The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages Of The 1930s

Overseas Grave Visitations By Mothers And Widows

Of Fallen Us World War I Soldiers John W Graham
download
https://ebookbell.com/product/the-gold-star-mother-pilgrimages-
of-the-1930s-overseas-grave-visitations-by-mothers-and-widows-of-
fallen-us-world-war-i-soldiers-john-w-graham-5294448

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

That Knock At The Door The History Of Gold Star Mothers In America
Holly S Fenelon

https://ebookbell.com/product/that-knock-at-the-door-the-history-of-
gold-star-mothers-in-america-holly-s-fenelon-48729416

The Knock At The Door Three Gold Star Families Bonded By Grief And
Purpose Ryan Manion Heather Kelly Amy Looney

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-knock-at-the-door-three-gold-star-
families-bonded-by-grief-and-purpose-ryan-manion-heather-kelly-amy-
looney-48950708

Sacrifice A Gold Star Widows Fight For The Truth Michelle Black

https://ebookbell.com/product/sacrifice-a-gold-star-widows-fight-for-
the-truth-michelle-black-26079512

House Of Hits The Story Of Houstons Gold Starsugarhill Recording

Studios Andy Bradley Roger Wood

https://ebookbell.com/product/house-of-hits-the-story-of-houstons-
gold-starsugarhill-recording-studios-andy-bradley-roger-wood-51925366
House Of Hits The Story Of Houstons Gold Star Sugarhill Recording
Studios Brad And Michele Moore Roots Music 1st Edition Andy Bradley

https://ebookbell.com/product/house-of-hits-the-story-of-houstons-
gold-star-sugarhill-recording-studios-brad-and-michele-moore-roots-
music-1st-edition-andy-bradley-2010366

The Sun And Her Star A Friends To Lovers Romance Dylan Allen Allen

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-sun-and-her-star-a-friends-to-
lovers-romance-dylan-allen-allen-22304746

The Sun And Her Star A Friends To Lovers Romance Dylan Allen

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-sun-and-her-star-a-friends-to-
lovers-romance-dylan-allen-49826176

All The Gold Stars Reimagining Ambition And The Ways We Strive
Rainesford Stauffer

https://ebookbell.com/product/all-the-gold-stars-reimagining-ambition-
and-the-ways-we-strive-rainesford-stauffer-50703246

All The Gold Stars Reimagining Ambition And The Ways We Strive
Rainesford Stauffer

https://ebookbell.com/product/all-the-gold-stars-reimagining-ambition-
and-the-ways-we-strive-rainesford-stauffer-51212338
 T he G old
Star M o t h e r
P ilgrimages
of t h e 1930s

JOHN W. GRAHAM
 The Gold Star Mother
Pilgrimages of the 1930s
 The Gold Star Mother
Pilgrimages of the 1930s
Overseas Grave Visitations by
Mothers and Widows o f Fallen
U.S. World War I Soldiers

John W. Graham

McFarland &. Company, Inc., Publishers

Jefferson , North Carolina, and London
Quotations from Grace Ziegler’s stories in the Rockford Star are
copyright 2004 Rockford Register Star. Used with permission.

L ibrary of C ongress C ataloguing - in -P ublication D ata

Graham, John W , 1961—

The Gold Star Mother pilgrimages o f the 1930s : overseas grave
visitations by mothers and widows o f fallen U.S. World War I
soldiers / John W Graham,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7864-2138-X (softcover : 50# alkaline paper) {^ )

1. World War, 1914-1918 —Women — United States. 2. World

War, 1914-1918 — Psychological aspects. 3. Mothers o f war
casualties— Travel —France. 4. Grief. I. Title.
D639.W7G55 2005
940.4'6'086540973 - dc22 2005007320

British Library cataloguing data are available

©2005 John W. Graham. All rights reserved

No p art o f this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.

On the front cover: Maude Betterton at the grave of her son, Cherrill, at
Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France (National Archives and
Records Administration)

Manufactured in the United States o f America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers

Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www. mcfarlandpub. com
To my m other, the m em ory of my father,
the soldiers who die in war,
and the mothers who mourn them.
 Acknowledgments
I am most grateful to acknowledge the help of dozens of individuals in
the researching and writing of this book. All of these people have contributed
to whatever value the book has, yet I remain solely responsible for any mis­
takes, errors, or oversights.
First and foremost, I thank Alison Davis Wood. Alison produced,
directed, and edited the documentary Gold Star Mothers: Pilgrimage o f Remem­
brance for WILL-TV in Urbana, Illinois. She included me in every step of the
film's production. I accompanied her on interviews from Washington, DC, to
the Oregon high desert. She was good-natured, productive, and positive all
through the process, and the final product is due far more to her efforts than
my relatively minor contribution. My thanks also go to Tim Hartin from
WILL-TV. Tim served as director of photography and accompanied Alison on
all the shoots nationwide.
I would also like to thank all those at WILL-TV at the University of Illi­
nois at Urbana-Champaign for making Gold Star M others: Pilgrimage o f
Remembrance a reality. Special thanks are due to Henry Frayne, at WILL, who
introduced me to Alison back in 1999.
Holly Fenelon (Estes Park, Colorado), who has collaborated with the
American Gold Star Mothers in writing a history of the organization, has been
very helpful in sharing her expertise and research.
Descendants of several World War I figures were gracious enough to share
their recollections with me. They include Elnora Davis McLendon, daughter
of General Benjamin O. Davis Sr.; Anne Wolf, daughter of Captain Robert
Ginsburgh; Mrs. Jane Wooten, Louis Gjosund, Janet Payne, Margaret Ramsey,
Barbara Lepley, Frank Luke Jr., and several descendants of Joyce Kilmer.
I most especially thank Ed and Fred Bliss of Durand, Illinois, for shar­
ing their stories of Grace and Louise Ziegler. The Ziegler family occupies a
chapter of this book and is featured in the documentary. Ed Bliss shared his
aunt Louise’s scrapbook and other family photos very willingly.
William Stevens Prince of Bend, Oregon, wrote the first book on the pil-
viii Preface

grimages, Crusade and Pilgrimage. He graciously shared his recollections and

family mementoes at his home in Oregon in 1999.
At the National Archives, I want to thank Mitch Yockelson and Connie
Potter. Both have published articles in the journal Prologue that aided my
research. Mitch Yockelson was especially helpful with records at the archives,
and both were interviewed for the documentary.
I would also like to thank all who shared their time and talents with the
Gold Star Mothers: Pilgrimage o f Remembrance production. I wish to thank
Marvin Fletcher, professor of history at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, for
sharing his insights on the pilgrimages in general and on Gen. Benjamin O.
Davis in particular. Edward “Mac” Coffman shared his time at his Lexington,
Kentucky, home and provided a World War I education to all present. Rebecca
Jo Plant, formerly of Vanderbilt University, Barbara Ransby, University of Illi­
nois Chicago, and Lisa Budreau, Oxford College, all shared their expertise.
G. Kurt Piehler of the University of Tennessee deserves special thanks.
He was interviewed for the documentary and arranged for its premiere at the
Society of Military Historians’ annual conference at Knoxville, Tennessee in
May 2003.
I am especially grateful for the Gold Star mothers who agreed to share
their experiences for the documentary. They include Theresa Davis, Winifred
Lancy, Valerie May, Iris Walden, and Mary Wheeler. I have come to admire
all the Gold Star mothers I’ve been fortunate enough to meet.
Staff at the following facilities aided my research: Herbert Hoover Pres­
idential Library, West Branch, Iowa; National Archives in College Park, Mary­
land; Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, Long Island, New York; and the
Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.
Steve Ruffin, Bob Kasprzak, and Jim Streckfus from the aviation journal
Over the Front have provided valuable assistance. My article on Quentin Roo­
sevelt’s impact on the pilgrimages was published in the fall, 2004 issue.
I would like to thank Col. Anthony Corea and the staff at the American
Battle Monuments Commission. Thanks also to Craig Buthod, mentor and
director of the Louisville Free Public Library, for his encouragement. Several
individuals in Cincinnati provided support and encouragement. They include
Connie Menefee, Genevieve Pennington, and Jane Alden Stevens, a photog­
raphy professor at the University of Cincinnati. I also thank Sandy Duwel and
Janice Walton-Williams in the Document Delivery Department of the Public
Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County for their assistance. Thanks to
Becky Kennedy, manager of my neighborhood Mariemont branch library, who
invited me to speak on the pilgrimages not once but twice. I am grateful to
everyone on my staff at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton
County’s Public Documents and Patents Department for listening to me talk
about this project for several years.
Finally, thanks to my aunt Judy Murphy of Orlando, Florida, for review­
ing the manuscript, and to my wife, Wendy Havlick, for her support and keen
editorial assistance.
 Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface 1
Pilgrimage Chronology 5

1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 11

2. The Great War 26
3. Pilgrimage Legislation: A Decade in the Making 50
4. Do-It-Yourself Pilgrimages 75
5. The Quartermaster Corps in Peace and War 95
6. Black Stars and Gold 116
7. Pilgrim Profile: Louise and Grace Ziegler 139
8. Party A 159
9. The Pilgrimage Experience 178
10. Conclusion 202

Notes 207
Bibliography 217
Index 223

IX
 Preface
I first learned of the Gold Star mothers and widows pilgrimages by
accident. On the job as manager of the Public Library of Cincinnati and
Hamilton C ounty’s Public Documents and Patents Department in 1 9 9 8 ,1
was scanning through an index to Congressional documents to answer a
library patron’s question. The index made reference to “Pilgrim age of
Mothers and W idows.” I had never heard of this event before, so I retrieved
one of the documents referenced in the index. Pilgrimage fo r the M others
and Widows o f Soldiers, Sailors , and M arine Forces now Interred in the Cem e­
teries in Europe , issued as House of Representatives Docum ent H. D oc. 71-
1404. I was amazed. Published in 1930 by Congress, the document was a
list of several thousand mothers of deceased World War I soldiers. The sol­
diers were all buried in Europe. The book listed the m oth er’s name, home
address, soldier’s name, cem etery in which he was buried, and a simple
y es-or-n o colum n indicating if the m other wished a pilgrimage. I was
instantly intrigued because I had never heard of such an event in Am eri­
can history.
I undertook a personal research journey, not with a book in mind at
first, but with questions to answer. First, who were these women and what
was a Gold Star mother? I learned that during the war, families used a red
and white flag, with a blue star in the center, to indicate they had a son in
the service. They replaced the blue star with a gold star if the soldier died
in the war. This led to the name Gold Star mothers.
W hat were the pilgrimages? W ho organized and paid for them? I
learned that the Gold Star mother pilgrimages took place between 1930 and
1933. During those four years, the U.S. government funded, organized,
and conducted trips for over 6,500 mothers and widows to American cem e­
teries in Belgium, England, and France.

1
2 Preface

Some questions were easy to answer with enough digging. I learned

also that no am ount of research can answer the most personal, final ques­
tion: W hat was it like to stand at the grave of a son, buried far away in
another country, and say goodbye?
The story of the Gold Star pilgrimages is full of individual grief and
loss against a background of national issues and figures. Teddy Roosevelt,
Fiorello LaGuardia, and Joyce Kilmer are as much a part of the pilgrim ­
ages as are average citizens Fred Ziegler and Laura Stevens. My book tries
to balance the sphere of personal loss with the public sphere of politics and
battles.
My research into this fascinating subject inspired me to write this
book. There could well be 6,500 books, one for each pilgrim, but my goal
was to write a book to capture both the public and the personal. I shared
each step along with way with a friend, H enry Frayne, of Champaign, Illi­
nois. H enry works for W ILL, the PBS affiliate at the University of Illinois.
He suggested this topic would make an engaging documentary. I agreed,
and he introduced me to Alison Davis W ood at W ILL-TV. Alison is an
experienced, Em m y-A w ard-w inning producer. She and W ILL-T V agreed
to make the documentary.
Making the Gold Star M others: Pilgrimage o f R em em brance docum en­
tary was a joy. Alison and her colleagues were delightful to work with.
Despite funding cuts and uncertainty, she coaxed the project along to com ­
pletion. The final product, I must say, is terrific, and it is all due to Ali­
son’s efforts and the resources at W ILL-TV . I was lucky enough to
accompany Alison and Tim H artin, director of photography, on several
shoots across the country. I quickly learned what a grip does: serve as
a glorified caddy. But I was happy to help lug cam era equipm ent for
the crew. The interviews with World War I experts and family members
of Gold Star pilgrims helped with both the big picture and the smaller
details.
The docum entary prem iered in U rbana-Cham paign on M emorial
Day 2003 and received nationwide PBS distribution in spring 2004. This
book is an outgrowth of the documentary, yet it stands alone with plenty
of original material and background information.
The pilgrimages rem ain for me a fascinating top ic. They m ay be
approached from any point of the political spectrum . Everyone seems to
find that some aspect of the pilgrimages rings true in his or her own life.
However, I don’t attem pt to overload the pilgrimage movement with an
exhaustive search for meaning. Not only is that task better left to capable
scholars, it will always miss the mark. The pilgrims themselves, by and
large, sought personal solace and individual meaning. My aim is to let
 Preface 3

them tell their own stories wherever possible, through diaries, letters,
newspaper accounts, and personal recollections. The Gold Star mothers
and widows were strong, capable women. Iv e come to admire them , and
their sons and husbands, during the past five years. I think readers will,
too.
 Pilgrimage Chronology
This selective chronology lists significant dates in the Gold Star pil­
grimage m ovem ent. Newspaper clippings, arm y records, and published
accounts furnished the information for the chronology.

1917
6 April Congress declares war and the United States enters
World War I.
13 June Maj. Gen. John Pershing arrives in France.
14 July First American casualty.
4 September First American battle deaths.
6 November Captain Robert L. Quiesser, an Ohio officer with two
sons in the war, receives a design patent for the Blue
Star service flag.

1918
5 February Private Percy Stevens dies when his troopship, the Tus-
can ia , is torpedoed off the Irish coast.
16 May President W oodrow Wilson proposes the notion of the
Gold Star in a letter to Dr. Anna H ow ard Shaw,
chairperson of the W om en’s C om m ittee of the
Council of National Defense. The council agrees and
publicizes later in May the wearing of the Gold Star
to com m em orate the loss of a family member in the
war.
14 July Quentin Roosevelt shot down and killed.
30 July Joyce Kilmer killed in battle.

5
6 Pilgrimage Chronology

6 October Second Lt. Erwin Bleckley killed on a mission to locate

the “Lost B attalion .” Bleckley posthum ously re ­
ceived the Congressional Medal of H onor for his
efforts.
11 October Fred M. Ziegler killed in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
13 October Alexander Norris killed in battle.
10 November Corporal Oscar Haug is wounded, later dies.
11 November Armistice ends the war.

1919
6 January Theodore Roosevelt dies.
19 February Edith Roosevelt and her son Theodore Jr. visit
Quentin’s grave in France.
19 May Fiorello La Guardia introduces first pilgrimage bill in
Congress. It does not pass.

1920
5 September Joyce Kilm er’s parents visit his grave in France.

1921
Summer King George V of England makes a pilgrimage to the
battlefields and cemeteries of the war.

1923
4 March The American Battle Monuments Commission is cre­
ated by act of Congress.
Summer 30,000 people make a pilgrimage to the grave of British
nurse Edith Cavell.

1924
19 February The U.S. House of Representatives holds the first
hearing on pilgrimage legislation. The bill in ques­
tion does not become law.

1925
May and June Gold Star mothers sail on a privately funded pilgrim ­
age aboard United States Lines ships.

1927
September 20,000 Americans, including Gold Star M others, visit
France as part of the American Legion’s 2nd AEF.
 Pilgrimage Chronology 1

1928
4 June 25 Gold Star mothers gather in W ashington, DC, to
plan a national Gold Star mothers association.
August The British Legion organizes a pilgrimage of 11,000
m embers to cem eteries and battlefields in France
and Belgium.

1929
5 January American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., chartered in W ash­
ington, DC.
2 M arch Pilgrimage legislation signed, Public Law 7 0 -9 5 2 .
July and August First Australian War Graves pilgrimage to Europe.

1930
21 January The House of Representatives holds a hearing to dis­
cuss appropriations to cover the pilgrimages.
5 February The House of Representatives appropriates $5.3 m il­
lion for Gold Star pilgrimages.
6 February Senate passes pilgrimage legislation.
7 February M rs. H erbert H oover draws lots to determ ine state
order of pilgrimages.
16 April Pilgrimage escort officers leave for Europe.
25 April Arm y officers arrive in Europe for pilgrimage duty.
6 May Party A is welcomed in New York City.
7 May Party A sails for Europe.
16 May Paris welcomes Party A.
18 May First pilgrims visit graves at Suresnes Cemetery o u t­
side Paris.
22 May German officers salute pilgrims at St. Mihiel.
23 May Party B arrives in France.
30 May Party A sails for America.

23 June Pilgrim dies in Pullman railroad car on the way to New

York City, first fatality.
1 July Laura Stevens, with Party H, visits the grave of her son,
Percy Stevens, in Brookwood American Cemetery,
England.
8 Pilgrimage Chronology

7 July First African Am erican party of pilgrims gathers in

New York City.
12 July First black party, Party L, sails for Europe.
22 July French welcome first party of African American pil­
grims
3 August Party L leaves France.
12 August First black party returns to the United States.
14 August First Gold Star m other dies in Europe, M rs. H arriet
Bates, Portage, Pennsylvania.
25 August Noble Sissle greets second African American party in
Paris, Party Q.
7 September Second and final African Am erican party leaves
Europe.
12 September Party T, final party of 1930, visits Paris.
16 September Party Q arrives reaches America.
22 September Party T leaves France. 3,653 Gold Star m others and
widows traveled to Europe in 1930, the first year of
the pilgrimages.

1931
11 April Pilgrimage officers sail for France.
20 April Escort officers arrive in Paris.
8 May Party A, 1931, leaves New York City.
17 May Party A, 1931, spends its first day at the cemeteries.
27 May Party A returns to Paris, while Party B prepares to leave
the French capital.
5 June Party A arrives back in New York City.
7 June First African American party of 1931, Party E, arrives
in Paris.
20 June Party E leaves France.
21 June Four French farmers die in a crash with a bus carry ­
ing Gold Star pilgrims.
10 July The second African American group of 1931, Party K,
sails for Europe.
17 August Erwin Bleckley’s m other visits the grave of her son, Lt.
Erwin Bleckley.
 Pilgrimage Chronology 9

19 August The final party of 1931, Party Q, sails for Europe.

6 September The final party departs Paris for London, then returns
to the United States. A total of 1,766 pilgrims sailed
in 1931.

1932
17 May Party A, the first group of 1932, sails for Europe.
24 May First group arrives in France.
19 June First African American group of the year arrives in
Paris.
6 July Louise and Grace Ziegler leave New York C ity for
Europe with Party E.
19 July The Zieglers visit Fred Ziegler’s grave in the M euse-
Argonne cemetery.
5 August Party E arrives back in the United States.
16 September Last group of the year, Party E, returns to the United
States. 566 women made their pilgrimages during
1932, the lowest number of any of the four years.

1933
18 January Press accounts report five trips planned for 1933.
17 May Party A sails with 130 aboard.
26 July The last party of pilgrims leaves New York H arbor for
Europe.
July Pilgrimage film directed by John Ford premieres.
17 August Party E, the last pilgrim party sails back to the United
States with 169 aboard. A total of 669 pilgrims sailed
in 1933, bringing the total num ber of pilgrims to
6,654.
24 August Party E arrives back home in the United States.

1934
26 February President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order
6614 to transfer con trol of A m erica’s W orld War
cemeteries from the War Department to the A m er­
ican Battle Monuments Commission later in 1934.

1935
3 January Congressman John Dingell, Michigan, introduces a bill
10 Pilgrimage Chronology

to pay Gold Star mothers who did not travel on a

pilgrimage the am ount it would have cost to send
them to Europe. The bill failed to gain support and
did not pass.
January Philip Stevenson publishes “Gold Star M oth er” in
Esquire magazine.

1936
July 8,000 Canadians make the pilgrimage to Vimy Ridge,
France, for unveiling of a mem orial.
27 September President Franklin Roosevelt establishes the last Sun­
day in September as Gold Star M other’s Day.

1941
Gold Star m other H enrietta Haug solicits letters from
other Gold Star mothers and publishes them in her
book, Gold Star M others o f Illinois: A Collection o f
Notes Recording the Personal Histories o f the Gold Star
M others o f Illinois. Mrs. Haug’s son Oscar was killed
in battle.

1958
21 July Mathilda Burling, leader of the pilgrimage movement,
dies at age 78.

1986
Crusade and Pilgrimage by W illiam Stevens Prince is
published. Mr. Prince is the grandson of pilgrim
Laura Stevens of Bend, Oregon. It is the first book
published on the pilgrimages.

2002
July The Dusters, Quads, and Searchlights veterans group
takes Gold Star mothers to Vietnam as part of its
Operation Gold Star.

2003
26 May The docu m en tary G old Star M others: Pilgrim age o f
R em em bran ce makes its broadcast prem iere on
W ILL-T V in Urbana, Illinois, on Memorial Day.
 1

What Were the Gold

Star Pilgrimages?
The story of the Gold Star mothers and widows pilgrimages of the
1930s is as moving, and as im portant to American history, as when the pil­
grimages first took place over 70 years ago. The Great W ar pilgrimage
movement was both patriotic and profound. Yet the movement was also
very personal. A mother mourned her son at his graveside half a world away
from home.
The pilgrimages saw the expenditure of public funds for the relief of
private grief. They also turned veteran arm y officers, for a few years, into
tour guides for women the age of their own mothers or grandm others.
The officers did their jobs well; the pilgrimages worked. They succeeded
not simply by moving a number of citizens from point A to point B and
back again. Rather, they achieved the im portant personal goal of helping
grieving mothers and widows come to term s with their losses and move
on with their lives.
For 6,654 women, Gold Star mothers and widows pilgrimages were
the answer to grief and loss. That figure is the total number of women who
went on a pilgrimage. The A rm y’s Q uarterm aster Corps organized and
conducted the trips, which took place in the months from May through Sep­
tember, during the four-year period 1930 through 1933. Over half of the
total, 3,653, sailed during the first year in one of 20 groups or parties. In
1931, another 1,766 had sailed. The smallest number of pilgrims, 566, sailed
in 1932. By the start of 1933, 90 percent of these women who were going to
Europe had already done so; just five parties of pilgrimages, 669 strong, dec­
orated their loved ones’ graves during the 1933 pilgrimage season.1

11
12 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

The governm ent extended thousands m ore invitations to eligible

women. Many, however, declined the offer. A total of 9,812 said “thanks
but no thanks” to the chance to go on a pilgrimage. Old age and poor
health probably accounted for the m ajority of this total.

The Gold Star

The story of the pilgrimages began with the Gold Star mothers, and
their story began with the symbol of the gold star itself. The symbol orig­
inated during World War I as a uniquely American way to com m em orate
loss. (It should be noted World War I was not called W orld War I until
World War II came along. It was called the Great War or the W orld War
by many participants, terms that will often be used throughout this book.)
The exact origin of the Gold Star symbol is open to debate. In late 1917, a
group of Illinois families found a solution to the dark clothes of m ou rn ­
ing adopted by many families, especially in Europe, when a soldier in the
family had died in battle. A news story with a dateline of Chicago, N ovem ­
ber 12, 1917, was one of the earliest published accounts about the usage of
the gold star for a symbol of m ourning:

A movement was begun here today for the substitution for the black garb of
mourning, such as a Gold Star in memory of American soldier dead. The glory
of death should be emphasized rather than its sadness. “The psychological effect
of multitudes in mourning [clothes] is not good. Soldiers do not like it, and Ger­
many forbids it .”2

President W oodrow Wilson had much the same idea. He disliked the
prospect of thousands or tens of thousands of black-clad relatives dotting
the landscape. In a letter to Dr. Anna Howard Shaw dated May 16, 1918,
Wilson outlined his ideas. Dr. Howard was chairperson of the Council of
National Defense’s Women’s Com m ittee.
“It has occurred to m e,” Wilson wrote,

therefore that your own committee might think it timely and wise to give some
advice to the women of the country with regard to mourning. My own judgment
is that the English are treating it more wisely than the French. It may be that serv­
ice badges, upon which the white stars might upon the occurrence of a death be
changed into stars of gold, would be a very beautiful and significant substitute
for mourning. What do you think? Can your committee wisely act in the mat­
ter?3

Wilson further added he felt it unwise for him to intercede person­

ally in this issue.
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 13

Gold Star mothers, Grant Park, Chicago, 1918. President Woodrow Wilson advo­
cated the gold star, worn as an armband, as a symbol of mourning. The public
adopted the gold star rapidly, and these Chicago mothers wore the symbol in pub­
lic even before World War I ended. (Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-
0070373. Chicago Historical Society.)

Some view Wilsons efforts with a bit of cynicism. His behind-the-scenes

approach strikes many as a bit too calculated. Professor Kurt Piehler from
the University of Tennessee is a pilgrimage expert who sees Wilson’s attempt
as " ... a very deliberate conscious effort to change mourning practices.”4
Women adopted the gold star so readily and universally, however, that the
country was probably ready for such an alternative to traditional black dress.
The meaning of the symbol was clear during the war and remains so
today. “The idea of the Gold Star was that of honor and glory accorded the
person for his supreme sacrifice, rather than the sense of personal loss
14 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

which would be represented by mourning symbols,” the American Gold

Star Mothers proclaim ed.5
Regardless of the exact origin of the gold star, the service flag’s ori­
gins are clearer. The flag was commonly flown by family members who
had men in the arm ed forces.
The flag had a red border with a
blue star in the center of a white
field. A silver star could be
placed over the blue star to indi­
cate a w ounded soldier, the
familiar gold one to take place
of a blue star to indicate the
serviceman had died. The army
attributed the flag’s original
design to C apt. Robert L.
Queisser of Cleveland, Ohio,
who received a design patent for
his creation on November 6,
1917. It was an instant success.
The flag “has, however, taken
such firm root in popular senti­
m ent and has been of such
beneficial influence that it is
officially recognized, and every­
one who is entitled to fly it is
encouraged to do so.”6
A brief look at a few w ar­
time songs reveals not only the
quick adoption of the gold star
symbol but also how the focus
on loss shifted from the family
in general to the m other in par­
Americans adopted the Blue Star service flag ticular.
during World War I. Families displayed the A 1917 song, “There’s a Ser­
flag to show a member of the household vice Flag Flying at Our H ouse,”
served in the armed forces. It quickly is the earliest of three samples.
became the custom to replace the blue star
W ith m usic by Al Brown and
with a gold one when the soldier died in the
words by Thom as H oier and
war. The Gold Star mothers derived their
name from this widely accepted symbol of Bernie Grossman, the song told
mourning. (American Legion and the U.S. the story of a proud family flying
Institute of Heraldry, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia.) their service flag. The “our” in
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 15

the song’s title was significant. The service flag belonged to the family, not
just to the mother. The song’s chorus ran: “There’s a service flag flying at
our house / A blue star in a field of red and white / Father is so proud of
what his boy has done / There’s a tear in M other’s smile as she m urm urs
my son’ / Perhaps he m ay return with fame and glory / But if by chance
we lose him in the fight / There’ll be a service flag flying at our home /
And a new star in Heaven that night, that night.”7 The cover to the sheet
music showed a parade of confident doughboys marching down a broad
boulevard, with three large service flags over the street.
The second example of the service flag song was “When a Blue Star
Turns to Gold,” written in 1918. It featured words and music by Theodore
Morse and Casper Nathan. The song’s chorus addressed loss. The image of
the gold star is clearly accepted and established. Although the mother was
the chief focus of the song, she is not the only one experiencing a loss; a girl­
friend is mentioned. The song asked the listener to “picture a mother or a
sweetheart, Proud tho’ the worst has been told / Picture that scene, what it
must mean / When a blue service star turns to gold.” The chorus of the song
explained its full meaning: “When a blue service star turns to gold / What
a tale of affection is told! / Duty to country has cost one his all/While oth­
ers, at home, are bowed down with the call / In their sorrow, the ones left
behind/Voice a pray’r that is e’er borne in mind / Till souls meet on high,
they must whisper goodbye’ / When a blue service star turns to gold.”8
A final song, “The Heavens Are a M other’s Service Flag,” was pub­
lished after the war ended in 1919. The song has words by Nathan A. C on-
ney and music by J. Edward Woolley, with revisions by Paul L. Specht. In
just two years’ time from “There’s a Service Flag Flying at Our H ouse,”
several things had changed. First, the m other is now the sole focus of loss;
she is even featured in the song’s title. The song mentioned no other fam ­
ily members, and certainly no sweetheart. The attention is on loss, not
simply on service. The song also repeated the idea of a star in heaven rep­
resenting a dead soldier, whose blue star has been replaced by a gold one
on the now -fam iliar service flag. The song’s chorus illustrated these
changes: “Each little m other who gave up a boy / Is a ‘hero’ as brave as can
be / Though she never fought with sword or gun / Her deeds are greater
when the battle is done / The stars above shine for heroes so brave / U nre­
warded their burdens they drag / But God up on high, keeps a mark in the
sky / For the Heavens are a m oth er’s service flag.”9
This trio of popular tunes captured the spirit of the era. Americans
were, by and large, eager to fight in the Great War. Families knew loss was
inevitable, but their faith was ready to sustain them. For the mothers, how­
ever, flags and symbols were not enough to help cope with their loss.
16 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

Mothers who had experienced the loss of a son in battle began to seek
solace in each other. One gets the impression Gold Star m other groups
began to spring up in an organic, unplanned fashion throughout the coun­
try during and after the war. The American Gold Star M others was organ­
ized by a group of 25 mothers from the Washington, DC, area in 1928.
The organization was incorporated under the laws of the District of Colum ­
bia. M ost of the smaller, local chapters affiliated themselves with this
national organization soon after its founding.10
The organization still exists today, based in W ashington, D C, and
still carries out its mission of com fort to its members and service to the
community. Admission as a member of the organization could not come
at a higher price. The full membership requirement according to the asso­
ciation’s website reads as follows:

Natural mothers, who are citizens of the United States of America or of the
Territorial or Insular Possessions of the United States of America, whose sons or
daughters served and died in the line of duty in the Armed Forces of the United
States of America or its Allies, or died as a result of injuries sustained in such
service, are eligible for membership in American Gold Star Mothers, Inc. Adop­
tive or Stepmothers who reared the child from the age of five years, whose nat­
ural mother is deceased, are also eligible under the above conditions.

It should be noted any m other who lost a child in the military may
be considered a Gold Star m other, even if she does not formally join the
organization.
The members hold an annual convention where, during official cer­
emonies, all the women dress in white. Several of the mothers sat down
for an interview during their annual convention in Knoxville, Tennessee,
in June 2001. All but one was a Vietnam Gold Star m other, but their inter­
views for Gold Star M others: Pilgrimage o f Rem em brance showed how much
they had in com m on with their World War I-e ra counterparts. Valerie
May lost her son in Vietnam. She finds com fort in their group’s annual
meetings. “The love and friendship are just unreal,” she said.11 “It’s just
that there’s a closeness here that until you experience it, you really can’t
know what it is,” she added.12
Her fellow Gold Star m other Theresa Davis agreed. The M assachu­
setts m other spoke of the bond among all the mothers who had lost chil­
dren in war. Some m others choose not to join. She joined the group
“because it’s very comforting to be around people who are in the same
position as you are. They all lost a child in the war. And a lot of people
you can’t talk to them about it. The Gold Star mothers you can .”13
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 17

The Gold Star mothers have always been m ore concerned about eas­
ing the suffering of others than about helping themselves, however. Nev­
ertheless, the mothers found in lobbying Congress for pilgrimages during
the 1920s, they needed all their individual and collective efforts to make
the trips a reality.

A Decade in the Making

Hundreds of families visited their loved ones’ graves at their own
expense almost as soon as the armistice was signed. Two of America’s most
prom inent families were included: the parents of poet Joyce Kilmer and
Edith Roosevelt, mother of Lt. Quentin Roosevelt and wife of the late Pres­
ident Theodore Roosevelt. These “do-it-you rself” pilgrimages are a fasci­
nating topic in their own right and are the subject of Chapter 4.
However, m ost Americans were neither Roosevelts nor Kilmers. They
needed assistance to make a pilgrimage to Europe. The Gold Star m o th ­
ers and their supporters turned their attention toward Congress. New York
Congressman Fiorello La Guardia introduced the first bill in Congress to
sponsor a pilgrimage to Europe. La Guardia’s 1919 bill called for free trips
for m others and fathers to France to visit their sons’ graves. (The vast
m ajority of American dead were buried in France.) La Guardia was a dec­
orated war hero who would go from his service in Congress to become the
colorful Depression-era m ayor of New York City.
La Guardia’s bill was noteworthy for two reasons. First, it included
the fathers, not just the m others, among the pilgrims. Second, it went
absolutely nowhere in Congress. La Guardia’s measure had little support
and was also prem ature, something he himself acknowledged later in his
career. In 1919, not all the soldiers’ bodies had been permanently buried.
After some substantial and acrimonious debate, the government gave the
next-of-kin a choice: leave the body overseas for permanent burial in an
American cem etery or have the body brought back to the family for b u r­
ial. About one-third of the families, or around 30,000, chose permanent
burial in Europe.
Congress was not finished with the pilgrimage issue. It considered
pilgrimages in a series of hearings in 1924 and again in 1928. The m eas­
ure was approved in 1929 but only after a decade of debate.
Eligibility was the key issue in later bills. Fathers were out, but sol­
diers’ widows who had not rem arried were in. Stepmothers and adoptive
mothers were included under some very narrow circumstances. Logistics
were another big concern. The military at first did not want the job of tour
guide. The Red Cross was suggested, but it was lukewarm on the issue.
18 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

The A rm y’s Q uarterm aster Corps ended up with the job, and ended up
doing it superbly. Even a decade in Congress was not enough to resolve
all the issues. Congress amended the original pilgrimage act at least three
different times, the last one coming after the first group of pilgrims had
already sailed for France. The cost of the trips, however, was never really
at issue. The government was running a surplus and had very few qualms
about appropriating money for the pilgrimages once they were approved.
Professor Kurt Piehler in his interview for Gold Star M others: Pilgrimage
o f R em em bran ce realized “the government did not try to be cheap about
this.”14

Pilgrimage A to Z
President Calvin Coolidge signed the pilgrim age bill into law in
March 1929, shortly before his term of office ended and 10 years after La
Guardia first introduced it. The army immediately began its plans to organ­
ize and conduct the pilgrimages. However, among the many good decisions
was one bad one. The War Department declared black pilgrims would be
segregated from the white ones.
No amount of protest from the black pilgrims themselves or from the
NAACP could change the decision. Many black mothers and widows can­
celed their trips. The arm y and the bulk of American society was segre­
gated at the tim e. In 1930 A m ericans did not fight together in the
segregated armed forces, and the mothers of the fallen soldiers were not
allowed to m ourn together either.
Although the pilgrimage parties were segregated, that did not neces­
sarily mean they were homogenous groups of women. They came from all
walks of life and from all sets of circumstances. Many were immigrants
from the same European shores to which they now returned. Others were
from small towns who had never been outside the county where they were
born or raised. “There were college-trained m others and widows who
often helped their conducting officers translate a rapid flow of French
words from the m outh of a harassed traffic officer, and others who had
difficulty comprehending even the simplest English,” observed one of these
conducting officers.15 In the world of 1930, in fact, the pilgrim parties,
although segregated by race, would have been viewed as diverse and m ul­
ticultural.
W hat took place on a pilgrimage? W hat did the m others see and do?
W hat type of food did they eat, and in what hotels did they stay? Those
answers started in the offices of the Q uarterm aster Corps, an organization
accustomed to moving troops and supplies great distances. Before the pil-
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 19

grimages began, the Corps hired dozens of additional staff to handle co r­

respondence with tens of thousands of family members. Invitations were
extended, tickets supplied, and arrangements finalized for some 6,000 pil­
grims.
After accepting her invitation, each woman received a com prehen­
sive packet from the government. It contained a check to cover meals and
incidentals on her trip to New York City, a train ticket, and a unique Gold
Star Mothers and Widows badge. Each pilgrim wore her badge, which was
a small gold medallion suspended from a red, white, and blue ribbon,
from the time she left home until she returned. All arrangements were
designed not only to make the pilgrimage as easy as possible but also to
ensure no out-of-pocket expense was necessary. The army realized it had
to

provide custom fees, tips for bell-boys and maids at hotels and on the boat, tips
for porters, waiters, stewards on the steamer, bath and laundry, steamer chairs
and rugs, drugs and medicines, to say nothing of interpreters and guides, all the
railroad and steamship fares, all the automobile and bus transportation, and
many other incidentals too numerous to mention.16

Once the trips began, officers met each woman at the train station as
she arrived in M anhattan and escorted her to her hotel. All baggage was
checked and checked again, not only to make sure no item was left behind
but also to make sure no woman took more than she was allotted to bring.
North Dakota pilgrim Eva Trowbridge recalled:

All our baggage was tagged for the hotel in New York City and we were taken
such good care of that we were sure to be all right and land safe and when we
went on the ship our baggage was tagged again. We never had to look after our
luggage or anything, army officers took care of that.17

Parties often received an official welcome ceremony at City Hall in

New York. From there, the women were taken to Hoboken Harbor in New
lersey, where they boarded one of the luxury ships of United States Lines.
United States Lines, an A m erican-flag carrier, transported all pilgrim
parties during their trips. The pilgrims traveled in cabin class, the first-
class accom m odations of the day. Service was lavish on the voyage, which
lasted about one week. The liner often had teas or special dinners in each
group’s honor. The daily printed menu from one 1932 voyage included
several kinds of roasts, fish, salads, and even a dessert called bombe St.
H onore.18
Most ships docked at Cherbourg, on a peninsula of land on the north­
20 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

west corner of France. Parties boarded small boats to take them to land,
and French officials cleared each party through customs quickly. Parties
boarded special “boat trains” for the four-hour trip to Paris. Paris was the
base of operations for each party. Im portant ceremonies were planned in
the French capital city, and the army had already established the Graves
Registration Headquarters there, too.
Pilgrims arrived by train in Paris at the Gare des Invalides, a station
generally reserved for VIP travelers. There the party boarded waiting buses
for a night or two in a first-class Paris hotel. Parties were separated based
on what cemeteries the women were to visit. (There are eight permanent
American World War I cemeteries in Europe.) In some instances, women
bound for specific cemeteries stayed in different hotels for ease of logis­
tics. M rs. Trow bridge recalled how m em bers of her party were given
different color badges while still on the Paris boat-train to indicate which
cem etery each would visit. “Mine was blue, some had pink, some laven­
der, in fact every color. The blue were all to go in the same bus to the same
hotel” for travel to the designated cem etery.19
On the morning of their first full day in Paris, the women attended
an orientation meeting with one of their escort officers. Depending on the
day of the week, each party paid a ceremonial visit to the Arc de T riom ­
phe. The party chose one of its own as the honor pilgrim, who was respon­
sible for laying a wreath on France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The whole concept of a tom b to honor an unknown w arrior was
uniquely a Great War development. W ith millions of unidentified war
dead in all nations, each country had no choice but to build a m onum ent
to honor one of the fallen to represent the many.
After this brief ceremony, the party left for a tea in its honor, usually
at the nearby Restaurant Laurent. French and American dignitaries were
often on hand at this and other welcoming ceremonies. Gen. John Persh­
ing, America’s Great War hero, spoke at a number of these gatherings. He
told a group of mothers in 1930, “I greet with reverence these mothers of
the brave who sleep here. They inspired their sons with courage and for­
titude.”20 Following their tea, the mothers did a bit of sight-seeing before
returning to their hotels for dinner. Schedule permitting, m ore sight-see­
ing followed the next day, including sights such as the Eiffel Tower, the
palace at Versailles, or Napoleon’s Tomb.
Following these preliminaries, each group prepared to leave Paris for
its cemetery. Each group traveled by bus. Along with the pilgrims, an escort
officer, driver, interpreter, and one or m ore nurses accom panied each
group. These groups averaged around 30 women but ranged from fewer
than a dozen to 75 or m ore. The bus took a leisurely route from Paris, often
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 21

making a stop for lunch and tea. The final destination was a hotel nearby
the cemetery, which the women could use as a base of operations for sev­
eral days' worth of visits.
“After a good night's sleep, each group of mothers and widows, in
charge of an officer of the Regular Army,'' an officer wrote about this phase
of the pilgrimages,

will proceed, by motor bus, to a small town in the vicinity of the cemetery to be
visited, the establishing of this town as a temporary headquarters making it pos­
sible for the pilgrims to visit the final objective of their trip with as little difficulty
and fatigue, and as much comfort, as possible, for the period of time to be spent
in the immediate vicinity will be about seven days.21

W hether the women felt either fatigue or com fort is open to specu­
lation. Very few kept written accounts, and even fewer have been pub­
lished. The published ones refrain from sharing the emotions and feelings
of the graveside visit. That the pilgrims felt a m ix of gratitude, pride, and
relief is beyond question. Perhaps anything m ore would be impossible to
share, if it could or even should be shared at all.
Each group of pilgrims visited its cem etery for several days in a row.
The pilgrims had approximately one hour per day for a graveside visit, as
well as time to tour nearby historic and wartime sites. The pilgrims who
shared their feelings, if they shared them at all, described these visits in a
very m atter-of-fact style. “We put flowers on our loved ones' graves three
different days, and the fourth day we paid our last visit to the Somme
Cemetery on the way back to Paris. The cem etery is such a beautiful place
and so well kept,'' one Illinois pilgrim rem em bered.22
The arm y overlooked no detail in these visits. Escort officers and
nurses stood by, if needed. An official photographer took each m other's
photo at her son's grave and gave her a copy of the picture. “We found
our government had a fresh wreath of flowers for us to place on the graves,''
recalled a pilgrim, “a camp chair at each grave and a flag on the grave of
each m other's son, who was in the group.''23 The larger cemeteries, espe­
cially the Meuse-Argonne, had rest facilities built for the parties.
Mothers expressed serious concern over the condition of the cem e­
teries. W ould they be in good condition? W ere the m arkers in dis­
repair? Some had been frightened by reports on the makeshift postwar
cemeteries. These were just tem porary burial grounds, but fresh mounds
of earth and wooden crosses appalled some early pilgrims shortly after the
war.
An arm y officer sum m arized the experience all pilgrims probably
shared through the eyes of a fictionalized Mrs. Brown.
22 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

And as she looks around [the cemetery] to drink in the beauty of the scene as
a whole, Mrs. Brown sees the unfurled Stars and Stripes of Old Glory, floating
in the breeze and symbolizing our nations tender and protective care for this
bivouac of its soldier dead, an interest that will continue in its zeal through all
the coming years.24

Perhaps something else was at work here, too. Many people saw the
pilgrimages in a different light. The most basic thesis was an attempt to
attach a larger, nationalistic meaning to America's involvement in the war.
Many did wish to remember the soldier dead in heroic light, and the dead
doughboys certainly deserved this honor.

So, by sending these mothers on pilgrimages, I think that the government was
in fact trying to restore valor to what had become widely regarded as a war that
just seemed in many ways futile.... By celebrating the sacrifices in that kind of
fashion, I think there was an attempt to restore a sense of integrity, of honor, of
valor, to the war effort,25

observed Rebecca Jo Plant, formerly of Vanderbilt University, in her

interview for Gold Star M others: Pilgrim age o f R em em brance. The m o th ­
ers and widows, for their part, would have agreed wholeheartedly.
W ith their sense of valor restored, if indeed it had ever left them , the
mothers began to make their way back to Paris. Parties again took time
for sight-seeing and took a day or two to arrive back in the French capi­
tal. Battlefields were a com m on stop. In many places, nature had begun to
reclaim these damaged areas. In other locations, however, they found
trenches and other wartime areas virtually unaltered since the armistice.
“As we were taken over much of the ground where our boys fought,” re c­
ollected M rs. J. L. Davis, “we realized to a small extent the awfulness of
war. Beyond Verdun there were still traces of the shell holes, a few tanks
and devastated tow ns.”26
The pilgrims developed a close bond with each other on the trips. Bat­
tlefield visits probably enhanced this closeness. They understood the loss
each other suffered, and they spent m any weeks in each others company.
The parties developed a sort of cohesion not unlike that which character­
ized the units in which their sons fought and died. Many developed life­
long friendships. Agnes Joos and M rs. Kendall were room m ates on a
pilgrimage. “We became good friends and saw each other several times
before she passed away,” Mrs. Joos rem em bered.27
Once the parties arrived back in Paris, they checked into the same
hotels they had stayed in during their first stop. Time was available for a
little more sight-seeing and shopping before the parties made their way to
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 23

Cherbourg for the trip back to America. These side trips and diversions
were carefully planned. Stops at museums, battlefields, and department
stores in no way diminished the true meaning of the pilgrimages. The
army and mothers who had already made personal pilgrimages to Europe
quickly realized trips focused solely on grief and loss would defeat the pur­
pose of hope and uplift for the pilgrims, especially when the women would
be away from home for over a m onth.
Diversions were necessary, and sight-seeing and shopping served a
purpose.

One is full of attention for these venerable Mothers, and in order that their
journey would not leave them only sad memories, one shows them the treasures
of France; the Louvre, Versailles, Fountainbleu; sights of Art and Beauty, which
will leave a luminous trace in their modest existence, observed one French news­
paper.28

There was also, schedule permitting, time to meet some of the Americans
in Paris.
Thelma “Tommie” Edwards, a popular singer and dancer, entertained
a group of mothers from her hometown of Buffalo, New York, at her Paris
apartment on July 7, 1930. Edwards was an internationally known per­
former who left Paris shortly after the gathering for a leading role in the
Broadway production of The D esert Song. In what was reported as “the
only social function by a private individual for Gold Star Mothers perm it­
ted by the G overnm ent,” Edwards hosted 18 women for donuts and coffee.
At the small party, T om m ie’s m anager suggested she sing a song, and
Edwards com plied. In what must have been a delight for the Buffalo
women, “the Broadway favorite turned bashful, closed the shutters to her
flat to keep out the noise, switched out the lights, and leaned her chestnut
brown head against the green door of the m odern parlor and sang the
“Pagan Love Song.’”29
Even with this unique entertainm ent, the pilgrims were on a tight
schedule. They weren’t allowed to linger in Tom m ie’s m odern parlor
for long. “Lt. William J. Moroney pulled his watch on the party in the
midst of their degustation and bustled them back to their hotels for din­
ner.”30
All pilgrims, not just Tommie Edwards’s Buffalo guests, took the train
to Cherbourg from Paris for their trip hom e. The voyage home took a lit­
tle longer, perhaps seven or eight days, than the trip to Europe. They stayed
a night or two in New York City before catching trains for their final, sep­
arate trips back home.
The women could not have been more pleased and com forted. “It was
24 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

all a glorious trip from start to finish; everything was planned so well by
the government as to care and courteous treatm ent. We were looked after
all the time to see that we were comfortable, to see we were provided for,
and taken care of,” Mrs. Trowbridge wrote in her hometown newspaper
when she returned.31

Other Stories
Each pilgrimage party was unique, and each pilgrim had a personal
story to tell. A W innebago Indian woman, Kate Mike, visited France to
decorate her son’s grave. Mrs. Mike dressed in her tribe’s native garb and
caught the eye of several reporters, both for her clothing and for her lim ­
ited knowledge of English.
A Florida woman, Anna Platt, suffered a heart attack at her son’s grave.
She survived and recuperated sufficiently to make the journey back home.
(The army was especially worried about this type of incident, but it was
extremely rare.)
Two members of the first group of pilgrims, Party A in 1930, could
not have been m ore different from each other. Sarah Thompson was the
wife of a powerful Manhattan businessman and the m other of an officer.
Minnie Throckm orton from a Nebraska hamlet was widowed, and her son
had been an enlisted m an. Yet both were united by the confusion sur­
rounding hasty w artim e burials. Each w om an’s son’s rem ains were
misidentified and both were in fact buried in graves with the wrong names.
The army resolved each of these mistakes well before the pilgrims sailed,
but the experiences underscore how so m any uncommon experiences were
common for this group of women.
The Gold Star mothers also numbered among them the story of Am er­
ica’s best-loved poet of the day, Joyce Kilmer. (Kilm er’s “Trees,” “I think
that I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree,” is still recited today.)
Kilmer cheerfully volunteered for duty overseas. Sgt. Kilmer was a real
soldier, not a pretend one, and he died fighting shoulder to shoulder with
an officer who emerged as one of the central figures in World War II intel­
ligence circles. Although his m other was a Gold Star m other, she chose
not to take part in the organized pilgrimages. She and Sgt. Kilm er’s father
had already visited their son’s grave.
Finally, the pilgrimages included m any stories of women who were
born in Germany and lost their sons in a fight against their former hom e­
land. Louise Ziegler was one such G erm an-born woman. She lost her son,
Fred, during the heaviest fighting of the Meuse-Argonne campaign. Her
daughter Grace accompanied Louise on her own pilgrimage (at family
 1. What Were the Gold Star Pilgrimages? 25

expense, since the organized pilgrim ages provided funds only for the
m other or widow).
The story of each Gold Star m other is both intensely personal and
tragically universal. The women on the pilgrimages were a distinct group
with a unique experience, yet it was the com m on human experiences of
love and loss that brought them together and awarded them their place in
history.
 2

The Great War

The story of the Gold Star m other pilgrimages begins with the story
of World War I. It is m ore than merely a recount of major battles, famous
generals, and im portant treaties. It is equally the story of individual
sacrifice and loss, of dying alone but never being forgotten, and of per­
sonal choices with national consequences.
Before there could be a pilgrimage of any kind, there had to be A m er­
ican graves in foreign lands. Before these burials, tens of thousands of
Americans would lose their lives in France, Belgium, Russia, and the dan­
gerous waters of the N orth A tlantic. A European war raged for almost
three full years even before the United States sent its troops overseas. This
chapter tells several separate but closely related stories. There is no need
to retell the story of America's participation in World War I in great detail.
However, a m oth er’s pilgrimage finds its roots in a son’s death, and the
deaths of several doughboys are worth full attention. (D oughboy was the
generic American word for a Great War soldier.) W artim e burial of the
dead was both an immediate concern and an issue that stirred an intense
national debate. Finally, the cemeteries where the troops were buried and
which the pilgrims visited m erit a closer examination.

War 101
America declared war on Germany and its allies on April 6,1917. Pres­
ident Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war just six months after
winning his second term in office. One of his campaign slogans was “he
kept us out of w ar.” N o-holds-barred German submarine warfare was the
chief reason Wilson and Congress had no choice but to join the Great War.
The Germans had hoped to sink enough Allied ships, including American

26
 2. The Great War 27

merchant ships, to win the war outright before America could turn the
tide.
The Germans were very aware of bringing the United States into the
war. “We had to keep the prospects of Am erican intervention steadily
before our eyes,” German Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg said.1 H in-
denburg's remarks were prophetic, but Germany and its enemies had no
way of knowing what the war held when America entered it.
The war the United States joined in spring 1917 had started in a light­
ning manner but had hardened into the muddy, brutal stalemate of trench
warfare. After the assassination of Austria-Hungary's Archduke Ferdinand
in 1914, European alliances precipitated a continental crisis. Germany felt
a quickly mobilized attack through neutral Belgium could knock the
French out of the war in short order. W ith France subdued, the German
goal was to mobilize against Frances ally Russia and defeat it in a war on
the eastern front.
Neither plan worked. The German advance almost succeeded but
became bogged down in northern and eastern France. Both sides held fast,
digging a virtually continuous series of trenches from the English Chan­
nel to the Swiss border. Germany did eventually defeat Russia, which col­
lapsed under the weight of war and revolution in 1917. W hile
revolutionaries fought for control in Russia, Germany was free to direct
its troops against France on the western front. Germany hoped its final
push in the west, coupled with its submarine attacks at sea, would enable
it to win the war. This was the conflict the United States joined in 1917.
W hat exactly America had to offer was unclear when Wilson received
his declaration of war. “Many assumed that the United States would sim ­
ply offer naval help, financial support, and war supplies,” observed lead­
ing World War I historian David F. Trask.2 The American military in 1917
was small and somewhat backward. The Regular Arm y had approximately
108,000 men in uniform, and many of them were busy chasing Pancho
Villa through M exico. In terms of manpower, America offered its allies
what was then only the 17th largest military in the world.3
War matériel did not greatly improve America's position. When war
began, the United States had just a few dozen aircraft in service, and all
were classified as obsolete or obsolescent.4 Airplanes were just one part of
the picture, however.
World War I featured new and deadly weapons trained against troops
in unprecedented lethality and effectiveness. Men died in ways they had
never died before, in numbers greater than any contem porary participants
could imagine. High-explosive artillery blew soldiers to bits. German U -
boats torpedoed ships, sending men to their deaths in the frigid N orth
28 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

Atlantic waters. Poison gas stung their eyes, burned their throats, and,
after hours or days of agony, stopped their lungs from working. Tens of
thousands of men simply sank in the mud in Belgium and France, and their
bodies have still never been found.
The Germans pioneered the use of the portable flamethrower, a truly
evil weapon capable of dousing enemy troops with a shower of burning
oil in close com bat. A weapon as common as the machine gun killed men
in record numbers. Machine guns killed hundreds of thousands of men
on both sides as troops went “over the top” to attack fortified defensive
positions. (The phrase “over the top” is a World War I invention. It meant
troops left the relative safety of their muddy trenches and climbed over
the top to charge the enemy in its equally fortified position.)
All these weapons, and the mass slaughter they created, made the war
unprecedented in its day. “The machine gun alone makes it so special and
unexampled that it simply can’t be talked about as if it were another one
of the conventional wars of history,” noted Paul Fussell in his landmark
book, The Great War and M odern M em ory.5
It is no wonder m ost Americans had little idea what they were facing
as they prepared to sail over there. The combination of a small m ilitary
force and new weapons meant the war was a very dangerous place indeed.
In other words, the United States “found itself on a futuristic battlefield it
had not prepared for, one that it did not anticipate, and that the Marines
[and other troops] who were there paid the price in blood.”6
The men of the W orld W ar I generation, with some exceptions,
responded enthusiastically to America’s entry into the war. The Wilson
administration decided American troops overseas, rather than simply naval
or financial support, was the best way to win the war. Men enlisted read­
ily in most areas. A draft was initiated to meet manpower quotas. Although
it met with some resistance, the efforts were largely successful.
The military was generally satisfied with the caliber of men it received.
However, one report noted after the war a number of less than desirable
specimens came from states such as Arizona and California, states that
had become noted as health resorts.7 Overall, however, the quality and
quantity of troops was enough to fill the bill.
“No one wanted to be termed a slacker, so men joined up to fight,”
William Stevens Prince observed in his interview for Gold Star M others:
Pilgrim age o f R em em bran ce.8 Self-styled patriots held “slacker raids” in
major cities to round up any draft-age men who did not appear to being
doing their share.
The post-V ietnam War generations simply find it hard to imagine the
patriotism and war fever W orld War I generated. Only the patriotism
 2. The Great War 29

unleashed after the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, offers any
glimpse into this lost nationalistic fervor. America was on crusade, most
people believed, and the ready assumption was every red-blooded man
wanted to see part of the action. Religious leaders and members of the
m ost prom inent families stood ready to reinforce this m indset. “Every
man ... would be saying he wished he were here, and every man worth his
salt would mean it,” Father Francis Duffy of the 27th Division told his men
during services in France on St. Patrick’s Day, 1918.

The leading men of our country had called us to fight for human liberty and
the rights of small nations, and if we rallied to that noble cause we would estab­
lish on our own country and on humanity in favor of the dear land from which
so many of us had sprung, and which all of us loved.9

The notion of being called by the “leading men” to take any course of
action seems positively antiquated today; however, it was precisely the
leading men of the day who readily joined the war effort.
One such leading man was Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son
of former president Teddy Roosevelt. The young Roosevelt enthusiastically
joined the service and became a pilot. He pulled as m any strings as pos­
sible, not to avoid combat but rather to get into battle. His story illus­
trated the combative spirit and bravery that many Americans brought to
World War I.
In a letter home to his family, Quentin described his first encounter
with German an ti-aircraft fire after his assignment to the 95th Aero
Squadron. “It is really exciting at first when you see the stuff bursting in
great black puffs around you,” Quentin w rote, “but you get used to it after
fifteen m inutes.”10
To get Quentin Roosevelt, Father Duffy, and the rest of these troops
overseas, the United States created the American Expeditionary Force, the
AEF, as the military establishment to fight the war. Gen. John J. “Black Jack”
Pershing was placed in charge of the AEF, and he arrived in France with a
small staff in June 1917.
Once the volunteers and draftees were formed into units in the United
States, the task ahead was getting these men to France in one piece. The
Allies developed an oceangoing convoy system to escort the troopships to
Europe through U -boat-infested waters. By and large, this mission was a
resounding success.
At least 370 Americans, however, were killed in six separate attacks
on Allied shipping. Two attacks were especially deadly. The Ticonderoga
was sunk, and 101 doughboys lost their lives. The Tuscania attack was far
m ore serious, with over 200 officers and men killed. A German U -boat
30 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

torpedoed the liner between the coasts of Scotland and Ireland on Febru­
ary 5, 1918. The Tuscania was a British oceanliner leased by Cunard for
use as a troopship. The ship carried over 2,000 men, and most survived
the attack. Some survivors were picked up by escort destroyers, while hun­
dreds of men not only made their way to lifeboats but also survived the
rugged shores and violent waves to reach land. Although the Tuscania car­
ried men from m any units, both British and Am erican, troops from the
20th Engineers predom inated. Most were loggers from the Pacific N orth ­
west, sent to Europe to cut timber for the war effort.
One boy who didn't reach shore alive was Percy Stevens from Bend,
Oregon. Stevens's body eventually washed up on the Scottish coast. Peo­
ple from nearby Port Charlotte held services for many of the dead. The
Scottish townspeople had no American flag, so they made their own out
of red, white, and blue strips of cloth. Stevens was buried on February 13
in a village cem etery overlooking Kilnaughton Bay, alongside 78 of his fel­
low soldiers.
Percy Stevens's death and his mother's subsequent pilgrimage are per­
haps the m ost well-documented Gold Star m other story. W illiam Stevens
Prince's 1986 Crusade and Pilgrimage was the first published, book-length
account of the pilgrimages. Equal parts personal narrative and legislative
history, Crusade and Pilgrimage is a readable, well-illustrated look at the
pilgrimage movement.
Prince was the nephew of Percy and Laura Stevens's grandson. Prince's
book is both a personal narrative and professional study. He retraced
Percy's final days, photographing the cem etery where his uncle was first
buried. From his book, he tells of his grandm other's silence on the m a t­
ter. Prince recalled how his grandmother, whom he called “Grannie,” rarely
spoke to him about her experiences, and he is able to devote just one sen­
tence of his book about her reactions at the cemetery. (Laura Stevens, like
most pilgrims, left no written account, letters, or diaries about her trip.)
For every boy like Percy who did not reach Europe, tens of thousands
of men did. By the end of 1917, 183,000 Americans had joined Gen. Per­
shing “over there.” By summer 1918, troops were arriving at a tid e-tu rn ­
ing pace. Over 313,000 safely reached Europe in July 1918 alone, and over
2 million A m ericans were in France by the end of the war. M en, not
matériel, were America's prim ary contribution to the war effort. “But the
most valuable resource we had were the soldiers we sent,” observed Edward
“M ac” Coffman, a leading World War I historian.11 The basic unit these
arrivals joined was the com bat division. A m erican divisions, at full
strength, numbered some 28,000 troops. Huge by European standards,
each American division also carried impressive firepower, including 24
 2. The Great War 31

155mm howitzers, 48 75m m guns, 260 machine guns, and some 17,000
rifles. The AEF had 42 such divisions at w ar’s end. Plans called for up to
80 divisions in 1919, and an even 100 in place by January 1920. (In some
ways, the Allies were surprised when the war ended in late 1918, given their
preparations for a longer conflict.)
Regardless of the numbers, the European Allies were delighted to see
American troops flooding European shores. “They were fresh bodies,” our
Allies observed. “The French were very enthusiastic, and so were the
English, when the Americans came in ,” Mac Coffman noted.12
America’s war involvement was m ore than the number of divisions
in place or the number of armies formed. It is the story of individuals. It
is the stories of men like Quentin Roosevelt and Percy Stevens, and any
story of the Great War must also include stories of men like Erwin Bleck­
ley, Alexander Norris, Earl Miller, and Edward Pennington. All died in
battle, under different conditions but in service to a com m on mission.
Perhaps the m ost well-known of the four was Erw in Bleckley.
Nowhere was the American fighting spirit better demonstrated than in the
story of the Lost Battalion. The so-called Lost Battalion was neither a full
battalion, nor was it ever really lost. Elements of the 77th Division jumped
off in an assault in the Argonne Forest on October 2, 1918. Approximately
700 men became cut off from flanking units, and German defenders quickly
surrounded them. Germans used m ortars, machine guns, and even newly
developed flamethrowers against the isolated Am ericans. The Americans
fought off numerous counterattacks and refused to surrender. They were
eventually rescued five days later, on October 7. The 194 survivors were
tired, hungry, thirsty, and out of ammunition.
If the Lost Battalion wasn’t exactly lost, it did prove rather difficult
to locate. American pilots flew a number of sorties to locate and resupply
the men. The flyers not only hoped to pinpoint the men but also attempted
to drop rations and supplies on their position. Two such pilots were Lt.
Herman Goettler and his observer, Lt. Erwin Bleckley. Flying their tw o-
seater DeHavilland D H -4, the noted “Flying Coffin” due to its tendency
to burst into flames when hit by gunfire, the men crisscrossed the coun­
tryside trying to locate the Lost Battalion. W hen their first mission failed,
the two volunteered for a second sortie. The men returned to the
battlefield, flying so low through a valley that German gunners actually
fired down on their aircraft. The German fire was too intense, and the
D H -4 was shot down.
Neither man survived the crash, but Bleckley’s notes were sufficient
to allow fellow American troops to locate the Lost Battalion. Both G oet­
tler and Bleckley received the Congressional Medal of H onor p osth u ­
32 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

mously. G oettler’s body was returned to the United States; Bleckley’s was
buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery.
Fliers like Goettler and Bleckley drew the public’s imagination dur­
ing the war. However, it was accurate and deadly field artillery that prob­
ably killed m ore troops (on both sides) than any other weapon. A trio of
cases proves the point. Earl Miller of Raymond, Illinois, was one fatality
of German artillery. “A shrapnel hit my son. He died at first aid. They all
ducked, but alas it took h im ,” his m other, Sophia Miller, wrote in 1941.13
Mrs. Miller’s laconic view of her son’s death, over 20 years after the
fact, contained a valuable insight. Earl’s wounds were not so severe that
he couldn’t be removed to a first aid station. Many victims of artillery fire
were not so lucky. The barrages were so heavy, with so many shells, that
thousands of men were blown to bits. The Great War generation never
demanded, nor did they receive, an accounting of every last body on the
battlefield. In many cases, there was just nothing left.
Private Alexander Norris, 127th Infantry, 32nd Division, was one man
who was not lucky enough to make it to first aid. One of his comrades in
arms saw the whole episode, and his account is preserved in the National
Archives in Private N orris’s burial file. “I, Louis Hein, Sgt. Co. H 127th
Infantry was with Pvt. Norris when he was decapitated by an enemy shell
in the Bois de Bantheville, France, on October 13th, 1918. He was buried
in the same place.”14
Edward Pennington was a bugler from Cincinnati serving with the
4th Infantry, 3rd Division. He was digging trenches with his unit on the
night of July 14, 1918. An artillery barrage surprised Pennington and his
buddies. Corporal Thomas Kane recalled how

the sky was beginning to light up for the guns of the Germans had begun to
open up. We had expected this to happen. The shells began to fall around the hill
where we were digging and before Bugler Pennington could get to a safe place,
and he was hit by flying fragments of a shell. He was carried to a place that was
thought to be safe in the trenches we had dug, and the first aid men bandaged
him up. He could not be moved to the hospital right away for the shells were
falling too thick, and it was sure death for anyone to try to get to the rear. Early
on the morning of July 15th, 1918, we took Pvt. Pennington to the hospital, but
he died in a short while.

“He didn’t have anything to say,” Kane recalled, adding the young
bugler had no valuables in his pockets.15
Miller, Bleckley, N orris, and Pennington joined a total of 53,313
Americans who were killed in battle or died of their wounds in the war.
Battle deaths came in very large numbers. At the height of the M euse-
 2. The Great War 33

Argonne offensive in 1918, the AEF suffered about 1,000 battle deaths per
day. In a staggering loss, the only kind that the war seemed to provide, the
U.S. Marine Corps lost more men in one day of the battle of Belleau Wood
than it had during its previous 142 years combined.
Gunshot accounted for over half of all battle deaths and injuries.
Artillery shells and shrapnel claimed another quarter. M ustard, phosgene,
and other gas attacks killed almost 10 percent of the doughboy army. Yet
at the same time, saber blows killed three men during the war. Another
63,195 died of disease, accident, or other cause.16 The Worldwide Spanish
influenza epidemic is responsible for m ost of this last total, and the figure
includes soldiers who died in Europe, at sea, or even in the United States
during training. For the purposes of the pilgrimages, however, a mother
would become eligible for a trip to Europe to visit her son’s grave no m a t­
ter if he died in battle or from injury, illness, or accident.
W artim e involvement for the United States lead to the deaths of over
100,000 Americans, both overseas and at home. Am erica’s contribution of
some 2 million troops helped win the war for the Allies. Historians, for
the most part, believe “the American intervention was crucial for the Allied
victory. W ithout Americans, the m ost the Allies could have hoped for was
a stalem ate,” argued Coffman.17
A stalemate looked like something of a sure bet. American troops
were green and looked to be too late to slow the Germans in early 1918.
Furtherm ore, the war was fought entirely outside of German territory.
Nevertheless, Germany collapsed from the inside and began sending peace
feelers to Wilson in m id-1918. The war ended not in 1919 or even 1920,
but with an arm istice on November 11, 1918. (The arm istice dictated a
ceasefire at precisely 11:11 a . m . on November 11.)
Am erica, at the end of this World War, found itself in unprecedented
territory. It was a truly global world power, and it had tens of thousands
of its war dead lying overseas in tem porary graves.

Removal o f the Dead

After the war started and as American battle deaths began to increase,
the AEF realized it would be impractical, if not practically impossible, to
return the bodies of our war dead until the war had ceased. As early as
May 31,1917, the A rm y’s Q uarterm aster General recommended “the bod­
ies of our soldiers who die in Europe be interred there and no attempt to
bring them back until after close of hostilities.”18
This pronouncement was anything but prem ature. The first Am eri­
cans were wounded in battle on July 14, 1917, in an artillery barrage. The
34 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

first Am ericans to die in battle fell on September 4, 1917, again in an

artillery shelling of a British unit to which they were assigned. First Lt.
William Fitzsimmons and three enlisted men lost their lives in that first
attack.
W artim e burial of the dead was not a new problem for the United
States. Organized burial parties had existed as far back as the Civil War.
After Am erica first entered World War I, the army had plans to organize
a civilian burial corps to bury the war dead. It was not until August 7,1917,
that the War D epartm ent approved plans for graves registration units,
made up not of civilians but of units composed of 2 officers and 50 enlisted
men each. Major Charles C. Pierce and the First Graves Registration Unit
reached Europe two m onths later.19 Although the m ilitary knew a few
understaffed units would never be able to meet the demand, it believed
basic graves registration units were the best way to avoid delays and m is­
takes in hasty combat burials.
Major Pierce’s mission was clear. As combat ceased in a sector, his
troops registered and verified tem porary grave markings, located other
bodies that had not been buried or buried improperly, and began to rebury
and congregate bodies into makeshift American cemeteries.

In addition to this basic function, the Graves Registration Service (GRS) also
kept accurate and complete records on the location and identification of graves
of all officers and soldiers of the AEF and all civilians attached to it: located and
acquired all necessary cemeteries for American use; maintained and controlled
the cemeteries; and compiled a registry of burials.20

Major Pierce began work in M arch 1918 with four separate units. By
the end of the war, 18 such units were in place, with a m axim um strength
of 921 officers and enlisted men. A large number of laborers and clerical
support personnel assisted their efforts. At w ar’s end, there were over
70,000 Americans buried in Europe, with some 15,000 resting in isolated,
single graves. There were more than 2,300 American military cemeteries,
small and large, in five different nations in Europe when the war ended.
Beginning on November 13,1918, the GRS began two new tasks. First,
the service double-checked all graves and registration records for accuracy.
Second, in accord with the wishes of the French government, the service
began to concentrate the dead into fewer cemeteries. By the beginning of
1920, there were still at least 55 American cemeteries, which contained 200
or m ore bodies. Some of these were quite large. Ploisy cem etery held 1,821
graves; Lambezellec cem etery held 1,740.21 This total of 55 included tem ­
porary burial sites that would become permanent American cemeteries,
including Suresnes, Flanders Field, St. Mihiel, and M euse-Argonne.
 2. The Great War 35

As the process of checking graves and concentrating the bodies con ­

tinued, the War Department reached its decision on the final disposition
of the Great W ar dead. On O ctober 6, 1919, the W ar D epartm ent
announced its policy, one that gave families and next-of-kin a comforting
measure of autonomy.
All remains in Great Britain, Italy, and Belgium were to be returned
to the United States unless the nearest relative requested overseas burial.
All bodies in France were to be returned to the United States only at the
direct request of the next-of-kin. No graves were to remain in Russia, Ger­
many, or Luxem bourg, regardless of family wishes. By way of contrast,
other nations’ losses were so great as to make the choice of removal im pos­
sible. Families of Canadian, British, or Australian soldiers, for example,
had no say in the m atter. All their dead would remain forever overseas.
Furtherm ore, the French government did not authorize the removal
of anybodies from France until September 15,1920, almost two years after
the war ended. Once the French and American governments had made
their decisions, the GRS handled all the arrangements from its tem porary
headquarters at Hoboken H arbor in New Jersey.
The GRS returned bodies to America with the same painstaking care
and respect the A rm y’s Q uarterm aster Corps showed the pilgrims a decade
later. The arm y was in constant contact with relatives, delivering the body
of a loved one to the next-of-kin.
Corporal Oscar Haug was one such case. His parents requested the
return of his body to his home in southern Illinois, in compliance with
the American policy. His remains, which records indicated were “badly
decomposed, recognition impossible,” were exhumed from their initial
burial spot in Belgium on August 8, 1921. His body was moved to the
American cem etery near Romagne, France. On August 22, the body was
moved to Antwerp, Belgium, to await transportation to the United States.
Haug’s body arrived at Hoboken Harbor on September 20. Arm y escorts
stayed with the body on its rail journey back to Illinois, where a relative
met the train at the local railway station.22
This process was not always foolproof; mistakes were made. H ow ­
ever, the GRS did an admirable job under stressful and difficult conditions.

Whose Body Is It?

The decision to remove a soldier’s body from the battlefields in Europe
or to leave it forever overseas must have been one of the m ost difficult
choices a parent could have faced. Parents were already traum atized
enough by the news their sons had died in Europe. As a Gold Star m other
36 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

from World War II recalls it, the news was a shock. Winifred Lancy lost
her son Norman in the war. In her interview for Gold Star M others: Pil­
grim age o f R em em brance, Mrs. Lancy recalled how she received the bad
news in an impersonal telegram. “Sorry to inform you your son has been
killed,” she recalled. “And it told the date, and all I could see was in that
was the word ‘killed.’ It looked like the letters in that were in great big let­
ters and all the other stuff you could barely read.”23 In the final analysis,
m ost parents or n ext-o f-k in agreed with Corporal H aug’s folks. They
wanted their sons and husbands returned home to them. Patriots and even
a former president argued both sides of the issue. Each side waged n oth ­
ing less than a sophisticated, persuasive public relations campaign to cham ­
pion its own point of view. The issue put America at odds with its allies,
too. In the end, the U.S. government maintained a positive middle ground,
ready to assist a family like the Haugs with whatever desire it had for its
fallen hero.
Those who objected to removal of the Am erican dead wanted the
bodies to remain in Europe. Our European allies felt strongly that all the
war dead should be buried in Europe and remain together. British writer
Stephen Graham was an especially articulate advocate. Graham’s 1921 book,
The Challenge o f the D ead , offered his view of a divided Europe struggling
to bury, honor, and remember its dead. As Graham viewed American cas­
kets ready for transport back to the United States, he disliked what he saw.
“At Calais now the boxes are stacked on the quays with the embalmed
dead,” he wrote.

At great cost of time and labour the dead soldiers are being removed from the
places where they fell and packed in crates for transport to America. In this way,
America’s sacrifice is lessened. For while in America this is considered to be Amer­
ica’s own concern, it is certain that it is deplored in Europe. The taking away of
the American dead has given the impression of a slur on the honor of lying in
France. America removes her dead because of a sweet sentiment towards her own.
She takes them from a more honourable resting place to a less honourable one.
It is said to be due in part to the commercial enterprise of the American under­
takers, but it is more due to the sentiment of mothers and wives and provincial
pastors in America. That the transference of the dead across the Atlantic is out
of keeping with European sentiment she ignores, or fails to understand. Amer­
ica feels she is morally superior to Europe.24

Graham attributed America’s aims to the defeat of President Wilson’s

idealistic peace plans. He felt Britain crushed Wilson’s spirit and Am eri­
can hopes with it. Graham considered it impossible to imagine Am erica’s
war dead being returned home had Wilson’s idealism won in Europe and
survived at home.
 2. The Great War 37

He argued, “Had Wilson carried his great program there had been no
estrangement [between Europe and Am erica], no exhuming of the A m er­
ican dead.”25 In this sense, Graham is one of the few Europeans to give
Wilson’s 14 Points any credit. Most of our allies were content to punish
Germany as harshly as possible with the Treaty of Versailles.
French sentiment was equally strong against removal of the A m eri­
can dead. The French believed the best way to honor the war dead was to
leave them buried in the very land they fought to free. They envisioned
large cemeteries throughout the former battlefields. One French writer
was “convinced that the dispersal of the bodies of the fallen heroes would
forever destroy the actual reminder of their magnificent feat of arm s” of
the American doughboys.26 This sentiment, along with real logistical issues,
is partly the reason why the French government prohibited the removal of
any bodies before 1920.
The French saw potential Allied cemeteries as sacred places, places of
interest for generations to come. Family honor, not simply national patriot­
ism, was offered as an argument against removal. Americans were reminded:

All along the front there will be a zone, not for cultivation, where little trees
will spring up, stretching their branches out among the graves. It will become a
sacred forest, a place of pilgrimage for the entire world; and the greatest honor
that a family can aspire to is to leave their name there graven on a tomb.27

The pilgrim aspect was a strong inducement, especially among for­

mer American soldiers. Maj. Gen. John O ’Ryan, from the A E F’s famed
27th Division, agreed with the French view and argued in favor of leav­
ing all bodies overseas. In fact, O ’Ryan noted that private pilgrimages had
begun as early as 1920. O ’Ryan received a letter from the m ayor of Bony,
France. The mayor told O ’Ryan the French townspeople visited the A m er­
ican cem etery in Bony to pay tribute to their American defenders. This
visit, O ’Ryan believed, “demonstrates conclusively the effect upon the peo­
ple of France the presence of those white crosses in their midst of the
Americans who died for them .”28
In addition, O ’Ryan believed leaving American bodies overseas could
lead to American pilgrimages. O ’Ryan hoped

a strong sentiment will develop among the families of the dead protecting
against what seems to be almost a sacrilege — the removal of the bodies of our
gallant men from those sacred sites in France where they died together, and which
will become places of pilgrimage for the honoring of their memory.29

Those who argued against removal attached patriotism to pilgrim ­

age. They argued it was a family’s duty to leave a soldier overseas, where
38 The Gold Star Mother Pilgrimages of the 1930s

his grave would continue, in one sense, to do its duty after the m an s death.
“In a m ajority of these cases,” Bishop Charles H enry Brent wrote of the
decision to leave the remains overseas,

this action on the part of the relatives in itself was an act of patriotism and
sacrifice. They felt that by foregoing their right to have the bodies brought back
to the United States they were setting their mark and seal on the sacrifice made
by sons and husbands and brothers. The Government has thus failed in no detail
to pay the honor due to that sacred dust of America which now blends with the
soil upon which our best manhood fought and died.30

It is unclear how m any average Americans read the words of Graham,

O ’Ryan, and Brent. However, one name arguing against removal was well
known to all Americans: Teddy Roosevelt. Quentin Roosevelt was shot
down over German lines on Bastille Day, July 14, 1918. The loss crushed
the former president, who died just seven months later. In a letter to the
War Department published shortly after the war ended, the Roosevelt fam ­
ily made its feelings known: leave Quentin’s body buried on the field of
battle. “Let the young oak lie where it fell,” their letter pleaded. The let­
ter was published in the New York Times and other newspapers around the
country.31 The arm y granted the wish of the former president and first
lady. Quentin’s body remained right where it fell, in a rem ote grave in
rural France.
Roosevelt’s enormous popularity was an important factor for those
families who decided to leave their loved ones overseas. Quentin had grown
up in the White House in the public eye. He and his siblings were as well
known and well liked by the American public as were John and Caroline
Kennedy to a later generation. By leaving his body in France, the Roosevelts’
decision was a powerful influence on the thousands of families who chose
to leave their sons and husbands overseas. Many Gold Star mothers echoed
the president’s sentiments to explain why they left their boys in France.
Another reason families left soldiers’ remains in Europe was the sol­
diers themselves. Many doughboys’ letters back home during the war urged
parents to leave the bodies overseas with fallen comrades in the event of
death. Each man believed the ground on which he fought was sacred, made
so by his blood and that of his comrades. For example, Jennie Walsh, a
Gold Star mother from Brooklyn, told Congress in 1924 her son was buried
in France according to his own wishes. “My only child, 18 years of age, lies
over in Europe by his own will,” she testified in Congress in favor of pil­
grimage legislation. “When he went over he asked me, if he was killed on
the other side, to please leave him there, and let him lie among the boys
with whom he fought.”32 Mrs. Walsh’s son was a battalion messenger who
 2. The Great War 39

was killed near the Hindenburg Line. He was buried in Bony, France. At
the same congressional hearing, Mrs. Gilbert Manson of Hillsdale, New
York, told how she left her son buried overseas, lying next to his wartime
buddy, Lt. Scanlon.33
A final reason so many bodies remained overseas was probably sim ­
ple confusion. A number of families were unaware of the option they had
to bring the remains of their loved ones back hom e. Some never received
the governm ent’s correspondence; others were unable to read the letter if
it arrived. It is likely a small number of families who left remains over­
seas didn’t know they had any other choice.
New York Congressman Samuel Dickstein told his fellow members
of the House during a 1924 hearing much the same story. Based on his dis­
cussions with Gold Star mothers in his district, Dickstein realized “most
of them did not understand they could make a request and bring the boy
back here.”34 Dickstein lost a brother in the Meuse-Argonne campaign,
and he felt his m other was lucky to have him around to fill out the paper­
work to bring his brother back home. Dickstein knew of many cases where
the women simply did not know how to fill out the forms, or if they did
know, they failed to realize this was the one and only chance to bring the
doughboy’s body back hom e. “I want to remind you,” Dickstein told his
law makers, “that the thing just went like a storm ; because you had to file
your application within a certain time, and when you failed to file your
application with that time you were through.”35 Dickstein was a vocal sup­
porter of governm ent-sponsored pilgrimage legislation throughout the
1920s.
Yet not everyone agreed with writers such as Graham and O ’Ryan
and with families such as Manson and Walsh. Approximately two-thirds
of the families who were eligible to bring back their husbands and sons
chose to do so. Their reasons were varied. The funeral home industry
waged an intense campaign for removal of all bodies and their return to
America. Although their campaign contained no small am ount of self-
interest, the ability to bury a loved one in the hometown cem etery held a
strong appeal for many families.
Others rejected the notion of their loved one continuing to serve the
country, even in death. The remains belonged to the family, and most fam ­
ilies wanted them back hom e. Another reason was m any soldiers wanted
their bodies brought back home if they died in battle, and their letters to
their families made their wishes quite clear.
The experiences of the Manson and Walsh families were far from
unique. Men often expressed their desired place for burial. Some men
wanted to return home. Estella Ann Carpenter from Rochelle, Illinois, lost
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
conscious of nothing but a sharp, tearing pain at her heart, and that
she was waiting with a sort of numb indifference to hear Elaine's
palliation of her sin.
Elaine sat silently a minute, with her white hands locked convulsively
in her lap. When she spoke she seemed to be communing with
herself.
"Dear God," she whispered, "I had hoped that the child need never
know her mother's secret! Ah, I might have known how hard and
cruel Bertha would be some day!"
She lifted her eyes and fixed them in a sort of unwilling fascination
on Irene's beautiful, mutinous face.
"I have lived years and years of sorrow and despair," she said, "but
when I look back it seems only yesterday that I was a pretty, willful,
loving child, such as Irene was until to-night. Ah, so like, so like, that
I have sometimes shuddered and wept, fearing her fate would be
like mine."
Irene made a passionate gesture of loathing and dissent.
"Ah, my child, you do not know," Elaine said, sadly. "The greatest
temptation of woman has never come to you. You have never
loved."
The fresh, young lips curled in utter scorn of that master-passion
whose fire had never breathed over her young heart.
"You have never loved," Elaine repeated, with a gesture of despair.
"When that master passion first came to me I was a younger girl
than you, Irene, and just as willful and headstrong and passionate.
Bertha and I were away at boarding-school when I first met my
fate."
She paused, trembling like a leaf in the wind, and resumed,
mournfully:
"He was a cousin of one of the pupils, and came to a musical festival
given by us at the first of the mid-winter term. I sang one or two
solos, and it was then and there that this handsome scion of a proud
and wealthy house fell in love with me."
"I have never loved as you say," interrupted Irene in her clear, bell-
like voice, "but I should hesitate to call that feeling which only aims
at the ruin of its object by the pure name of love."
Elaine bowed her golden head wearily.
"Let us say that he pretended to love me, then," she amended,
sadly. "But, ah, Irene, if you had seen and heard him you would
have believed his vows, too—you would have trusted in him as I did.
No girl ever had a handsomer, more adoring lover."
"I was young, romantic, willful," she continued. "It seemed to be a
case of true love at first sight. We met several times, and some
foolish love-letters passed between us. There are more opportunities
for such things than you would guess at the average boarding-
school, Mr. Kenmore," she said, turning her blushing face upon him
for a moment. "At this one, love-letters, stolen walks, secret
meetings were carried on to an alarming extent, one third of the
pupils at least being as foolish and romantic as I was."
"I can understand," Mr. Kenmore answered, gently.
"Mamma was a stern and proud woman," Elaine resumed, with a
sigh. "She was exceedingly proud of my beauty and my fine voice. A
brilliant future was mapped out for me. But first I was to become a
perfect prodigy of learning and accomplishments. At sixteen, when I
was to finish the course at the Institute where I then was, I was to
be sent to the Vassar College for a few years. 'Ossa on Pelion piled,'"
she quoted, with a mournful smile.
"I knew that a love affair on my part would not be tolerated for
years," she resumed. "My lover, as regards his family, was placed in
the same position comparatively. A marriage of convenience was
arranged for him, and he was forbidden to think of another. Madly in
love with each other, and rebelling against our fetters, we planned
an elopement. In three months after I met him we ran away to
another State and were married."
"Married?" Irene echoed, with a hopeful start.
"We were married—as I believed," said Elaine, with a shudder.
"There was a ceremony, a ring, a certificate. I was a child, not
sixteen yet, remember, Irene. All appeared satisfactory to me. We
went to a luxurious boarding-house where six months passed in a
dream of perfect happiness. My husband remained the same fond,
faithful lover he had been from the first day we met until the fateful
hour when we parted—never to meet again," sobbed Elaine, yielding
to a momentary burst of despairing grief that showed how well and
faithfully she had loved the traitor who had ruined her life.
But feeling her daughter's cold, young eyes upon her, she soon
stemmed the bitter tide of her hopeless grief.
"Our funds ran low," she continued, after a moment, "and he was
compelled to leave me to go to his father and ask pardon and help.
We were both young, and having been reared in the enervating
atmosphere of luxury, knew not how to earn a penny. He went and—
never came again."
"Villain!" Guy Kenmore uttered, indignantly.
"After waiting vainly a week I wrote to him," said Elaine, bowing her
lovely head upon her hands. "His father came, full of pity and
surprise. My God! I had been deceived by a mock marriage. He
whom I loved so dearly, whom I believed my husband, had gone
home, wedded the woman of his father's choice, and taken her
abroad on a wedding trip. I had been ruthlessly forsaken.
"Then I remembered papa, whom I had loved truly and tenderly as
you did, Irene. In my extremity and despair I wrote to him. He
came, the dear father I had deserted and forgotten in the flush of
my wifely happiness. He pitied and forgave me.
"Mamma and Bertha would not forgive, but they plotted to save the
family honor. The affair had never been publicly known. We went
abroad, and among strangers, where in a few months you were
born, my poor wronged Irene. When we came home mamma
claimed my child for her own, and by her stern command I took my
place in society and played my part as calmly as if my heart were
not broken. Now, Irene, you know the full extent of your mother's
sin. I have been wronged as well as you, my darling. You are
nameless, but not through sin of mine."
Her faltering voice died into silence. Irene made no answer. She had
dropped her face in her small white hands. Guy Kenmore felt the
slight form trembling against his arm.
"I was mistaken in my first estimate of her," he thought. "She has
more depth, more character than I thought."
Then he turned to Elaine.
"You have indeed been wronged bitterly," he said. "The fault is not
yours, save through your disobedience to your parents."
"Yes, I was willful and thoughtless, and I have been most terribly
punished for my fault," she replied, sorrowfully.
"Is there no possibility that you have been deceived by your
husband's father? Such things have been," said Mr. Kenmore,
thoughtfully.
"There was no deception. He was armed with every proof, even the
newspaper, with the marriage of his son to the wealthy heiress
whom his family had chosen for him," answered Elaine, blushing
crimson for her unmerited shame and disgrace.
"Then your lover was a villain unworthy the name of man. He
deserved death," exclaimed Guy Kenmore.
Elaine's angelic face grew pale as death. She sighed heavily, but
made no answer.
Suddenly Irene sprang to her feet, with blazing eyes.
"His name!" she cried, wildly, "his name!"
"My poor child, why would you know it?" faltered Elaine.
"That I may hunt him down!" Irene blazed out. "That I may punish
him for your wrongs and mine!"
"Alas, my darling, vengeance belongs to Heaven," sighed the
martyred Elaine.
"It belongs to you and to me," cried Irene. "His name, his name!"
"I cannot tell you, dear," wept the wronged woman.
"Then I will go to Bertha," flashed the maddened girl.
"Bertha is bound by an oath never to reveal that fatal name," Elaine
answered.
The door opened, Mrs. Brooke entered, stern and pale. She glanced
scornfully at Irene, then turned to her daughter:
"Elaine, I am sorry this has happened," she said. "I could not keep
Bertha from betraying you. The poor girl was driven mad by her
wrongs. If Irene had remained away from the ball to-night, as I
bade her do, you would have been spared all this. Her disobedience
has caused it all."
Old Faith put her head, with its flaring cap-ruffles, inside the door
before Elaine could speak.
"Oh, Mrs. Brooke, Mrs. Brooke!" she cried, and wrung her plump old
hands disconsolately.
"Well, what is it? Speak!" cried her mistress, sharply.
"Oh, ma'am, some men have come—with news—they found master
down on the shore—oh, oh, they told me to break it to you gently,"
cried the old housekeeper, incoherently.
A flying white figure darted past old Faith and ran wildly down the
broad, moon-lighted hall, to the old-fashioned porch, bathed in the
glorious beams of the moonlight.
Mrs. Brooke went up to the woman and shook her roughly by the
arm.
"What are you trying to tell me, Faith? What of your master?" she
exclaimed. "Speak this instant!"
Elaine came up to her other side, and looked at her with wide,
startled eyes.
"Oh, Faith, what is it?" she cried.
"They told me to break it gently," whimpered the fat old woman.
At this moment a shrill young voice, sharpened by keenest agony,
wild with futile despair, came floating loudly back through the
echoing halls:
"Papa, oh, darling papa! Oh, my God, dead, dead, dead!"
 CHAPTER IX.
They bore him into the parlor and laid him down. He was dead—the
handsome, genial, kind old father, who had been Elaine's truest
friend in her trouble and disgrace. It was strange and terrible to see
the women, each of whom had loved the dead man in her own
fashion, weeping around him.
Their gala robes looked strangely out of place in this scene of death.
There was Bertha in her ruby satin and shining jewels, Elaine in her
shimmering silk and blue forget-me-nots, Mrs. Brooke in crimson and
black lace, lighted by the fire of priceless diamonds. Saddest of all,
little Irene, crouched in a white heap on the floor at his feet,
adorned in the modest bravery he had brought her for a birthday
gift. Poor little Irene who has lost in this one fatal day all that her
heart held dear.
A physician was called to satisfy the family. He only said what was
plainly potent before. Mr. Brooke was dead—of heart disease, it
appeared, for there were no marks of violence on his person. He
was an old man, and death had found him out gently, laying its icy
finger upon him as he walked along the shining sand of the bay, in
the beautiful moonlight. His limbs were already growing rigid, and
he must have been dead several hours.
"Dead! while we laughed and danced, and made merry over yonder
in their gay saloons," Elaine wailed out, in impatient despair. "Oh, my
God, how horrible to remember!"
Only Guy Kenmore saw that the right hand of the dead man was
rigidly clenched.
"What treasure does he clasp in that grasp of death?" he asked
himself, and when no one was looking he tried to unclasp the rigid
fist. He only succeeded in opening it a little way—just enough to
draw from the stiffened fingers a fragment of what had once been a
letter—now only one line remained—a line and a name.
Guy Kenmore went to the light, spread the little scrap open on his
hand and looked at it. The writing was in a man's hand and the few
words were these:

"That the truth may be revealed and my death-bed repentance

accepted of Heaven, I pray, humbly.

"Clarence Stuart, Senior."

Suddenly a cold little hand touched his own.
"I saw you," said Irene, in a low, strange voice. "What does it
mean?"
"A great deal, or—— nothing," he answered, in a voice as strange as
her own.
She read it slowly over. The fragmentary words and the proud name
seemed to burn themselves in on her memory.
"Who is Clarence Stuart?" she asked, wonderingly.
"I intend to find out," he answered. "When I do, I shall tell you, little
Irene."
In his heart there was a deadly suspicion of foul play. Who had torn
from old Ronald Brooke's hand the letter whose fragmentary ending
he grasped within that clenched and stiffened hand? Had there been
murder most foul?
He went back and looked attentively at the corpse. It was true there
was no sign of violence, but was that the face of one who had died
from one instant's terrible heart pang, who must have died before
he had realized his pain? No, the face was drawn as if in deadly
pain, the open eyes stared wide with horror.
"I shall say nothing yet," he said to himself, gravely. "Let them think
that death came in the quiet course of nature. But if old Ronald
Brooke was murdered I shall bring his murderer to justice."
And on the man's handsome face, usually so gay and debonair, was
registered a grim, firm purpose.
Mrs. Brooke and Bertha had been led away to their rooms now. No
one remained for the moment but Elaine. She came slowly to her
daughter's side.
"Irene, you must come with me now, she said, pleadingly, but the
girl broke from her clasp and ran to throw herself on the dead man's
breast.
"I cannot leave him yet," she sobbed. "He was my all!"
Elaine shivered, as if some one had struck her a blow. She followed
her daughter, and solemnly took the dead man's hand in her
feverish, throbbing clasp.
"Irene, my daughter, this, my own father whom I deceived and
deserted, whose loving heart I broke by my folly—he pitied and
forgave me," she said, mournfully. "My sin against you was far less,
for it was not premeditated. Here by papa's cold dead body I ask
you, darling, to pity and forgive me. Will you refuse my prayer?"
Irene lifted her head from its chill resting-place and looked at her
suppliant mother with a strange, grave gaze.
"We forgive every one when we are dying—do we not?" she asked,
slowly.
"Yes, my darling, but you are young and strong. You have many
years to live perhaps. I cannot wait till your dying hour for your love
and pity. I need it now," sighed poor Elaine.
There was a moment's silence. Irene looked down at the dead man's
face as if asking him to counsel her in this sad hour. As the wide,
horror-haunted eyes met hers she recoiled in terror.
"He forgave you," she said, solemnly. "He cannot counsel me, but I
will follow his example. Mother," she reached across that still form
and touched Elaine's hand, "I forgive you, too. Always remember
that I pitied and forgave you."
There was a strange, wild light in her eyes. It startled Elaine.
"My darling," she cried, half-fearfully.
"I must leave you now, poor mother," continued Irene, with that
strange look. "I must go down to the shore where death waited for
papa to-night. He is waiting there for me!"
She turned with the words and ran swiftly from the room. Frightened
by her strange looks and words Elaine followed behind her, but her
trembling limbs could scarcely carry her body.
Young, light, swift as a wild gazelle, Irene flew down the steps and
across the garden. The moon was going down now, and only the
flutter of her white dress guided the frantic mother in her wild
pursuit. The garden gate unclosed, there was a patter of flying feet
along the sands outside, there was a wild, smothered, wailing cry of
despair, then—then Elaine heard the horrible splash of the waves as
they opened and closed again over her maddened, desperate child.
 CHAPTER X.
The sound of Irene's pliant young body as it struck the cold waters
of the bay, fell on the wretched mother's heart like a death-blow.
The horrors of this fatal night culminated in this.
One long, terrible shriek as of some wounded, dying creature,
startled the midnight hour with its despairing echoes, then she
sprang wildly forward with the desperate intent to share her
daughter's watery grave.
The weakness of her overwrought body saved her from the crime of
self-destruction. Her head reeled, her limbs failed her. As she pushed
the gate open with faltering hands she staggered dizzily and fell like
a log on the hard ground. Merciful unconsciousness had stolen upon
her.
That prolonged, despairing shriek reached Guy Kenmore's ears in the
library, where he was gravely conferring with the men who had
found Mr. Brooke dead upon the shore.
His first thought was of Irene. A dreadful foreboding filled his mind.
He rushed from the room and followed the sound, the two men
behind, all terrified alike by the anguish that rang in that mysterious
shriek.
Outside the garden gate they found Elaine, lying like one dead on
the hard earth. With tender compassion they lifted the beautiful,
rigid form and bore it into the house.
That long, deep, deathly swoon was the beginning of a severe illness
for Elaine Brooke. It culminated in an attack of brain fever.
On recovering from her long spell of unconsciousness, Elaine
revealed the cause of her illness. Two hours, perhaps, had passed
since Irene's maddened plunge into the water. It was too late to
save her then. The cold waves kept their treasure, refusing to yield it
up to the efforts of those who, headed by Mr. Kenmore, made an
ineffectual trial to find even the cold, dead body of the desperate
girl. Dawn broke with all the roseate beauty of summer, and the
golden light glimmered far over land and sea, but neither the wide
waste of waters nor the sandy reaches of shore gave back sign or
token of her who had found life too hard to bear, and so had sought
Nepenthe from its ills and pains.
Guy Kenmore remained to Mr. Brooke's funeral, then returned to
Baltimore a softened, saddened man—a man with a purpose. Two
things had confirmed him in his purpose to trace the writer of the
fragment found in the dead man's hand.
On the night of Mr. Brooke's death no sign of violence had been
discovered on his person. On the day following a purplish mark was
discoverable on the old man's temple—a strange, discolored mark.
Careless lookers believed it to be the effects of decomposition.
Guy Kenmore, studying it with suspicious eyes, believed that it was
caused by a blow—a blow that had caused Ronald Brooke's death.
Another thing was, that when Elaine Brooke went into a delirious
fever, that terrible dawn that broke on the tragic night, he had stood
by her side a few moments, gazing at her in pain and sorrow. While
he stood there she had startled him by calling wildly on one name. It
was "Clarence, Clarence, Clarence!"
He sought Bertha.
"Will you tell me," he asked, gravely, and without preamble, "the
name of the villain who deceived your sister?"
Bertha colored and trembled in shame and agitation.
"I cannot," she answered. "I am under a sacred promise not to
reveal it."
"Was it Clarence Stuart?" he asked, coolly, and Bertha gave a terrible
start.
"She has revealed it in her delirium," she exclaimed.
"Yes," he answered, calmly, knowing that he had surprised the truth
from her reluctant lips.
Walking slowly along the shore, listening to the murmur of the
waves, in which his bride of an hour had sought oblivion from the ills
of life, Guy Kenmore thought it all out to his own satisfaction. That
fragmentary line of a letter had told the whole sad story.
Elaine Brooke had been truly a wife. Her husband's father had
deceived her by a trumped up story, and divided her from her young
husband. Dying, he had repented his sin, and written a letter of
confession to her father.
And here he fitted the second link of the story.
Some person unknown had found it to be against his or her interests
that the truth should be revealed. That person had followed the
bearer of Clarence Stuart's letter, and had torn it from old Ronald
Brooke's grasp, with a blow that meant death to the gentle, kindly
old man.
Guy Kenmore honestly believed in the truth and accuracy of these
deductions.
"If I can only find out where these Stuarts live, I will discover the
guilty party," he said to himself. "I will not ask Mrs. Brooke nor
Bertha. They would only believe me impertinent. I must depend on
the gentle Elaine for information."
He concluded to return to his home in Baltimore, and await the issue
of Elaine's illness.
 CHAPTER XI.
The time came weeks after when Elaine, pale, wan, shadowy, the
sad ghost of her former beautiful self, came down to the parlor again
and joined her mother and sister in the broken family circle whose
severed links could never be re-united again.
Mrs. Brooke and Bertha were subtly changed, too. Their black
dresses made them look older and graver. Bertha's grief at the loss
of a kind, indulgent father, and her chagrin at Guy Kenmore's
defection, had combined to plant some fine lines on her hither
unruffled brow, and a peevish expression curled her red lips, while
her large brilliant black eyes flashed with discontent and scorn. Over
Irene's tragic death she had shed not a tear. She had always disliked
the girl for her youth and winsome beauty and looked down on her
for the stain upon her birth, always deploring that she had not died
in infancy. The poor girl's willfulness the night of the ball had
changed Bertha's dislike to hate. She was secretly glad Irene was
dead. Better that than to have lived to be Guy Kenmore's wife.
Mrs. Brooke shared Bertha's feelings, only in a less exaggerated
degree.
So Elaine found no sympathy in the loss of the beautiful daughter
whom she had secretly worshiped, and over whose pretty defiant
willfulness she had oftentimes shed bitter, burning tears of grief and
dread.
The old gray hall which her sweet songs and musical laughter had
once made gay and joyous was now hushed and silent as the tomb.
The few servants glided about as if afraid of awaking the lonely
echoes that slept in the wide, dark halls, and quiet chambers. No
song nor laugh disturbed the silence. The mistress sat in the parlor
pale and grave in her sweeping sables. Her daughters were no less
grave and still, sitting in their chairs like dark, still shadows, with
averted faces and silent lips, for Elaine had not forgotten Bertha's
treacherous betrayal of her shameful secret; and Bertha, while she
felt no remorse for her cruel work still felt shame enough to cause
her to turn in confusion from the clear, sad light of her sister's eyes.
In the meantime that sad truth that oftentimes makes the pang of
bereavement harder to bear, was coming home to them.
Mr. Brooke had died almost insolvent.
Once a man of almost unlimited wealth and position, the old tobacco
planter had been almost ruined by the war which had freed his
slaves, and left him only his broad-spreading, fertile acres, with no
one to till them. His great income was almost gone, for with his
losses through the war, he could not afford to replace with hired
workmen the skilled labor he had lost.
In order to keep up the dignity of appearances which his proud wife
considered necessary to herself and her beautiful young daughters,
Mr. Brooke had been forced to sacrifice his land from time to time,
until now, at the end, only a few acres remained of his once princely
estate. The fine old gray-stone mansion, Bay View, remained as a
shelter for their heads, indeed; but the sacrifice of the remaining
land would barely support them a year or two. Mrs. Brooke and
Bertha were aghast at the prospect. They had expected that the
latter would have been married off to some wealthy personage
before the dire catastrophe of poverty overtook them. They quailed
and trembled now beneath the subdued mutterings of the storm of
adversity.
When Elaine came down and mingled with them again, they broke
the bad tidings to her rudely enough.
"No more playing fine lady for us," Mrs. Brooke said, bitterly. "We
can live on the land a little while, then we must sell our jewels, then
our home, and when all is done, we shall have to work for our living
like common people."
The aristocratic southern lady, who had never soiled her white,
jeweled fingers in useful toil, broke down and sobbed dismally at the
grievous prospect.
"Oh, I have had more than enough of trouble and sorrow in my life,"
she complained. "First, there was Elaine's disobedience and
disgrace; then, losing our negroes by the war; then my poor
husband dying so suddenly, without a farewell word, and now this
horrible nightmare, poverty! Oh! I have never deserved these
visitations of Providence," asseverated the handsome, selfish widow,
energetically.
Bertha joined in these lamentations loudly. She would not know how
to work when it came to that, not she. They should have to starve.
Elaine regarded them with troubled eyes.
"Mamma, do not grieve so bitterly," she said. "We are not come to
absolute want yet."
"You take it very coolly," Bertha sneered. "When the last few acres
of land are sold, how long will the proceeds keep three helpless
women, pray?"
Elaine did not answer Bertha—did not even look at her. She went up
to her mother's side.
"Mamma, I have foreseen this trouble coming," she said. "We have
been living beyond our means for years, and even if poor papa had
lived this crash must have come some day; I am very sorry," she
repeated, gently.
"Sorrows will not put money into our empty purses," Mrs. Brooke
answered, spitefully.
"I know that," Elaine answered, patiently. "But I have a plan by
which your money may be made to last a little longer. I am going to
leave you, mamma."
"Leave me," Mrs. Brooke echoed, feebly.
"Rats always desert a sinking ship," flung in Bertha with coarse
irony.
Again her elder sister had no answer for her.
"I am going away," she repeated. "Even if papa had left us a fortune
it would be the same, I could not stay here after—all that has
happened."
"You mean,"—said Mrs. Brooke, then paused.
"I mean since I have lost papa and Irene," her daughter answered,
sadly. "You know, mamma, you and Bertha have never been kind to
me since my great—trouble. You only tolerated me because my
father wished it. I have long been in your way. It is all over now. To-
morrow I shall leave you forever."
"Forever," Mrs. Brooke repeated, blandly, while Bertha exclaimed
with a coarse, spiteful sneer:
"You will return to the life of shame from which papa rescued you
perhaps."
"I am going to New York to earn my living by honest work," Elaine
said, speaking pointedly to her mother. "You know I have a good
voice, and talent for music. I shall give music lessons, probably."
"My daughter giving music lessons! Oh, what a disgrace to the
family!" cried the aristocratic lady. "Are you not ashamed to put
yourself so low, Elaine?"
"Don't be silly, mamma," flashed Bertha, sharply. "It is a very good
plan, I think. Besides, it is only right for Elaine to give up the
remainder of her property to us. If we had not been burdened with
the support of her daughter for sixteen years there would have been
more money for me."
"It is quite settled, mamma, I shall go," said poor Elaine, and the
selfish mother weakly acquiesced.
The next day she went, glad of her freedom, glad to fling off the
slavery of sixteen years.
"I could not have stayed even if poor papa had left me a fortune,"
she said to herself. "The sound of the waves sighing over Irene's
watery grave in the lonesome nights breaks my heart!"
 CHAPTER XII.
We must return to Irene Brooke that fatal night, whose accumulating
horrors induced a transient madness that drove the wretched girl to
seek oblivion from her woes in self-destruction.
Life is sweet, even to the wretched. Irene's sudden, violent plunge
into the cold waves cooled the fever of her heart and brain like
magic. In that one awful, tragic moment in which the waters closed
darkly over her golden head, a sharp remorse, a terrible regret woke
to life within her heart.
Out of that swift repentance and awful despair, a cry for pity broke
wildly from her almost strangling lips:
"Oh, Lord, pardon and save me!"
As she came back from the depths with a swift rebound to the
surface of the water, the girl threw out her white arms gropingly, as
if to seize upon some support, however slight and frail, on which to
buoy her drenched and sinking frame.
Joy! as if God himself had answered her wild appeal for help and
pardon, a strong, wide plank drifted to her reach. Irene grasped it
tightly and threw herself upon it, while a cry of thankfulness broke
from her lips. Alone in the dark and rushing waves, her heart filled
with relief at the thought of this frail barrier between herself and
that mysterious Eternity, to which a moment ago she had blindly
hastened.
"If I can only hold on a little while, Elaine will bring me help and
rescue," she said to herself, hopefully, and calling her mother by the
old familiar sisterly name, for the name of mother was strange to
her young lips yet.
Alas, for her springing hopes! Poor Elaine lay white and still in that
long, long trance of unconsciousness that followed on her realization
of her daughter's suicide. Her locked lips did not unclose to tell her
anxious watchers the story of that white form floating on the dark
waters, waiting, hoping, praying for rescue, while her strength
ebbed, and her arms grew tired and weak, clinging so tightly to that
slender plank that floated between her and the death from which
she shrunk tremblingly now with all the ardor of a young heart that
has found life a goodly thing and fair.
No rescue came. The girl floated farther and farther out to sea in
that thick darkness that comes before the dawn. Hours that were
long as years seemed to pass over her head, and hope died in her
breast as the cruel waves beat and buffeted her tender form.
"I am forgotten and deserted," she moaned. "My mother has raised
no alarm. Is it possible she was glad to be rid of me, and held her
peace?"
A jeering voice seemed to whisper in her ear:
"It is best for all that you die. Bertha and her mother hated you. You
were a stumbling block in your mother's path. You had involved Guy
Kenmore in a fatal entanglement. You had no right and no place in
the world. Not one whom you have left but will be glad that you are
dead."
A cry of despair came from the beautiful girlish lips in the darkness.
"Oh, God, and only yesterday life seemed so beautiful and fair! Now
I must die, alone and unregretted! Oh, cruel world, farewell," she
cried, for she felt her strength forsaking her, and knew that in a
moment more her arms would relax their hold and that she would
sink forever amid the engulfing waves.
But in that last perilous moment something occurred that seemed to
her dazzled and bewildered senses nothing less than a miracle.
In her bodily pain and mental trouble, with eyes blinded by the salt
sea waves that mixed with her bitter tears, Irene had not perceived
the faint grey light of dawn dispelling the thick darkness of the night.
But suddenly, all suddenly, the crest of the waves was illuminated
marvellously by a gleam of brightness that shot far and wide across
the water; the blank horizon glowed with light.

"And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn

God made Himself an awful rose of dawn."

Startled by the swift and seemingly instant transition from darkness

to light, Irene uttered a shrill, sharp cry and looked up. The
beautiful, life-giving sun was just peeping across the level green
waves, and touching their foamy crests with gold. Through half-
dazzled eyes she saw riding, like a thing of beauty on the beautiful
water, a stately, white-sailed yacht only a few rods away. Irene could
see moving figures on her decks.
There was one awful moment when the girl's breath failed, her heart
stood still, and she could scarcely see the moving yacht outlined
against the rosy dawn, for the mist that filled her eyes. Then she
shook off the trance that threatened to destroy her, and with one
last, desperate effort sent her sharp young voice ringing clearly
across the waves:
"Help! Help! In God's name, help!"
The cry was heard and answered by the moving figures on the
vessel's deck.
 CHAPTER XIII.
Was it hours or moments before the gallant figure that sprang over
the side of the yacht reached Irene's side?
The girl never knew, for even as she watched his progress through
the water, and admired his swift and graceful swimming, a dizziness
stole over her; her arms relaxed their hold; the friendly plank slipped
from beneath her, and she felt herself sinking down, down into the
fathomless depths of green water.
It was well that her rescuer was a skillful diver, or our hapless
heroine's history must have ended then and there.
But the dauntless swimmer who had gone to her assistance was
brave, bold, daring. He redoubled his speed, made a desperate dive
beneath the water and reappeared with the form of the exhausted
and unconscious girl tightly clasped in one arm.
In the meantime a small boat had been lowered from the yacht, and
was coming with rapid strokes to her assistance.
When Irene came to herself again she lay on a pile of blankets upon
the deck of the yacht. An anxious group was collected around her,
conspicuous among them being one wet and dripping figure whom
she instinctively recognized as her gallant preserver.
Irene opened her beautiful eyes, blue as the cerulean vault above,
and smiled languidly at the stranger.
The man, who was middle-aged and had the rich, dark, picturesque
beauty of the southern climate, started and bent over her. He grew
ashy pale beneath his olive skin.
"She recovers," he said, hoarsely. "She will live."
"Clarence, Clarence," cried a thin, peevish, authoritative voice at this
moment, "I insist that you shall go and change your wet clothing
this moment! You will catch your death of cold standing around here
drenched and shivering."
Irene turned her languid eyes and saw a pale, faded, yet rather
pretty little woman, clothed in an elegant blue yachting dress with
gold buttons. She was looking at Irene's rescuer with a peevish look
in her light hazel eyes.
The man scarcely seemed to heed her, so intent was his gaze at
Irene. Some one handed him a glass of wine at that moment, and,
kneeling down, he lifted the girl's head gently on his arm and held it
to her lips.
"Drink," he said, in a voice so kind and musical it thrilled straight
through the girl's tender heart. She drank a little of the beautiful,
ruby-colored liquid, and it ran like fire through her veins, warming
and reviving her chilled frame.
"Clarence," again reiterated the woman's peevish voice, "do oblige
me by changing your wet clothing. You seem to think less of your
own health than of this total stranger's."
His brow clouded over, but he forced a smile on his handsome face.
"Very well, Mrs. Stuart, I will do so to oblige you," he said; "but pray
do not make me ridiculous among my friends by such unfounded
apprehensions! I am not a baby to be killed by a bath in salt water!"
He went away, and several ladies came around Irene, gazing
curiously at the pale, fair face. They whispered together over her
wondrous beauty, which, despite the long hours of suffering endured
in the water, shone resplendently as some fair white flower in the
beams of the rising sun.
"Her clothing should be changed, too," said one, more thoughtful
than the rest. "She shall have my bed and dry clothing from my
wardrobe. She is about my size, I believe."
Irene smiled her languid gratitude to the kind-hearted lady, then her
weary eyes closed again. An overpowering drowsiness and languor
was stealing over her. When they had changed her drenched
clothing for warm, dry, perfumed garments, and laid her in a soft,
warm bed, she could no longer keep awake. She swallowed the
warm, fragrant tea they brought her and fell into a long, deep,
saving slumber.
The ladies were all burning with curiosity over the beautiful waif so
strangely rescued from the cruel waves, but they refrained through
delicacy from asking her questions when they saw how weary and
exhausted she was. When she was asleep they examined her wet,
cast-off linen for her name, but were disappointed, for they found
none.
Then, with feminine curiosity, they peeped into the gold locket that
hung by its slender chain around Irene's neck.
"What a handsome old man, and what a beautiful woman!" they
cried. "Who can the girl be?"
Everyone was eager and interested except the faded, peevish Mrs.
Stuart. She openly railed at her husband for risking his life for an
utter stranger. She would not allow anyone to praise his bravery in
her presence.
"I will not have him encouraged in such bravado and foolhardiness,"
she said, angrily.
 CHAPTER XIV.
"Oh, Mrs. Leslie, isn't she just lovely? And she cannot be much older
than I am!"
Irene had slept profoundly for a day and night, being physically and
mentally exhausted by her terrible ordeal in the water. When she
awoke after twenty-four hours of restful slumber those words of
admiration rung in her ears, uttered by a soft, girlish voice,
interrupted by an ominous hacking cough.
Irene opened her eyes and glanced languidly around her. Beside her
bed she saw Mrs. Leslie, the little lady who had been so kind to her
the day before. Next to the lady, in a low, cushioned rocker, sat a girl
of thirteen or fourteen, richly and tastefully dressed, but with a thin
face as white as alabaster, save for two burning spots of hectic on
her hollow cheeks, and with large, brilliant black eyes burning with
the feverish fire of consumption.
"So you are awake at last!" cried the girlish voice, joyously, "I
thought you were going off into a regular Rip Van Winkle sleep, and
I have been just dying of curiosity over you."
Irene felt the sudden crimson dying her cheeks at the vivacious
exclamation of the delicate-looking girl.
"Lilia, my love, you startle her," said Mrs. Leslie, gently; then she
bent over Irene, saying kindly: "You feel better, I hope, after your
long rest. This is Miss Stuart, the daughter of the gentleman who
saved your life. She has been very anxious over you."
Irene looked gratefully at the dark-eyed girl who rose impulsively
and kissed her.
"You are so pretty, I love you already," she cried, and Mrs. Leslie
laughed.
"Pretty is as pretty does," she said, gaily, and Irene crimsoned
painfully, as if the words had been a poisoned shaft aimed at her
breast.
"Are you going to be well enough to sit up to-day?" pursued Lilia
Stuart, anxiously. "Because if you are, I want you to come into my
little saloon with me. I will give you my softest lounge to lie on.
Aren't you very hungry? Will you take your breakfast now?"
"Yes, to all of your questions," Irene answered, looking in wonder at
this girl who was but two years younger than herself, yet who
seemed so very light and childish. Alas, poor Irene, that fatal night
had forced her into a premature womanhood.
When she had taken a light, appetizing breakfast, and been robed in
a white morning-dress, Mrs. Leslie advised her to spend the day in
Lilia Stuart's saloon.
"She is a spoiled child," she said, "but we humor her all we can, for
hers is a sad fate. She is dying of consumption."
"Dying—— so young!" cried Irene with a shudder, remembering how
horrible the thought of death had appeared to her while she was
struggling in the cold, black waves.
"Yes, poor child, she is surely dying," sighed Mrs. Leslie. "Her father
bought this beautiful yacht to take her to Italy by the advice of her
physicians. They fancied a sea voyage might benefit her. But I do
not believe she will survive the trip. Some days she is very ill. Poor
little Lilia. It is very hard. She is Mr. Stuart's only child."
They went to Lilia's luxurious saloon which was fitted up with every
comfort, and was exquisitely dainty and charming, though small.
Mrs. Stuart was there with her daughter. She gave the stranger a
little supercilious nod, and invited Mrs. Leslie to go on deck with her.
Lilia, who had just recovered from a violent spell of coughing, led
her visitor to a softly cushioned satin lounge.
"You may rest here," she said. "I am well enough to-day to sit up in
my easy-chair, but some days I lie down all day. You may call me
Lilia. What shall I call you?"
"You may call me Irene," was the answer, while a burning flush
mounted to the speaker's forehead.
"Irene—— what a soft, sweet name! I like that," said Lilia, and just
then the door unclosed and her father came in softly. "Ah, here is
papa! you see I have a visitor, papa," she cried.
Mr. Stuart was a handsome, stately-looking man, middle-aged, with
abundant threads of silver streaking his dark hair. His mouth, in
repose, looked both sad and stern.
Irene arose and held out her hands.
"I owe you my life," she said, gratefully.
A transient, melancholy smile lit the grave, dark face.
"You need not thank me," he said, almost bruskly. "Wait until years
have come and gone, and you have fairly tested life. It will be a
question then whether you will award me blame or praise for the
turn I did you yesterday."
The large, dark, melancholy eyes held Irene's with a strange
fascination.
"Ah! you think that youth is all sunshine and roses," she answered,
almost against her will. "I have already learned the reverse of that,
and yet I find life sweet."
"How came you to be in the water?" he asked, anxiously, sitting
down and drawing Lilia to a seat upon his knee.
The deep color rushed over Irene's pale, lovely face. A deep shame
overpowered her, and yet against her will something within her
forced her to confess her sin.
"You will be shocked," she said; "but I must tell you the truth. I
threw myself in."
"No," he exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes," she answered, sadly.
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com