Family Treasure From The Past - 1917

Unseen forces are always at work in our lives; premonition, coincidence, happenstance, and all the other words for odd things happening at odd times. Treasure hunting, in general, is full of these, and more. But what about treasures that you never recognized as a treasure...nothing a metal detector could find, even if you knew where it was buried? This happened to me, quite recently, and it all started with the recent movie "1917," a true story of two WWI soldiers on a mission to warn another British regiment inside Germany of a coming ambush that, if they don't succeed, could cost 1,600 soldiers their lives. Seeing the previews of this picture, brought back memories of my Grandfather George, my mother's father, who served throughout WWI, and eventually WWII, but his WWI adventures are what I remember most. My grandfather was a carpenter by trade, and a quiet man, who always reminded me of a movie-star. He was not a shy man by any stretch of the imagination, but he held the silent strength that most Americans of the late 19th and early 20th Century embodied. They were Americans not confused as to who they were, or what they believed in and were willing to back it up with force if need be to protect their loved ones, country and allies from evil and tyranny. Or would die trying. 



Grandpa George in France circa 1917

 Grandpa George died over 50-years ago. Living in rural Connecticut, he had a massive heart attack while making a sandwich in his kitchen. No paramedics then, only an ambulance that took over an hour to get there, by which time he had breathed his last. We attended his funeral by flying half the night on a Northeast Yellowbird 727. Strangely enough, he had visited us in Ft. Lauderdale only 3-weeks earlier, and had flown on an airplane for the very first, and very last, time in his long life! He had seen combat, and had also been General John J. Pershing's driver (or chauffer) in France. But that was long ago, and even my memories of him grow dim, but they came back with renewed clarity a few weeks ago when I opened a large brown-paper mailer from my sister in Connecticut. Opening it, a sealed plastic bag tumbled out, filled with a stack of documents and leather wallets. I carefully removed the piece of notebook paper that my sister had penned; "...I got these from our cousin Glenda...some of Grandpa George's things she thought you would like." I opened the small brown book and read my grandfather's handwriting on the inside cover, penciled in more than 100-years ago in 1917 war-torn France. A damaged photographic negative was also slipped into the inside cover. It was an unbelievable piece of family history that somehow survived reasonably intact after over a century! 





  I have no clue who the young man is in the U.S. Army automobile...probably a friend of my grandfather. A few other artifacts of the war were included in the package, German marks and French francs dated 1918, were in a surprisingly well-preserved brown leather wallet along with several tattered maps of France, probably used by Grandpa George in navigating General Pershing's staff car across the countryside.

Handling these 100-plus year old documents is difficult, as they have been stored folded, probably since 1919 or so. It seems infinitely strange I should be holding and reading documents my grandfather held and read over 100-years ago. Oddly it makes me think that perhaps events in time and space still do exist simultaneously, and that somewhere and some-when in 1917, he is just now writing the name of  Red Cross nurse Miss Alice Lee Herrick of Chicago in his small souvenir book as the artillery booms in the background.