Just for the fun of it, and because it might be unique, I’m going to write this little history. Not that my life has been so unordinary, but that I have often wondered about my father’s life, of which I know so little, and this might possibly satisfy my son’s curiosity, if he has any.

My father was born in Burnt Cabins, PA, in 1858. He went to work when 9 yrs. Old. He worked on farms, cut tan bark, drove mules on a canal and was in the livery business in Council Bluff, Ia., at the time of Custer’s Massacre.

He went railroading and was working as brakeman on the Coal City branch of the E. J and E Ry, then under construction, when he met my mother, who was Cassie Louise Arter.

They were married in 1889 in Plainfield. They had three children: Ira Milton, born in 1890, Arnold born in 1892 and died in 1894, and myself born in 1894, in Bloomington, IL.

My earliest memories are of living in a house on a hillside in Savanna, Ill. The next are of living on Landau Ave. in Joliet, Ill. I can just remember McKinley running for president and seeing the soldiers leave for the Spanish-American war.

We next moved to a house on East Clinton St (#1518). My memories there consist of falling off a cistern wall, running into a nail with my forehead, putting a piece of lighted punk in with a pocketful of firecrackers, McKinley’s assassination, a flood in 1902, starting to the Ridgewood School. Before I was 6, my brother Ira, running away from home. Mumps a couple of Christmas’. Mother with a bad case of typhoid and dad cutting switches from a tree at the side of the house.

In 1903 we moved again to 807 Sterling Ave. There I began to receive an education in various ways, particularly fighting. Fighting with the Fletchers’, Yates’, Maloneys’, Whalen’s, Iceberg’s, Lindblad’s, Phillips’, Schofield’s, Stutz’s, and others, not to mention the Ryan’s, Broderick’s and Tatro’s.

I was consistently beaten until I fought and whipped two lads, after which I found I could also hand it back and consequently found living easier. Ira was very handy and while he wouldn’t take part, he taught me how to handle my fists.

I early learned how to swim in Hickory Creek, at a swimming hold called Silver Cliff, and spent many summer days in the water, coming home only for meals. My schooling continued at the Ridgewood School and I graduated in 1907, starting at the Joliet High School that fall.

For some time father’s health had been failing, and about 1911, he was forced to quit railroading. In 1910 I decided to quit school and work. I got a job at Stillman’s drugstore as a soda squirt and delivery boy at $4.00 per week. In 1910, I almost lost a hand thru accidental discharge of a shotgun, while hunting rabbits.

When I recovered, Dad got me a job as an office boy at the Rockdale Wire Mills. Not caring for inside work, I apprenticed myself as a machinist at $3.00 per week. After about 6 months of that, Dad heard of an opening for a plumbers apprentice at Barrett Hdw. Co. in Joliet, where I went to work in the fall of 1910. The scale was $4.00 per week the first year, $5 the second, and $7.00 the third. At the end of 3 years I was supposed to take the union and state examinations and on receiving a license and card, I could work the next 2 years as a junior plumber at $2.50 per day the first year and $3 per day the second year.

Ira left home around 1909 for the west, where he met his wife Maud Burleson in San Jose. They had 3 children, Gerald, Helen and Kenneth.

As I said before, Dad had to quit the E.J. and E. in 1911. He tried insurance for a couple years and in 1913, he broke down altogether finding eventually that he had tuberculosis. We sold our home in Ridgewood in the fall of 1912 and moved on Benton St. for the winter. I took my state examination and got my license to do plumbing as a journeyman (1913-fall).

Due to the fact that all my money was needed at home, I couldn’t get the $50.00 necessary for the union. However they agreed to let me pay a small sum weekly. When I had paid in about $25.00 a new agreement was drawn between the union and the masters whereby apprentices were to serve five years. They asked me to serve two more as an apprentice but I quit.

In the spring of 1913 we moved to Plainfield with Uncle John Arter in the house where my mother was born. After quitting Barretts, I found it hard to find work, not doing much the winter of 1913-1914.

In the spring, Dad wanted to go to California, thinking it might help him, so in June we packed up, moving in with Ira on San Carlos St., and then rented a bigger place on Race St.

I could find little to do, aside from working in the fruit. Things at Ira’s didn’t work out well, so dad, on invitation from his brother in Eugene, Or, decided to move there. We stayed a month or so with Uncle Sam and then got a house of our own. The world war had started in August 1914 and things were dead on the coast. During the winter 1914-1915 I worked 2 weeks for the Gas company in Eugene.

The next spring I made a trip down to the homestead of my cousin George Taylor. As a result of that trip I filed on 120 acres adjoining his land and became a homesteader, too. It was mountain land covered with timber, but there was plenty of game and fish. We lived for the most part on deer, salmon, herring, clams and crabs.

A neighbor and good friend Julius Nute located a fallen cedar from which we split enough lumber to build a 3-room house, wood shed, chicken shed, goat shed and toilet. After finishing the house, dad and mother came down bringing with them a milk goat.

I cleared land for a garden, planted fruit trees and started clearing the land. At the end of 3 years I was required to have 1/8th under cultivation.

It was hard, healthy work but still lots of fun for me. When I could I hunted deer, fished and dug clams. Dad slowly got worse and our money began to get very low so I went to work at the Sinslaw River bridge camp of the Southern Pacific Railroad as a dishwasher for five months at $30 and found per month. The money was welcome. At the end of five months I went back to the homestead, which was only 3 miles from the bridge, for the winter. It rained every day from the 15th of October to the 15th of April. It was a hard life for mother, but I think dad enjoyed it.

The following summer I went south to the Umpqua River bridge and got a job shoveling concrete. After about a week I landed a job as chainman with the engineers. I worked all summer at that (1916), until the bridge was completed. It was a large bridge, 12 spans and a draw. Instead of letting me go with other engineers who were discharged, they put me on a tugboat as deckhand. I made several trips out to sea between the Sinclaw, Umpqua and Coos Rivers.

When that was finished, they sent me north to another camp on Lake Tahkenish, where I worked as laborer, kitchen help, chainman and gypsy tender on a derrick. Dad had been getting worse and his doctor advised us to get him to a drier climate. So we decided to sell out and go to Arizona.

We sold out and in February 1917 I got a pass to Maricopa, Arizona. The folks moved to Eugene, Or along about November 1916. I started for Arizona in February, stopping off at Eugene to see the folks, giving them all my money but $10.00. Dad was unable to go to the station with me and the last I ever saw him was sitting sad-faced in that little house in Eugene. Mother went to the station with me, and it was over two years before I saw her again.

I rode day coach to Maricopa, Arizona, stopping off at Palo Alto, CA to see Ira and family. On arrival in Phoenix, AZ, I found myself broke and no job. Having a good watch I put it in pawn.

For $3.00 a week I rented a cot on a porch and immediately set out to look for a job. I found one at plumbing, but it only lasted a week. I got my watch out and sent a little money home. Art Lowry, an old friend of the family and neighbor from E. Clinton St days lived in Phoenix and I had several visits with him and family. Also one or two meals.

After much adversity, I decided to try Tuscon, having just money enough for fare there. Before leaving, I thought I’d look on the board at the employment office again. While standing there a mailman came up to me, and offered me a job in a tea and coffee house, in which he had a partnership. He sent me to his partner, a man by name of LeMaster. He hired me at $9.00 per week, which I considered much better than nothing.

I procured a cot and slept in the back of the store, getting some of my meals there. I sent $7.00 a week to the folks, who had moved down to Ira’s. In March, I quit the job, having promise of a better one in the Verde Valley near Clarkdale. Pawning my watch for the fare I took the Santa Fe to Jerome Junction, and a narrow gauge railroad to Jerome, and then a bus to Clarkdale 5 miles away and 5,000 feet lower. By morning, I was broke again and breakfast-less, and went out to the job.

The United Verde Extension Mining Company was building a railroad about 3 miles to a new smelter site near Cottonwood. I got a job driving 4 mules on a Fresno scraper. After about a week of that, the Chief Engineer came by and I asked him for a job on the survey party. The next day I went to work with the engineers on the smelter site at $90.00 per month. Things looked brighter and the folks moved to Porterville CA, with Dad’s brother Will.

On April 6, 1917, war was declared on the Central Powers. I wanted to go, but knew I couldn’t with the folks depending on me for support. I was studying and getting along real well with my work. In June all the men between 21 and 30 registered for the draft. I registered with the rest but thought nothing of it, as I was exempt.

Toward the last of August, I wrote the folks that I would send them my next paycheck and they could come to Arizona. About the 28th or 29th I received a card from mother asking me when she should ship the few household things we had left. In the same mail I received a card calling me to Prescott for examination for the Army.

I went to Prescott and was examined. I took exemption claim for the folks, but was laughed at. I was called for October 3rd. The folks were heartbroken, but nothing could be done, and on October 3rd I entrained at Prescott for Camp Funston, Kansas with 300 miners, cowboys, Mexicans, Indians and whatnot.

We arrived in Funston about October 6th and were placed in the Depot Brigade, 29th Company. Some time later, I was placed in Company A, 355th Infantry, 89th Division. The training was hard. At first we drilled in denim overalls with wooden guns. Later on we received rifles and uniforms. With our 1st uniforms we thought we were soldiers. The folks continued to try to get me out. I made an allotment to them of $20.00 per month, and took out $10,000 insurance, which cost me $6.60 per month, leaving me $3.40 per month for spending money.

One day along in February 1918 I went out to the drill field with only a small part of the company. On our return at noon, I found the bulk of the company moved to another barracks. On inquiry, I found they were going to Camp Stewart, VA, to join the 3rd division, which was getting ready to sail. I immediately hunted up the Lieutenant in charge of my platoon, and asked why I was staying in Funston. He informed me that I was noncommissioned officer material and would be used to drill the next draft. After objecting strenuously they transferred me also, and put me in charge of the men in the other barracks.

We went a roundabout way to Virginia, through Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and South and North Carolina. On arrival at Stewart, on the edge of Newport News, I was assigned to Company F, 4th Infantry. About a month later I was transferred to Company A. The commander was Captain Truman Smith, and my Lieutenant’s name was Buckner, two of the best.

On April 17th, 1918, we sailed for France on the Madawasca, formerly the German ship Koenig Wilhelm II. That same day I was to learn later my father passed away at Visalia, California. He lies in the Home of Peace Cemetery in Porterville, Ca.

Amid great secrecy we sailed from Newport News, on a journey from which some never came back, and others came back crippled, broken in health and some broken in mind. The first day out we never sighted a ship, but on getting to the deck the next morning, we found our ship surrounded by battleships, destroyers and other convoys.

The trip lasted 14 days and one bright morning we disembarked at St. Nazaire, France. We unloaded and marched to a camp about 6 miles away. After about two weeks at St. Nazaire, we entrained for other parts. As enlisted men we seldom knew where we were going. We were loaded 40 men to a boxcar. They were quite famous, those cars, with a sign painted on each, Hommes-40, Cheveaux8. In English, 40 men-8 horses.

We rode a couple days and nights and one evening unloaded at a town called Bar surAube. We marched in the dark that night to a little town in the Cote D’or. Not being hardened into our heavy packs and equipment made the march pretty hard. We rested 10 minutes every hour, and at the command “halt”, I’d go sound asleep. Toward the end, queer as it may sound, I’d go to sleep on the march, and wake up to find myself still plodding along. We arrived sometime before daylight, and crawled into billets.

I was an acting corporal at the time with seven men under me. My squad was billeted in a hayloft over the front part of a house occupied by a wooden shoemaker and his wife. We were quite curious to know where we were, and an Irishman in my squad said, “Here, I’ve got it written down on this paper. I copied it off a sign on the edge of the village.” The name was Boulangerie, but on looking in my French-English dictionary I found that meant bakery. The name of the town was “Colombey les deux Eglises,” “Colombey of the 2 churches.”

Our intensive training began and I received my corporal’s warrant. I can’t remember all my squad but there was a Chambers, Loberg, Cross, Schlissel, Reilly, Peterson and another jewish guy. We marched out to the edge of town every day except Sunday, and practiced with hand and rifle grenades, bayonets, Chauchat automatic rifles and picks and shovels. About once a week we would march 9 kilometers under full equipment to a rifle range.

My squad was designated an automatic rifle squad. I carried on my person, besides the uniform I wore, a rifle, bayonet and #5 Colt automatic pistol, with belt of 100 rounds rifle and 114 pistol ammunition, 1 pack containing towel, comb, toothbrush, shelter half and pegs and pole, underwear, shirt, blanket, mess kit, condiment can, bacon can and extra pair of shoes.

We were issued French rations, minus the wine and found them very poor. Our drinking water was heavily charged with chlorine, and it wasn’t long before most of us had dysentery. A medical sergeant finally cured me with castor oil. Along about May 20th a card from a cousin reached bringing the first news of dad’s death. I hadn’t heard from the folks since before sailing.

About May 28th, 1918, we were ordered to pack extra uniforms, etc., in our barrack bags along with our personal things. I put in some books, diary, stamps, pictures, etc., and never saw them again.

On May 30th we marched away from Colombey, stopping for the night near a small town called Jusencourt. We left there at 5:30 a.m., May 31st, marched about 9 kilometers and entrained for Chateau Thierry, where the Germans were trying to break thru.

After two days and nights we unloaded at Montmirail, the railhead at that time. We loafed around back of the lines for about eleven days. One day I was sitting on a hillside with a good view up the Marne Valley. From where I sat I could see 4 Allied observation balloons, one of which was nearby. Suddenly the observer jumped out with his chute trailing after him. The ground crew commenced to haul the balloon down. They hadn’t got far when a plucky German flew over, with machine guns and anti-aircraft guns blazing away at him, and shot at the balloon. He missed, banked and came back, sending the balloon down in flames. Then he went up the Marne and got two more, but they got the 4th one down. I admired his nerve.

About June 13th, 1918, we left for the front on Hill 204 to the west of Chateau Thierry. We crossed the Marne of Nogent L’Artaud to La Ferte sous Jouarre. The French had the bridge heavily mined. Sometime after leaving La Ferte we passed an old hospital near which were numerous graves of French and British, marked with crosses: “Mort pour la Patrie” (French) and R.I.P., (British). We realized then that there was another side to the war.

It finally grew dark and we were ordered to proceed in single file, keeping hold of the fellow ahead. We were going through a wood. After getting through the wood we formed again, marching down a road, through a small town at the foot of Hill 204. We came under shell file. A shell came over missing the head of the column in which I was, and lighting in the back. I never knew how many casualties there were, but we did not stop.

We climbed the hill and guided by the French, crossed an open field, another woods, and stopped within pebble-tossing distance of the Germans. We dug in. My squad occupied one hole and after digging up a French cap and overcoat, quit digging.

When it got light again I wandered around looking for souvenirs. To our right lay four dead Germans festering in an open field. I kicked up the head of and Algerian or Morrocan soldier under a hedge still wearing a red fez.

We had a hard-boiled sergeant in A Company whose name escapes me. He was not well liked. The next morning he went out to look at the dead Germans and that spoiled the war for him. As I was ladling out food one morning, a “Jerry” (German to you) let loose a flock of machine gun bullets. This hard sergeant did a perfect dive head first into my squad’s hole. He asked to be broken and assigned to the kitchen. He was-which probably accounted for our trouble with rations.

During the night (each night) my company was detailed to go down the hill and carry up rations for the battalion. The rolling kitchens were back of us about 3 kilometers. It was no fun climbing that hill with heavy cans of food. Being so close to the Germans’ line we were not bothered by shellfire, but when we got back of the line, we received plenty.

I was always detailed to bring up the rear, i.e. to see that none of the men fell out or straggled. The first night in going back to the lines, my half of the company got lost. I was called up by Lt. Buckner and asked if I could find the battalion. I said I could try. It was a pitch-dark night illuminated only by an occasional flare, which on going out left it darker than ever.

Handing my rifle to the Lieutenant, and carrying my pistol, I went into the wood. I found the path and recognized on one side a rotten log with phosphorous glowing from it, and a little farther on some white bandage, things I had subconsciously noted on the way down.

It was so dark I didn’t know whether I was going into the Germans’ lines or our own. Continuous rifle and machine gun fire didn’t help either. I followed the path til I reached a clearing where I stumbled over someone. Jamming the pistol into his belly, I asked, “Who in hell are you.” He quickly informed me he belonged to A Company. I had found the other half of the company. I soon brought up our section.

The days were hot and the nights cold. I’d get so chilly by morning that my hands would go numb. It was a quiet sector until someone would get nervous and fire at nothing. Then both sides would blast away. Trees and thick underbrush separated us from the Jerrys, but by getting close to the ground we could see Jerry’s trench about 10 yards away.

We lost a few men. A corporal called Stuffy Gormer was our first casualty. He was asleep in a trench a few yards away from my hole one night, when a Jerry sent over a rifle grenade. The grenade hit the helmet of a big Serbian who was standing to, bounced off and exploded, tearing the arm and shoulder off of Gormer. He was buried right there.

About 3 a.m., June 18 1918, we were relieved by French and Senegalese. We crossed back via a Ferte and stopped for the night in a woods beyond Nogent. We moved the next day to piece of woods just above a little town named Essises. (Ay-cease). Here we stayed until July 5th. We drilled and after supper Sergeant Larry Doyle and I prowled around looking for wine, tobacco, candy, etc. Walked 20 kilometers one day for a bar of chocolate.

I had learned some French and Larry always took me along as an interpreter. While in this woods, Private Otto Tagge of Grand Island, Nebraska, and I often occupied the same pup tent. On July 4th, thinking it fit to celebrate our national holiday, we bought 18 bottles of Pinard, a sour red wine from some French artillery men. Four of us undertook to drink it. As a result, I got sick and to cap it all, I no sooner crawled in my blankets, then we were asked to pack up.

We did and moved up about 5 kilometers, where they put us to work the next digging trenches five kilometers back of the lines. The French were figuring on another German drive and were digging trenches all the way back to Paris. They didn’t really figure to stop the Germans again, but they figured without thinking of us.

On Saturday July 6th, we moved up a couple more kilometers stopping for the night in some underbrush on the edge of a clearing and under the muzzle of a 6 inch rifle, which banged away a good share of the night. We hacked out places to lay down and had hardly gotten placed, when Jerry shelled the guns.

One piece of high explosive slapped Bill Loberg of my squad on the leg, cutting through the blanket and shelter half he was wrapped in, doing him no damage, although he singed his fingers when he pulled the fragment out.

I slept like a log, regardless of the guns. I woke in the morning in a stub of brush, just ready to break through my skin between my shoulder blades and another in one hip.

The next day we moved into support, stopping in a woods on a hill overlooking the town of Chateau Thierry. Here they cut our meals down to two a day, and we made our first acquaintance with cooties. We were allowed only one canteen of water a day for bathing, shaving and drinking. We pitched our pup tents and dug a trench for shelter in case of shell fire.

Things were very quiet. Just a lull before the storm. Lieutenant Buckner asked me one day how I’d like to go to school and study for a commission. I told him I didn’t know if I had education enough. He said no more. Then one day I was ordered to report to Captain Smith’s dugout. He said “I’m going to send you back to school.” I said “yes sir.” He said “that’s all.” I saluted, about-faced and walked off. About a week later I was ordered to report to the Major, at Battalion headquarters. He asked me a few questions and gave me no information. I soon forgot all about it.

I volunteered to go on a pat roll detail nights and was accepted. We had our headquarters in a wine cellar, under a house in a little town named Nesles (nails) just below the hill where we were camping. Those towns were all evacuated so we had things pretty much to ourselves. We had complete bed in the cellar with pillows and everything. Quite luxurious.

The patrol was divided in 3 parts, under charge of Sergeant Doyle and Lieutenant Buckner. My detail went on one night from 10 till 12, next night 12 till 2, and the next 2 till 4. Then back up the hill to the company. We patrolled the road between Nesles and Etamps where E Company was located. Etamps was on the Marne about 50 feet wide with the Jerrys on the other side.

Things were very quiet and the days and nights were beautiful. The only narrow escape I had was from an Italian sentry of E Company, who almost bayoneted me when I tried to get close enough to give him the password. It was only by drawing up my stomach that made his reach short. I reported him to E Company’s Captain and found a new sentry on my return.

On July 14th, things changed. Lt. Buckner told us to be careful as they expected a barrage about midnight, and my patrol was due to go on then. He was right. At 12 a.m., Hell broke loose. It seemed as though every gun the Jerrys had was trained on Etamps. Being a good soldier I prepared to leave, but after one look outside Sgt. Doyle gave me orders to stay. I didn’t argue with him.

The street was an inferno. A house across the street caught fire and the Germans seemed to use it as a target. We lay on our beds and watched the stone arched roof of the cellar, expecting every minute to see a shell coming through, although if one had, I doubt if we should have known it. It wasn’t long before gas came in and we had to wear our masks. The long awaited German push had begun.

The shelling kept til noon of July 15th, when we crept our and went up the hill to the company. Occasional shells kept bursting but none close. There were a few dead men lying in the town and as we approached our woods, we found two runners, one wrapped in his blanket with a shell through his middle. The other boy named Anderson of A Co., was lying in our path with his head and leg off.

When we reached the company we found it a shambles, several men and officers had been wounded. Capt. Smith, however, had been relieved a few days before and sent back to school as an instructor.

My pup tent which had been pitched in the woods was flat and full of holes. I had some straw in it, and on this I sat down while I changed to a clean suit if underwear and sox, which I had been saving. That was a mistake as I was to find the next day. The straw was impregnated with mustard gas and I raised some beautiful blisters on my southern exposure. The doctor painted the blisters with chloride of lime and after a while they left leaving greenish-yellow scars.

The Germans broke across the Marne to the east of us, but many were killed and captured and the rest driven back. On the 18th of July the Allies started to close in on the sides of the Chateau Thierry salient and at daybreak we crossed the Marne on a pontoon bridge July 21st into Chateau Thierry.

The Jerrys had left the town and consequently we met no resistance. We moved around the east of the town just marking time, and some time in the afternoon we commenced to move to the east along the Marne.

We went through two small towns meeting no resistance until about dusk when we entered Mont St. Pere. I had formed the point with my squad for the company until we neared Mont St. Pere, but we had re-formed and I was with the main body.

We struck Germans in that town, capturing about 20. They were installed in a cellar, in which my squad also took refuge. The Germans were still shelling us. The town was on Jaulgonne Bend where the Germans crossed a week before. There were only two streets in the town and the town was situated between the river and high hills. The layout was about like this: (see sketch below).

At the end of the street coming into town from Chateau Thierry was a bend in the road, with a road leading north up the hill. My squad was ordered during the evening to protect a machine gun, that had been placed on the Jaulgonne road at the east edge of the village. As we approached the turn in the street I could hear a German m.g. firing, and saw 4 or 5 men laying in the street at the turn. The major was talking to a sergeant in chard of a machine gun section. He said “there’s a machine gun in a house at the top of this street. Go up and rout them out, and don’t take any prisoners.”

We made our way thru houses to where our machine gun was placed on the east edge of the village. They had set up in a shell hole in the center of the road. I placed my two automatic rifles on each side of the road so they could cross fire in front of the machine gun.

Then I went over to the hole and talked to the sergeant in charge. While talking to him, we heard someone coming up the road from the east. It was a bright moonlit night. The sergeant told me to tell my men not to fire until he gave the word, and up walked a German machine gun crew carrying the gun. The sergeant jumped up and cried “Surrender, you sons of B…’s!”

The Jerrys threw up their hands, dropping stuff all over the road, and shouted “Kamerad,” as one man. We had them pick up their equipment and detailed a couple men to escort them back. Then we settled down for the night.

Few of us had reserve rations when we had crossed the Marne and it was five days before we ate again.

The next day we tried to leave town, but were held up by heavy machine gun fire from the edge of the Foret de Fere. Along in the day A company got out of town, turning northeast. We went out through an orchard (under machine gun fire) in which lay about 20 dead Jerrys in all conceivable shapes. They were killed July 15th and the hot sun for eight days had ripened them considerably.

Turning northeast we crossed a small creek when we heard a big shell coming. We ducked, and I believe it would have cut me in two had I been standing. All it did though was to scare us and throw mud all over us.

We stopped in the woods for the night laying down not over 20 feet from a pile of shells, racked up like cord wood. During the night the pile exploded, throwing fragments and whole shells all around. Not a man was hurt. Next morning (July 23rd), we pushed through the wood meeting shell fire and some machine gun fire, but seeing no one. We were in support and our company was growing smaller. We finally stopped on the north edge of the forest, and from where we were we could hear B Company making a charge on a machine gun nest. It was too bad for B Company, when they tried to rush one, another got them on the flank. I saw their dead next day with a 1st Lieutenant in the bunch.

Their woods were full of snipers, and we got plenty of shell fire, so every once in a while we lost a man. During the afternoon we got orders to drop back 500 yards. We did so. I paced my men, and with a fellow by name of Peterson, started to dig in, when the Jerrys started to shell us in earnest. We began again to lose men. Two or three went crazy and the big Serbian, whom I mentioned elsewhere, was laid down in the back of my hole with his Adams apple torn out. There he groaned for half an hour before dying. That didn’t help us, either.

It seemed as though the Jerrys knew where we were, and had a gun trained on our hole. The shells would come over 1…2….3…and burst either in front or in back of us. We paid no attention to the shells on either side, but these seemed to be coming right at us. They’d come 1…2…3, then there would be a minute or two when we’d dig like gophers.

We’d hear the 1st one coming and flop down until all three had burst, and then dig again. Both scared to death, but able to grin at each other. We were soon down over our heads. Then we quit. I looked out once during a lull and saw an American artillery officer. In about an hour our shells began to go over, and the Germans were soon silenced. I had begun to think our artillery was lost. Our company was considerably smaller that night.

The 38th infantry was fighting on our left and during the night, details carried their dead by us. I thought they’d never get through. The next morning we advanced again about 500 yards, then halted in an open road. The Germans were shelling ahead of us. We laid there for some time expecting to be blown to pieces. Finally we were ordered off the road and told to dig in.

The Jerrys started to shell us again, and we found solid rock 6” under the dirt. We got behind trees. My pack and rifle were leaning against a tree and an Austrian 77 came over and made hash of them. I had practically no sleep since the drive began and no food, my nerves were shot. When my pack got hit, I sat down and cried for about an hour. A medical officer saw me, felt my pulse, tied a tag on me, and sent me back to Mont St. Pere.

There they gave me a handful of pills and two shots in the arm. I slept that night. The next morning I found a rifle and hiked back to the company feeling quite sheepish. I found them in the town of LeCharmel. On the morning of the 29th we started north again. There were 70 of us left out of about 230. Officers were all gone. As we left Le Charmel, a German plane came over flying low. He dropped a bomb, putting 3-75 mm guns out of commission, killing three men and 18 horses.

We arrived at a little farm and stopped under shell fire for a few minutes. We were soon ordered to fall in again and while standing there a runner came up with a message ordering me back to school. What a relief! Bidding my friends good luck, I started back for Chateau Thierry. It seemed as though I’d never get away from the shells.

Some way or another I got to 2nd echelon of Division Headquarters, and received my travel orders. Eventually ragged, lousy, tired out, nervous and almost a wreck I arrived at Langres, France, and reported to Officers Training School. I was surprised on arriving to find in command of my company at school, none other than Captain Truman Smith. He visited me and asked all about A Company.

Then followed for two months a most intensive schooling, which at times almost made one long to be back at the front. It took me about 2 weeks to get back to normal. On September 25th, I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and assigned to the 80th division somewhere in the Argonne. We received the commissions October 1, 1918, but they were dated September 25th.

We left Langres October 2nd. On the train we decided to go to Paris for one last fling. Most of us expected to be killed, anyway. Due to my papers not having been forwarded, I had no pay for about three months, but with a little borrowing here and there, I was able to get a little equipment.

On our arrival in Paris we went to Red Cross headquarters and borrowed 300 francs. With this I bought more necessities. The streets of Paris were dark and curtains were drawn on all buildings, so that enemy planes would have a poorer target. Paris was bombed considerably.

We left Paris the morning of October 8th, to Vitry le Francois, where we changed trains to St. Dizier. Changing again at St. Dizier we rode all night to Landri-court. The nights were getting cool and I slept in the luggage carrier, over the seat. I was with a Hartford, Ct. lad named Joseph Foley; [we were] both assigned to the 80th. It was raining when we arrived at Landricourt and no one we met seemed to know anything of the 80th.

This was above Verdun, and the country was badly battered. Someone informed us that the 80th division had a ration dump near Cuisy, a few kilometers back of the lines. So we found a ride in a truck and headed for Cuisy in a cold rain. We arrived in Cuisy about dark. Our artillery was stationed all around firing continuously. As we arrived the Jerrys started to shell the town. We tried to find shelter and the ration dump, but all dugouts were crowded and no one ever heard of the 80th.

After some discussion Foley and I decided to get out of there. They were throwing over gas and we had no masks. We grabbed the first truck going back, and after a wild ride slept in the truck until morning. The next morning we finally found a fellow who directed us to the second echelon of division headquarters. On reporting, we were assigned to the 318th infantry, and instructed to wait a couple days and go up with a bunch of non-coms and replacements.

On Sunday October 13th, we left to meet the division. We hiked all day over a terrifically torn up country, through places where towns and villages had been wiped off the map, leaving nothing but shell holes and blasted rock. About 6 p.m., we got into the Forest of Hesse, a forest of blasted trunks, and in a few minutes the division moved in. They had just been relieved and were a tired, sorry looking lot.

I met Major Sweeney commanding the 1st Battalion and was assigned to A Company, Captain Shively commanding. There were two junior officers at the time and we slept together in a small dugout, together with some of the largest rats I’ve ever seen. The next day we moved back to a small town, named Pretz en Argonne, where we occupied billets, and got busy with new equipment and more replacements.

The next push was to start November 1st, so we again moved up into the Argonne near la Chalade. We practiced maneuvers, I conducted a grenade school for the battalion and we were equipped with the new Browning Automatic Rifles and machine guns. We received some new men and a new 1st Lieutenant. The former had only been in service a few weeks, and the latter was a whiner.

The weather was cooler and we had considerable cold rains. The new 1st Lieutenant (Laub by name), had never been up front and was anxious to get there, (so he said). He occupied the same pup tent with me, and continually complained of the cold and lack of hot water, the food, etc. He had an orderly by name of Anderson and kept him on the run waiting on him. We moved up again the last of October to be ready for what was to be the last push on November 1st. Our regiment was in reserve.

On the morning of November 1st our battalion lay on a hill between Fleville and Sommerance. Our barrage was to start at 3:30 a.m., and the attack at 5:30 a.m. That night I was very cold and slept in a pup tent between two sergeants. At 3:30 a.m., it seemed as though the earth split wide open. I got up and looked out. We had a good view up and down the valley and we could see the flash of the guns, it seemed of all calibers. They kept pouring shells over until 5:30 a.m.

On November 2nd, we started forward knowing by this that the attack was progressing. The roads were packed with trucks, ambulances, artillery, etc., and most of the way we had to plough through the mud. We reached Sivryles Busancy after dark in a miserable cold rain and proceeded to bivouac in an open field. Fires were not allowed and the only way to get warm was to roll up in the same blanket with someone else.

The officers were called by Major Sweeney to a conference to be held in a barn in the little town. I thought it a good chance to sleep under a roof, but about midnight someone suggested that there should be someone with the troops, so I was sent out into the cold again.

When I arrived at the field, the men were all asleep, lying on the wet ground with no cover. I found a stretcher and put my blanket on that. While thus occupied the Jerrys threw over three large caliber shells, last of which I thought struck close to the barn I had just left. At daybreak the next morning I found that my fears were justified. The shell had hit the barn wounding 16 officers of the battalion.

After a small breakfast we took to the road again. We marched to the left of Busancy, which had been the divisional objective on the third day. We met only a few shells around Busancy, but after passing through the towns of Harricourt and Fontenoy, the enemy seemed to have left the country.

There was the largest display of aircraft this day, I had ever seen. My platoon sergeant and I counted around 380-some planes in the air at one time. We saw two aerial duels, both of which ended disastrously for the French planes. The Germans had dropped back several kilometers and there was no artillery fire on either side. Being used to the continual rumble of the guns, the quietness was hard to realize. I began to think the war was over.

Just about dusk we reached a small hill between the towns of St. Pierre mont and Sommauthe, running into machine gun fire and also slight artillery fire. We dug in and the rain commenced. It was miserable. Captain Shively had me send out a patrol towards St. Pierre to get in touch with the 77th division. I did, and was bawled out for sending two of my best men.

The boys came back after a while with nothing to report. Later on in the night a runner found us and ordered us back over a hill, to where the rest of the battalion was located. The runner lost his way and we tried to sleep in the open, wrapped in wet blankets in the rain. To make it more uncomfortable, machine gun bullets kept smacking in the mud around us. IN the morning, November 4th, we found the battalion in a valley just below us. As we moved down, we heard the Major shouting “Hurry up, we’re moving up!” I wanted hot coffee as much as I ever wanted anything in life.

We grabbed a corned beef sandwich and a cup of coffee, only to find a cook had put salt in the latter. That was tragedy. The first battalion made the attack this morning with A Company in reserve.

As we moved over a hill toward Sommauthe, we met quite a bit of artillery fire. Several of our boys got hit. Captain Shively had a dud go into the ground at his feet, and was quite relieved when it failed to explode. The 1st Battalion took the town of Sommauthe, aided by some of the 2nd division on our right.

The Jerrys had some well-placed machine guns on the other side of the St. Pierre mont-Sammauthe road and held us up for most of the day. A Company in reserve, were over a hill from the fighting in a small valley. I and my sergeant were sitting together, when Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell came back and wanted to know what we were doing there. I told him “waiting in reserve.” He said “You’re too far back.” I said “Captain Shively’s orders, sir.” He said “Where is he, take this note to him.” As he started to write, a 6” shell came over and the Lieutenant Colonel fell flat on his face in the mud and water in which he was standing. After the burst he got up, covered in mud from head to foot and loped down the valley. We had a great laugh.

During the afternoon we moved up to the crest of the hill. I spread out a wet blanket and lay down, hoping the sun would come out. Captain Shivley called me over to where he was sitting in a shell hole, and I no sooner got away from my blanket that a shell put three holes through it.

About 5 p.m. a runner found me with an order from Major Sweeney. I reported to him on the StP.-S. road, and he told me to take over C Company, as Lt. Davidson had just been killed and Lt. Cowley was missing. Following a runner over a machine gun-covered field I went down to where the bulk of C Company were crouched along a hedge. We passed the body of Lt. Davidson and rolling him over, I found him shot directly between the eyes.

It was quite dusk when I reached C Company, and as I got there a Jerry machine gun opened up in a piece of woods about 100 yards ahead. I flopped alongside a lad with an automatic rifle, which I appropriated, and watching for the flash of the Germans’ gun, I let him have a clip of bullets. It silenced him.

I echeloned the men in depth and had them dig in for the night, at the same time sending patrols to the right and left to get in touch with the supporting companies. While digging a hole, Lt. Cowley came in with his platoon. We ate a can of beans with one spoon, and tried to sleep for the night. In the morning G Company relieved us, and the Germans had retreated again. It was the end of the fighting for the 1st Battalion.

We began a slow march back into France on November 9th, and Thanksgiving Day found us in Asnieres on Montagne, Cote D’Or. In February, they transferred me to the 82nd Division, 325th Infantry, and on April 24th, 1919 I sailed for home, landing in Hoboken, N.J. May 6th, and being discharged at Camp Dix, NJ May 8th.

I bought a ticket for Aurora and about May 10th, mother met me at the depot there. It was two years since I had seen her. We lived with her brother Frank Arter for a couple weeks, then rented a place on View Street and started housekeeping. I got a job with cousin Horace Taylor and worked in his electrician shop a year. I decided to get back into plumbing so went to Plainfield in June 1920, and went to work for Joseph Brockway.

I rented a house on Ottawa Street, and we moved in. About that time, I met Helen, who was to become Mrs. Taylor. She was working after school in Hallock’s Drug Store. Helen Funk was born in Silver Cross Hospital, June 20, 1904. We deemed to get interested in each other almost immediately.

About 1921, we moved to the house on Division Street where we now live. Ira came east to live with us. Poor fellow, he was in the last stages of tuberculosis, and his wife wanted to be rid of him.

In January 1922, I went to work for Jones Hardware Company. Mother had a stroke of paralysis and went to the Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet. Ira went to the County Sanitarium and died that fall. I boarded with George Richardson, then with Mrs. Schwanire and finally with Mrs. Mary Jane Wright.

Mother was in the hospital one year, and then went to board with her brother Frank Arter in Aurora. She died there in 1925.

The moving finger writes;
And having writ, moves on.
Nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line.
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

I continued working at the Jones Hardware Company. I was twice elected Village Clerk, serving four years from 1924 to 1928. In 1926 I was commander of Marne Post #13, American Legion. I was master of Plainfield Lodge A.F and A.M. in 1932.

On the afternoon of October 2, 1930, Helen and I were married in the Methodist Parsonage by Rev. Loyal B. Sittler. We immediately left for Boston, Mass. on our honeymoon. The first night we stayed in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The second in Sandusky, OH, the third in Cazenovia, NY, and the fourth in Northfield, Mass. We attended the National Convention American Legion in Boston. Visited Salem, Lexington, Concord and moved down to Washington D.C. stopping en route at Greenwich R.I., Hartford, Conn, Peekskill, NY, Valley Forge and other places.

We saw the various places of interest in Washington and visited Mt. Vernon. Then we started home, stopping in Fredericksburg and White Sulphur Spring, VA, overnight. We also stopped overnight in a little town in Ohio, driving home the next day.

We moved into Helen’s mother’s house which we had remodeled and settled down to home life.

On Saturday morning June 28th, 1931, Richard Leroy Taylor was born in the Silver Cross Hospital. He weighed 5 lb, 3 oz, and was so small, the nurses called him peanut.

Helen was in the hospital for better than two weeks and little Richard was left for a couple weeks more.