the high school band, sang “Truth Is Marching On,” while tossing bouquets of red roses at the memorial’s base.

Major Robert Clancy, a Medford physician, gave a patriotic address from the library step, and then led the group in the singing of “America.”

A rifle squad from the local National Guard fired a salute to the war dead, followed by a bugler blowing “Taps.”

The gathering formed a column that included veterans of previous wars and was led by surviving veterans of the Civil War. They marched down Main Street to the bridge across Bear Creek, following the martial tunes played by the high school band.

On the bridge, to honor fallen Marines and Navy fighters, the Junior Red Cross and the women of the Red Cross dropped roses down to the waters of the creek, all the while singing, “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean.”

After the National Guard’s rifle squad fired another salute, the crowd entered the nearby Page Theater for a presentation dedicated to those who had died in the Civil War. (The Page Theater was destroyed in a 1923 fire. A corner of the five-story building stood where a parking lot on the south side of Main Street stands today.)

The Rev. Boozer stood on a stage patriotically decorated with flags, bunting and flowers. His address was called the most important of the day.

“We are face to face with problems that war can never solve,” he said. “The blood of our heroic dead cries aloud from every field of battle, and from every grave on home or foreign soil; for the recruiting of a vast army of great hearts dedicated to the unfinished tasks they have bequeathed to us.”

Memorial Day 1919 ended with flowers lovingly placed on the graves of soldiers and sailors.

Writer Bill Miller is the author of “Forgotten Voices of WWI,” a different look at the war to end war. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com or WilliamMMiller.com.