Today’s civic pride pales in comparison to World War I generation
Tucked into an inconspicuous corner among shelves of books at home is a slender volume dedicated to the men and women of an earlier generation, the World War I generation, titled “Uniontown’s Part in the World War.”
Sorry, but these people, at least as presented in the book, should humble those of us who are around one-hundred years later. It is easy to see that they had more civic pride and superior local leadership than we do. They were citizens of the world in ways we can never be. And as Americans united in a common endeavor, they trusted one another and depended on one another to a degree we might find it hard to fathom.
2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the war that was fought, on the American side, to “make the world safe for democracy,” a formulation of their president, Woodrow Wilson, whose historical reputation has been battered the past few years by charges of racism.
But that is beside the point here. Except for one photograph, Wilson goes unmentioned. It seems Americans in 1918-19 could safely ignore the president of the United States.
“Uniontown’s Part in the World War” contains hundreds of small portrait photos accompanied by short biographies of the men from Uniontown and several nearby communities (Dunbar, Fairchance, Masontown, Point Marion, Perry Township) who served in the armed services during the war which began for the United States in April 1917. (The rest of the world began heaving bombs in 1914.)
Some names are familiar, retaining a certain local resonance. There’s Louis Agostini and Stephen Haky and George Titlow Jr. There are a slew of Semans — Francis, Josiah, Thomas, and William. There’s a future mayor of Uniontown, J. Watson Sembower.
While men dominate the book, one of the biographies that caught my eye was that of Red Cross volunteer Pauline Abraham of Uniontown, assigned to Newport News, Va. There she stayed after the war, marrying a shipyard engineer named Clark Styron. They had a son, novelist William Styron. Pauline died of cancer in the ’30s; she’s buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in Uniontown.
Uniontown army recruit Manuel White died of pneumonia during the war. Andrew Winsler died in an “aerial” bombardment. The dead also included Edgar Sheets, Scott Sechler and Russell Hart. Russell Rutter was “gassed”; Lynton Hazelbaker was “shellshocked.”
John Smore died Nov. 26, 1918, 15 days after the Armistice was signed.
On the flip side, Chads Chalafant was discharged from the service the same day he was sworn in, Armistice Day itself, Nov. 11.
I was surprised to find a photo and short bio of John Sturgeon, whose homey doctor’s office on Gallatin Avenue was torn down to make way for today’s Uniontown city hall. I remember a kindly, gray-haired pediatrician. It says, here, he was born in 1896, which means he wasn’t yet 60 when he was looking after me.
All the famous battlefields of the World War are mentioned in the book: Argonne Forest, the Marne, Chateau Thierry, Belleau Woods. These mean little or nothing to us today, but once upon a time they were drenched in blood, and famous.
Irene and Elsie Goldstein of Uniontown did volunteer work in a Hungarian hospital in 1915, part of a months’ long sojourn through war-torn Europe starting in the summer of 1914. Elsie’s essay in the book never explains why they went or why they stayed once the shooting began.
It speaks volumes that they felt comfortable doing so; well, they felt comfortable up to a point.
“I was overcome with fright,” Elsie writes, while “I was locked in the waiting room of a (railway) depot” and “awakened every so often by the footsteps of two (German) armed guards … After that nothing could hold us back from leaving for home.”
Almost daily during the war, army convoys rolled on the National Pike (Route 40) through Uniontown, on their way to embarkation points on the East Coast, a second essay explains.
Traveling in “great Liberty trucks,” the convoys, averaging 70 miles a day, would typically park on West Fayette Street for the night before tackling the mountains early the next morning.
A Uniontown canteen operated by the Red Cross and “Mrs. James Clark Work” sprang into action to feed the convoys’ officers and men. One convoy stood out for Mrs. Work, the canteen leader. Sept. 12, 1918, was chilly with a “drenching rain” adding to the “discomfort.” The convoy from Camp Taylor, Kentucky, parked on West Main Street. The men hunkered down for the night without “a word of complaint … every man justifying his uniform as an American soldier.”
The downtown Third Presbyterian Church dining room was turned into a mess hall. During the influenza epidemic, Uniontown Hospital treated the sick. At the approach of cold weather, Uniontown firemen rigged up army “winter headquarters” in the municipal building. The doors of Penn Theater were thrown open for entertainment. On Armistice night, the Country Club hosted a dance for the stranded soldiers.
The convoys, with a total of 7,413 men, conveyed the significance and scope of the war to locals. Their presence spurred Uniontown civilians to get involved in the war effort.
The townspeople and soldiers bore the burden of war together. That’s something those of us in civilian life today would know nothing about.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation and Our People. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.