FARMINGTON — As part of Veterans Day activities Saturday afternoon, Nov. 11, a presentation on Franklin County World War I soldiers who never made it home was shared at North Church.
“What you are about to witness culminates from a project initiated by the Mt. Blue Area Garden Club with their restoration and beautification efforts centered on the Teague World War I Memorial Arch,” Andrew Goodridge, American Legion Roderick-Crosby Post 28 member, said. “This war monument was a gift bequeathed to Franklin County by John M. Teague, a Civil War veteran.”
The post, whose members participated when the arch was dedicated in 1924 was invited as a collaborator and stakeholder in the restoration efforts, Goodridge noted. It is taking a pivotal role in the planning of the arch’s 100th anniversary to be celebrated Memorial Day 2024, he said.
Historical societies in the county are working to collect artifacts for a time capsule donated by Wiles Remembrance Centers, Goodridge noted.
For close to a year, the post has held planning meetings with the next scheduled for 10 a.m. Jan. 6, 2024, at the post. Anyone interested is invited to visit the post’s website.
“I am in need of leads on securing a professional sound system to amplify presenters, information regarding any living relatives of the Grand Army of the Republic J. F. Appleton Post #25 in Farmington, leads to contact local Civil War reenactors and leads on relatives of members of any Franklin County chapter of The Veterans of World War I of the USA, Inc. – a Congressionally chartered organization now dissolved and administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Goodridge said.
Presenter Glenn Miller is a retired entrepreneur, professional writer/editor and an amateur historian and genealogist, Goodridge said in introduction. “Discovering and telling the stories of Franklin County’s WWI fallen soldiers has become an important and ongoing project for him,” Goodridge noted.
Miller first set the scene:
It’s 1917. Across the Atlantic the World War has been raging for three years, resulting in a bloody stalemate . . . at a cost of millions of lives. At home in America, President Woodrow Wilson – after provocations that finally demanded military response – has declared for war . . . At the time, the United States fields the 16th largest army in the world. To imagine victory with those forces is audacious. But so is the country.
It’s 1917. To enlist in Franklin County and nearby, young men collected in Rumford, in Livermore Falls, in Waterville, Norway, Skowhegan and Farmington. Draftees would follow. Two million of them.
“Over the next eighteen months, enlisted or inducted, men bound for fighting boarded trains to cheers and waves and bands playing,” Miller stated. “Millions served. Most came home. Yet for some it would be that last time they saw home, the last wave from a loved one, the last kiss from a young bride. The last celebration of innocence.”
From America 116,000 soldiers died in WWI: 1,026 were from Maine and 33 from Franklin County.
“But those are just numbers,” Miller stated. “These few were more than that. They were our sons and brothers and husbands. As boys, they were called to war. As men, they fought for country. For those who paid the highest sacrifice, for those Franklin County soldiers who died in service, we owe a special debt.
“These men’s lives, and the grief of those who lost them, ought to be our eternal reminder that freedom’s debt is the dearest price we frail humans can pay. The first part of repaying it is to recognize to whom the debt is owed, and to remember those 33 men and their 33 stories.”
Following is a list of those soldiers with the town they were from, their age, how they died and where they died [if known.
• Frank Fuller Weymouth, Kingfield, 28, German measles, Fort Devens [Massachusetts].
• George Mahlon Sedgley, Stratton, 19, disease.
• Earl Linwood Ackley, Farmington, 22, pneumonia, France.
• Charles Wilbur Foote, Wilton, 26, killed in action, France.
• Daniel Bailey Gould, New Vineyard, 19, died of wounds, France.
• William Lawrence Rounds, Strong, 21, killed in action, France.
• Stanley Leon Buck, New Vineyard, 33, killed in action, France.
• Ralph Shafton Hosmer, Wilton, 28, killed in action, France.
• Matthew K. Myshrall, Rangeley, 21, killed in action, France.
• Carl Gunnard Thomas, Chesterville, 26, killed in action, France.
• Oscar R. Nichols, Chesterville, 21, killed in action, France.
• Ralph Guy White. Farmington, 34, died of wounds, France.
• Percy L. Jordan, Jay, 21, accident, France.
• Fred Linwood Johnson, Strong, 20, killed in action, France.
• Lester Howard Wills, North Jay, 22, pneumonia, France.
• Thaddeus Louis Roderick, Farmington, 25, died of wounds, France.
• Chester Emery Fletcher, Wilton, 24, pneumonia, Camp Devens.
• Harold Isaiah Parlin, Weld, 24, pneumonia, Camp Colt [Pennsylvania].
• Leroy Augustus Horne, Weld, 23, influenza, Camp Devens.
• Frank Faithful Dubord Jr., Jay, 25, killed in action, France.
• Sanford Albert Landry, Rangeley, 24, killed in action, France.
• Moses Arsenault, Phillips, 27, killed in action, France.
• Everett Elmer Hinkley, Rangeley, 23, influenza, Edgewood Arsenal [Maryland].
• Fred A. Delbert Burnham, Wilton, 25, killed in action, France.
• Rex Lea Tobin, Wilton, 22, pneumonia, France.
• James Auclair Boyle, Rangeley, 21, influenza, Wentworth
Institute for Combat Engineers [Boston].
• Daniel William Norton, Kingfield, 22, killed in action, France.
• Neil Greenleaf Vaughan, Strong, 21, pneumonia, Fort Williams [Cape Elizabeth, Maine].
• Wilmer White Hanscom, Carthage, 22, killed in action, France.
• Ralph Jacobs, Rangeley, 28, accident, France.
• Lea Harlow Woodcock, Carrabassett, 21, influenza, Fort Williams.
• Ivan Curtis McAlister, Rangeley PLT., 26. pneumonia, Halifax [Nova Scotia].
• Allan Robbins Wilbur, Rangeley, 29, pneumonia, France.
“For six months America had been done with the war,” Miller noted. “But the war was not done taking American lives. Franklin County’s first draft quota inducted
forty-four men, three of whom died in service. Frank Weymouth, the county’s first
casualty, was among them; so was the last [Allan Robbins Wilbur].”
These men were asked to run into hailstorms of shellfire, stand under overwhelming assault – outnumbered and outgunned, suffer the worst chemical violence that science could conjure, die for their fellow man, die for us, Miller said.
These commands were beyond reasonable, beyond any civilized ask, he noted Yet ask we did and they answered – every one with their lives to the last man, he said.
“We asked everything of them, Miller stated. “Every single thing. So, what shall they ask of us? From a century ago, what shall they ask? It is one thing. One thing only. To remember.”
As part of this project, Miller has written a book, No Higher Service, which provides more information about these 33 soldiers from Franklin County. It is available at https://www.amazon.com/No-Higher-Service-Franklin-Soldiers/dp/B0CMJZ25G5.
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