Military Monday: A Big Brother's Urgent Plea

I am fortunate enough to have the letters my father wrote home during World War II.  One of the most powerful is this one, written from a field hospital in France about a month after he was badly wounded.  I’m going to present it without comment; nothing I could say would add anything.

France - November 13 [1944]

Dear Folks:

Paper is kind of scarce right here at present, so I’ll write on this stuff.  While I have the leisure to write, here in the hospital, I have a matter I want to expound on.  Concerning Dick [my brother].  I assume he will get out of high school in May.  He will be 18 in June.  Between the time he graduates, and before he is 18, he must join the Navy.

I write about it at this early date, because it may be necessary to lay some groundwork.  Have it fixed so he can step right out of high school and into the navy.  It sometimes takes a month or so to get joined up etc., and delay in this case might result in being drafted into the army.  Perhaps they will not take 18 year old volunteers except thru selective service.  Avoid having to register at all by joining when you are still 17.  By all means, make every effort to get into the Navy.

Dick, you might think differently, and have decided that you would rather take the army since you have waited so long.  If so, just pick a night when it is sleeting, take a shovel, and go out and dig a hole in the cornfield 2 feet wide, 5 feet long, and 5 feet deep, pour 6 inches of water in it, and lie down and sleep in it.  You can take the shotgun with you to add atmosphere, but remember, you must clean it before you go to sleep or it will rust.  Of course you must watch out for your buddy while he sleeps, so you don’t get to lie down until 2 a.m.  Have 2 or 3 grenades in your pocket when you lie down.  Also stick your trench knife in the ground beside your head, where it will be handy.  Pull your .45 out of its holster and stick in inside your jacket, and go to sleep with your hand on it. Of course your buddy and you will have to be awake before dawn, ready for a counter-attack.  No, the Navy is much nicer...

I heard over the radio where they are starting a fund to rebuild churches in Italy and Germany.  Don’t give anything to that.  I have been shot at too much by snipers in church steeples... 

I’m still in the hospital.  Feeling much better, and suppose they’ll let me go back [to the front lines] soon... I haven’t had any mail since I left the outfit, so don’t know the news.  Just keep writing and it will catch me.  Don’t worry, I’m O.K.

Love, Bob

Those Places Thursday: Grave Hunting in the Heartland

It was my Grandma Wallin who first took me to a graveyard—as a recreational activity—when I was about eight. I’ve liked graveyards ever since.

 

Recently my husband and I were traveling to Holmes County, Ohio, and I thought we might as well visit a few graveyards on the way. His maternal ancestors are buried in a string of graveyards stretching from northern Indiana to central Ohio. So, armed with my “graveyard kit,” we spent a day hunting tombstones.
 

First stop: Eddy Cemetery, DeKalb County, Indiana—resting place of Charles and Elizabeth Alwood, my husband’s great-great-grandparents. Charles was a private in the Indiana Volunteers during the Civil War. He left seven children at home, the oldest a boy of twelve. His unit fought its way through the south, eventually ending up in North Carolina, where they occupied Raleigh and then cooled their heels waiting for the war to end. After it did, but before he could get back home, Charles died of typhoid in an army camp there. Elizabeth lived forty more years as a widow, running their farm as well as she could. We left a flag at his grave.

Second stop:  Independence Cemetery, Defiance County, Ohio—resting place of John Jr. and Mary Ann Garver, my husband’s great-great-grandparents.  There we had the great pleasure of meeting up with the woman who cared for this church cemetery along with her husband.  We had corresponded with her ahead of time and determined that her husband is a distant cousin of my husband, and she surprised us with an envelope of photographs which were ours to keep.

 

Third stop:  Florida Cemetery, Henry County, Ohio—final resting place of Jacob Heilman and his family—once again, my husband’s great-great-grandparents.  Jacob, an immigrant from Bavaria, was in the 68^th Ohio Infantry in the Civil War, and theirs is an incredible tale.  His unit fought in every Confederate state except Florida and Texas, and during the course of the war, he marched over 7,000 miles and rode trains or steamboats another 6,000.  He lived to tell the story, going on to have twelve children—six before the war and six after—and he died at 88.  After taking some photographs, we put a flag on his grave and were on our way.  We had a long drive to our next stop.

Fourth stop:  Walters Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio—final resting place of John Garver Sr. and his wife Elizabeth—my husband’s great-great-great grandparents.  John Sr. was born in 1795 and died in 1879.  He fought in the Pennsylvania Militia in the War of 1812, and was given a 40-acre piece of government homesteading land (“bounty land”) for his service and a pension in his old age.  Three of their daughters predeceased them and are buried with them—all three died in the 1840s, at ages 20, 16, and 2.

Not every husband would spend an entire day finding cemeteries and cleaning gravestones for his wife, especially on vacation...  Kudos to mine for being such a good sport!

Amanuensis Monday: One Girl’s Childhood During the Great Depression

Memories of life on an Illinois farm, as dictated by my mother, Adra Erickson Wallin (1922-2010)...

“I was born at home (all four of us were), at the farm at Barbers Corner on August 18, 1922, at six in the morning.  A nurse and a doctor came—Dr. Ludwig—but I was born before he got there!  My mother got a “hired girl” to help her take care of us for a few weeks.

We lived on three farms when I was growing up.  My father grew corn, soybeans, oats, wheat, alfalfa, and hay for the animals.  We had six horses, two cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and sheep...  The Depression was hard on our family.  When I was twelve, in 1934, we lost our farm and had to move.  Everybody was poor then.  We had a phone when I was little, but not later—no electricity, no running water—and we were seven miles from town.  We had lamps and we would carry them to our rooms to study by.

In the summer, we would have droughts—we’d get small crops those years.  We’d also get chinch bugs and grasshoppers on the corn (our biggest crop).  We’d sit in front of the fan to stay cool, or go down to the river, which was cold.

We had an outhouse at every home I lived in.  We called it “the privy.”  They were terrible—just a board across with two holes.  There was also a board with a smaller hole for kids!  It was hot and had bees in the summer.  They were far from the house, too, because of the smell.  We used a Sears Catalog for toilet paper, because we liked the thin sheets.

Chores I had as a child included bringing in the “split wood” for the kitchen stove.  Geraldine brought in the “chunks” for the big stove in the dining room (our only heat), and little sister Audrey brought in the cobs (to start the fires).  Also, I’d gather eggs every day after school. 

I remember my first day of school—I walked downhill, across a creek, and uphill, half a mile...  There were a lot of kids—first through eighth grades all in one room.  There were smaller seats for the younger kids.  I would help my sister Audrey—we sat in a double seat.  We didn’t have all the subjects every day—not with eight grades.  At recess we played baseball, tag, hide and seek, hopscotch, and swinging—we had a rope swing in a tree.   

 

I walked to Barbers Corner school, but at Higgins four of us rode in a pony cart.  Bob would drive the cart, put it in a shed, hook it back up at night, and drive us 1½ miles…  When I was in high school, my brother drove us in the car.  He needed to get home to help on the farm, so he couldn’t do sports.

My favorite times with my mother were sitting on the front porch at night on the swing.  Her best advice to me: Don’t get married too young!  My favorite times with my father were going for buggy rides with our horse, Bess.  In the winter he would take us in the bobsled—a big wooden box on runners.  I remember sometimes being worried about being an orphan and being sent to an orphanage. 

My mother was scared to death of thunderstorms, so I was, too!  She’d get us out of bed and get us dressed and take us down to the basement.  When my mother was younger and teaching school, there was a storm and lightning struck the barn and set it on fire.  She and the family she was boarding with had to go out in their nightgowns and save the animals, and she never forgot that—that’s why she got us up and dressed whenever there was a storm.

When I was nine I went to the 1931 World’s Fair in Chicago, and when I was ten I went again.  I was visiting a friend of the family.  He would turn all five of us kids loose for the whole day there—and I was the oldest one!” 

Thanks for the stories, Mom.  My, how times have changed!

Talented Tuesday: Sture Wallin, Soldier and Baseball Player

My grandfather, Sture Nels Wallin (1892-1979) was a Nebraska farm boy, son of Swedish immigrants.  But somewhere along the line he developed a love—and a talent—for baseball.  He was a left-handed pitcher and third baseman who played baseball while in the U.S. Army in Europe at the end of WWI—I wish I could find out more about that team!—and later, after he returned home, in the county leagues of rural Nebraska. 

This photo shows Grandpa and his firstborn son (my father) around 1925.  My father, Robert Milo Wallin, wrote out some memories of Sture and his baseball career:

“Dad always played baseball, usually third base, and always he would hit cleanup (fourth).  There were county leagues in those days, and games were every Sunday afternoon...  He had played in the army as well, having been chosen to one of two teams out of the whole American army in France to travel to Italy and other countries for exhibition games after the war was over (1918-1919).  He was in fast company there, and I can remember him mentioning friends who were then in the Major Leagues in the 1920s.  He played baseball and fast pitch softball until 1936 that I can remember, which would have made him 44 years old.”

I can recall Dad saying that after Grandpa Sture came home from the war, he had the opportunity to try out for two professional baseball teams—one of them the St. Louis Cardinals, and I don’t remember the other one.  But by then Grandpa had been courting Grandma for seven years, and it was time for him to choose between her and baseball—and so he married his sweetheart and settled down on a Nebraska farm. 

But he never gave up baseball...  My Aunt Janet, the only one of his children still living, told me recently that she remembers going to her father’s baseball games as a small child in the 1930s, at the baseball field in Chapman, Nebraska, which was their home field.  She said she paid little attention to the games, though, preferring to wander around the stands and allow the spectators to make a fuss over her and buy her treats.

One of Grandpa’s uniforms survived all these years, and today it is a treasured possession of one of his grandsons, my cousin Brian.

Mystery Monday: The Brides of Emiel Zietzke

 Sometimes you think you know a person… especially if that person is your father. 

I’ve been researching the paternal line of one of my clients. He thought he knew his father, Emiel Zietzke, pretty well—it was his grandfather, Wilhelm Zietzke, who was the main object of his curiosity. But his father’s life has had some unexpected twists and turns that my client didn’t know about!

Emiel August Zietzke (1885-1956) was born in Bozeman, Montana. In his young adulthood, he helped his father Wilhelm run his confectionary store there. Emiel first married in 1911 at age 25, to Florence Henrietta Saunders. They homesteaded in the Wilsall, Montana area and had three children (all now deceased). But the marriage wasn’t a very long one; Flora died in 1924.

The years went by… Emiel remarried in 1938, after his three children were grown. His new wife was Lila DesRosier, whom he married when he was 53 and she was 31. They soon had two children—one died many years ago in a car accident, and the other is my client. The marriage certificate said that Emiel was a widower, but that was only partially true. What my client never knew was that his father had at least two more marriages between Florence and Lila, between 1924 and 1938, both apparently ending in divorce. 

The mystery is, who were those two wives, and what went wrong? And—were there more? 

I first discovered Ida Mason Benson when ancestry.com added some new Washington marriage records to their collections last fall. And there it was—a marriage in Spokane, Washington in 1930 between Emiel A. Zietzke of Bozeman, Montana and Ida Benson. A little more digging told me that Ida was a widow whose maiden name was Mason; her first husband was William C. Benson, and she had a son by that marriage named Albert. Emiel and Ida must not have been married long, as a number of Montana newspaper clippings show her reverting back to the last name “Benson” by the 1950s. My questions: When and why did Emiel and Ida split up? What happened to their marriage? 

Then a few weeks ago, after subscribing to newspaperarchive.com, I stumbled upon this clipping, from the Montana Standard, September 5, 1929:

Yet another marriage! So Emiel wasn’t a widower very long after his first wife Flora died. Some more digging produced a marriage certificate that told me that Emiel married Margaret Dell in Green River, Sweetwater, Wyoming in 1925. The article said that she left him after only two months, but a divorce wasn’t granted until 1929. My questions: Who was Margaret Dell? How did Emiel meet her? And what happened to their marriage?

 

Let’s reconstruct this roster of brides:

• Florence Saunders: 1911-1924
• Margaret Dell: 1925-1929
• Ida Mason Benson: 1930-??
• Lila DesRosier: 1938-1956, when Emiel died

That leaves one more question unanswered: Ida went back to the name “Benson.” Perhaps they weren’t married long. Did Emiel marry one more time, between then and 1938? Wouldn’t I like to know! 

Black Sheep Sunday: A Murder in Chicago

While researching the ancestry of one of my sister-in-law Susie, I came across the stories of two sisters—Anna and Eva Grimm.  I wrote about Anna previously, so now it’s her sister Eva’s turn to have her story told.

Eva Grimm was born around 1886 in Aurora, Illinois, and married her husband Alfred Wyatt in 1908.  The marriage was not a match made in heaven.  Eva eventually ended up having an affair with a man she knew who lived in Chicago whose name was Herbert Conkright, and she even moved in with him for a few months one spring.  But eventually she returned to her husband Alfred, although her contact with her lover continued—but not always by her choice.  When she ignored him, Herbert sometimes posed as a detective when attempting to get information about her from her family and friends.  One time, it was reported in the papers, he threatened to push her off a bridge to her death if she didn’t return to him.

The situation continued to deteriorate as she resisted his advances and threats.  Her lover could not stand the thought that she had gone back to her husband for good.  On November 14, 1920 he lured her to his boarding house in Chicago, where he fatally shot her in a fit of jealous rage, as the newspapers later reported it.  In the sensational trial held in 1921 that was splashed across the front pages of newspapers all over the Midwest and beyond and nicknamed “The Triangle Trial,” her lover was referred to as the “Fair-Haired He-Vamp.”  Many sordid details came out—including quotes from his letters to Eva, found in her husband Albert’s attic—letters which were in turn endearing, threatening, and just plain creepy.  When it was all over, he was sentenced to 18 years at Joliet State Prison.

 

I found Eva’s grave at the same local cemetery where my parents are buried. Eva is buried in an unmarked grave, beside her mother and father. Her husband is buried elsewhere.

Another thing that speaks of the sad state of Eva and Alfred's marriage: On her death certificate, Albert Wyatt gave his wife Eva’s age as “about 35” and her birthdate as “unknown.” A very sad commentary on what strangers they were to each other, even after twelve years of marriage.

Mystery Monday: George Wendell Phillips—Gone Without a Trace

 

One of my clients has a nagging question and I’m trying to help her answer it.  Her father never knew his father, because for some reason that has been lost to history, the man left his wife and baby daughter and disappeared into the mist, around the time his son was born in 1924. 

George Wendell Phillips was born in Salamanca, Cattaraugus County, New York on November 21, 1887, according to his WWI draft card.  The draft card gives a few more clues.  By 1917 he was 29 and living in North Tonawanda in Niagara County, New York, and working across the state border as a hotel clerk at Reed House in Erie, Pennsylvania.  He was of medium height and weight, gray eyes, and brown hair.  When asked about previous military service, he said that he had risen “from private to captain at Chamberlain Military Institute in Randolph, New York.”  The above photo was taken either during WWI or perhaps earlier, when he was at Chamberlain.

His father, who may have been named George or possibly Benjamin, was born in Wales.  But he had passed away by the 1900 census, and George’s mother Minnie is listed as a widow who has borne “2 children, 1 still living.”  This photo may be George’s parents, but we can’t be sure.

 

 

Somehow George met a young woman from Florida named Francis Norton, who went by the nickname “Frankie” all her life.  How the two of them found each other is part of the mystery.

George was quite close to his mother, Minnie, and after he and Frankie were married, it appears that they lived with her in New York.  And when their daughter was born in Pennsylvania a year later, George and Francis named her “Minnie.”  

Now the story gets murky…  By 1924, Francis was back in Florida, giving birth to a son who never knew his father.  How Francis went from a wife and young mother in Pennsylvania in 1921, to a single mother in Florida in 1924, is anybody’s guess.    

Francis remarried, but she had no more children.  Her son and daughter never knew anything about their father, and both of them have now passed away.  But my client, who is George and Francis’ granddaughter, found her missing grandfather’s name in an old family Bible, and she has never stopped being curious about who he was and why he left his young family.

We’ll probably never know the “why” of George Wendell Phillips’ disappearance.  But I’d surely love to tell my client what happened to him after he dropped out of sight in 1924.  Maybe someone out there knows something.