Obsessed with History
I have been obsessed with history as long as I can remember. Perhaps its because the summer I was five years old my family went for a walk in the woods that led us to Old Pinawa in Manitoba, Canada. It was an abandoned village surrounded by forest. I distinctly remember dishes on counters and tattered cafe curtains in broken out windows. We walked into the empty bank and were delighted to find the door to the safe hanging open. My father even collected some old documents that discussed the incredible properties of an explosive called dynamite. I loved that day. It felt like we were explorers in an undiscovered country. I wanted to know everything about it. Why the people had come. Where they had gone. Why they had left. My questions were never ending and never answered. (Until today, when I looked up Old Pinawa on the Internet! But that wasn't an option in 1965.)
Or, perhaps my obsession with history stems from a tragedy I witnessed on my ninth or tenth birthday. There was an old, dangerously decrepit, colonial era house a few miles from our home in Maryland. It haunted me. Not in a poltergeist way, in a "save me" sort of way. Every time we drove by that house the questions swirled through my heart. Who had lived there? Where had they gone? Why was this incredible treasure being left to degrade? Who had ever thought it was a good idea to paint it pink? What kind of stories could I hear if the walls could talk? I used to lay in bed at night and make up stories about the families that had lived there. (I told you I was obsessed.) I decided when I grew up I was going to save that house. I'd turn it into some kind of historical center where its stories could always be heard. But it was a dream that was never meant to be. The last time I saw that old house was on my birthday - engulfed in flames. Firefighters were on hand, but no one was trying to safe the structure, they just stood by to keep the fire from spreading to others. I was so devastated I cried.
From these moments and more my passion for knowing about the past has been fueled. So, it shouldn't surprise you that my degree is in history with an emphasis in writing and sewing. I'm all about researching, recreating, and telling about the past and applying it to the present. This is where I'll post some of my historical works and projects. I hope you enjoy the results.
Or, perhaps my obsession with history stems from a tragedy I witnessed on my ninth or tenth birthday. There was an old, dangerously decrepit, colonial era house a few miles from our home in Maryland. It haunted me. Not in a poltergeist way, in a "save me" sort of way. Every time we drove by that house the questions swirled through my heart. Who had lived there? Where had they gone? Why was this incredible treasure being left to degrade? Who had ever thought it was a good idea to paint it pink? What kind of stories could I hear if the walls could talk? I used to lay in bed at night and make up stories about the families that had lived there. (I told you I was obsessed.) I decided when I grew up I was going to save that house. I'd turn it into some kind of historical center where its stories could always be heard. But it was a dream that was never meant to be. The last time I saw that old house was on my birthday - engulfed in flames. Firefighters were on hand, but no one was trying to safe the structure, they just stood by to keep the fire from spreading to others. I was so devastated I cried.
From these moments and more my passion for knowing about the past has been fueled. So, it shouldn't surprise you that my degree is in history with an emphasis in writing and sewing. I'm all about researching, recreating, and telling about the past and applying it to the present. This is where I'll post some of my historical works and projects. I hope you enjoy the results.
Butte County's Fallen Heroes
Butte County’s Fallen Heroes - Who were they and why were they mourned for over eighty years?
by Teresa B. Clark
17 June 2011
by Teresa B. Clark
17 June 2011
Ruby rose slowly from her chair, her ninety-six years had laid claim to her agility, yet she was firm in her intent. She reached for a worn and faded scrapbook from the shelf and leafed through a few pages until she found what she wanted. It seemed she almost held her breath as she carefully removed a tiny booklet from the black pages. It was a memorial service program for Butte County’s Fallen Heroes.[i] For eighty years, Ruby Coon Boyer kept the program tucked inside her photo album. For eighty years she carried the memory of the lost boys of Butte County in her heart. Not the specifics, perhaps, but the memory of the loss and the earth-shattering shift the war had caused in the lives of her friends and of herself. When she handed the program to her granddaughter, Ruby’s voice filled with emotion. “It was supposed to be the war to end all wars, it wasn’t, of course, but our lives were never the same. So many of them never came back. I want you to have this, someone needs to remember.”[ii] Ruby grew silent with internal reflection leaving her granddaughter to carry the burden of memory fueled by a question. Who were these fallen heroes and why were they mourned for over eighty years? Ruby had carefully stored the memory of their loss, their fallen potential, and the lost age of innocence and dreams within her heart, just as she had stored the memorial program in the photo album.
Butte County, Idaho was awash with possibilities in 1917. The brand new county was creating its own unique identity and luring people to live within its boundaries. It took its name from the buttes that rose as landmarks on the Snake River plain.[iii] Wide-open spaces and rich volcanic soil had lured Ruby’s family to the area just a few short years before. Her father was delighted with the plot of land he acquired. He built their home right along the banks of Big Lost River so he could fish from his front porch.[iv] Ruby was interested in a different kind of fishing. She was delighted with Arco, Idaho when her days became filled with school, friends, dances, parties, and plenty of young men.[v] Her life seemed filled with possibility.
Idaho seemed a long way away from the Great War being waged overseas. At least that’s what everyone felt until April 6, 1917 – the day the U.S. announced its intentions of joining the fray.[vi] Everything changed breathtakingly fast after the war announcement. The next seventeen would see Idaho would raise over fifty million dollars in securities and Red Cross donations and send twenty-five thousand men to serve in the armed forces.[vii] The Selective Service Act was passed on May 18, 1917. On June 5, 1917 all the men in the country between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one were required to register for the draft. The following June and August all of the young men who turned twenty-one since the first draft registered. As the situation grew desperate overseas the call for fresh men grew more desperate as well. On September 12, 1918 all of the remaining men in the country between the ages of forty-six and eighteen answered the command to register.[viii] Eight hundred and twenty-one men registered for the draft in Butte County, Idaho. Not counting enlisted men, one hundred and seventy-five registered men were drafted.[ix] The men of Idaho enrolled at a higher rate than the national average.[x] At twenty-one years of age, John J. Robertson enlisted the first chance he got. Maynard Morgan also enlisted on the April 13, 1817 and Harry Paisley beat the crowds by registering for the draft on May 31, 1917. June 5, 1917 would see Grover Williams, Verne Toombs, Leland Peterson, and Jesse Bingham standing in line to register. Earl Holland and Jack Fergusson turned twenty-one as the year passed and registered on 5 June 1918.[xi] Less than two years after the first mandatory registration, the names of these men would be grouped together on the memorial program, Butte County’s Fallen Heroes.
The four-page booklet entitled Butte County’s Fallen Heroes is less than three by five inches in size, but it is remarkable for its content.[xii] The memorial service held to honor the county fatalities of World War I took place on Sunday, March 9, 1919 at the Latter-day Saint Hall in rural Arco, Idaho. Two services were held with different speakers, prayers, and musical numbers for each session. Twelve people provided the majority of the programs, in addition to a combined choir and the un-named soldiers who spoke. Three presenters took part in both services. Clearly, it was a well-planned and well-attended event. The Roll of Honor contained nine names: Grover Williams, Earl Holland, Maynard Morgan, Verne Toombs, Harry Paisley, Leland Peterson, Jack Ferguson, John J. Robertson, and Jesse Bingham. Some of the boys had grown up in Arco, others were fairly new to the area, but the people of Butte County claimed them equally.
Butte’s Roll of Honor may not be complete. The United States Government's official memorial work, Soldiers of the Great War, printed in 1920 and consisting of three volumes, purports to contain the names of all of the nation’s fallen warriors. However, no Blacks or Indian soldiers were listed in the book and seven of Butte County’s fallen are not listed within any of the volumes.[xiii] Additionally, Blaine County, the parent county of Butte, had nine men on its Roll of Honor as well. It’s interesting to note that five of their fallen are also not listed in Soldiers of the Great War.[xiv] This oversight adds even greater value to the memorial program Ruby saved for all those years. The program does not detail the lives of the fallen men, but surely the details were known and reflected upon in the hearts of those in attendance.
Twenty-six years old when he registered for the draft, Corporal Grover Daniel Williams was tall and slender with blue eyes and light hair. Born September 13, 1890, Grover had been working on the farm for as long as he could remember, but he could read and write well and had a strong and flowing cursive signature.[xv] In the early years he had worked irrigation with his stepfather, James D. Samworth. Recently widowed, his mother, Flora, had already buried her husband and one of her eleven children. Two of her boys, Chester and Grover, registered for the draft together on June 5, 1917. In spite of being single, his mother and two younger brothers were dependent upon Grover for their support. Though Chester was called up with Grover, he would return to Arco to marry his sweetheart, Pearl. They would help maintain the farm with Flora and her new husband.[xvi] Killed in action, Grover would never return to meet his new stepfather or take up his place on the farm. On November 28, 1918, the New York Tribune listed his battle fatality, the news would not make the western papers until December 2nd.[xvii]
William Leland Peterson was just nineteen spaces in line ahead of Grover. He was tall and of medium build with blue eyes and brown hair. Born on December 20, 1892 in Logan, Utah, he was twenty-four years old. Leland was single and working his own farm in Arco, Idaho.[xviii] During his teen years his mother, Elizabeth, had taught him farming skills and he had learned how to run a creamery from his stepfather, James H. Miller, who managed Cache Valley Creamery in Shelley, Idaho. Elizabeth had given birth to eight children and already buried one of them.[xix] On August 28th Leland entered active duty by boarding a train in Ogden, Utah headed for Camp Lewis, Washington with two hundred others. They marched in parade formation to the train behind a marching band after a lavish farewell dinner. An estimated five thousand people lined the streets to see them off.[xx] Part of the massive U.S. troop buildup late in the war, Leland would find himself in France. Like Grover, he was killed in action.[xxi]
Earl Holland followed Leland to Camp Lewis and though he’d never see the battlefront he would face an equally deadly foe. Earl Eugene Holland was born on March 6, 1897 in Ione, Oregon to Francis and Denora Holland. Both born in Missouri, his parents raised a fully literate farming family. Earl was the fourth born of eight children; an older child had died before he was born.[xxii] Single, Earl came to Idaho to work for Holland Brothers in Howe, Idaho. He was working for them when he registered for the draft at the age of twenty-one on June 5, 1918. Earl was tall with a medium build, light brown hair and blue eyes. Ironically, he was sent back to Washington to train. In July 1918 he was a Private serving with Company F of the 37th Field Artillery with the 13th Infantry Division at Camp Lewis in Tacoma, Washington.[xxiii] A mere three months would pass before he would lose his life on October 22, 1918.[xxiv] He never experienced combat, except with the dreaded Spanish Influenza. Influenza came on suddenly. Victims frequently went from good health to death in a matter of hours. Others would linger for days and weeks before finally succumbing to the disease.[xxv]
Maynard Morgan was one who fought influenza for weeks before losing his battle. Enlisting on April 13, 1917, he was immediately called into active duty. A Private, he was assigned to serve in Company B stationed at the Marine Barracks Navy Yard at Mare Island, California. Next, he traveled on the USAT Sheridan to his new post in Cavite, Philippines. After creating a disturbance in the town of San Roque, he gained thirty days restriction. The Philippines took a toll on him physically causing an eight-day hospitalization. By October he was serving as radioman on the USS Constitution. He continued to struggle, once earning a ten-day restriction for having a dirty bayonet. For another full year he would serve as a radioman, occasionally landing in trouble, occasionally serving without remark, until October of 1918. While on active duty he succumbed to influenza induced pneumonia and spent a grueling twenty-six days in the hospital before his death on October 26, 1918. Ultimately overcoming his rowdy nature, his reporting officer listed his character as “Excellent” upon his death.[xxvi]
Malverne Haws Toombs had no chance of escaping his exposure to influenza. Born January 30, 1895 in Logan, Utah to Lydia and John Toombs, he had two sisters and a brother.[xxvii] By 1917 Lydia was a fifty-one year old widowed homesteader living in Idaho. Lydia depended on Verne and his brother, John, to help run the farm in Arco, Idaho, but with war fever running high, the boys would enlist in Salt Lake City, Utah on July 2, 1918.[xxviii] John was sent home to help his mother with the homestead.[xxix] Verne would go on to serve as a Blacksmith 2nd class for the United States Naval Reserve aboard the USS Yacona. His duty was to keep all the nuts and bolts and metal parts of the ship in tip-top shape. The USS Yacona was a patrol vessel guarding the United States coastline.[xxx] By November 2, 1918, Verne would be dead. The Logan Republican shared the sad tale of his passing on November 5, 1918:
“Vern Toombs, son of the late John Toombs, died in the service of the government at Puget Sound, of Spanish Influenza. The young man was 22 years of age and was a resident of Arco, Idaho, but has lived in Logan up until a few years ago. The body will arrive here at 11:30 today for burial in the Logan Cemetery.”[xxxi]
The newspaper, however, left out a most interesting detail. The USS Yacona encountered influenza in New London, Connecticut then sailed on for Puget Sound. Enclosed in tight quarters on the vessel virtually everyone was exposed. When they docked at port the virulent bug had infected over eighty percent of the crew. Verne succumbed to the dreaded disease three days after they reached port.[xxxii] By 1920 Verne’s mother would leave the farming to John, to become the Butte County Treasurer.[xxxiii]
Clearly the danger was not only found at the front. Spanish Influenza hit military bases particularly hard. Death’s were greatest in those between fifteen to forty years old. Onset symptoms included aches, fevers, and sneezing, then the victim’s lungs filled with fluid, followed by terrific nosebleeds and death.[xxxiv]
Harry Frank Paisley would experience such a death. Harry was twenty-six years old when he registered on May 31, 1917.[xxxv] While registering a full year prior to Earl Holland, Harry was called up at the same time to serve with him at Camp Lewis. Harry was a tall man of medium build with blue eyes and dark brown hair. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri to a successful farmer who owned his land free and clear. The family had buried one son back in Missouri, but by 1910 the family had sold out and come to homestead in Idaho where they would stay the rest of their lives.[xxxvi] Harry was single and lived with his parents, Sam and Irene Paisley, in Arco, Idaho. His mother, born far from Arco, Idaho in Virginia, made sure her children could read and write and work hard.[xxxvii] Like Earl, Harry’s enemy was not found in the trenches, but in an epidemic. He died approximately one month after the signing of the Armistice, on December 10, 1918.[xxxviii] He was buried in the Fort Lewis Cemetery just six weeks after Earl.
John Wesley Ferguson went by the name of “Jack.” He registered for the draft the same day as Eugene Earl Holland, just nineteen places behind him. Jack had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was tall and slender.[xxxix] He didn’t know where his daddy (a rumored convict) was from, but he knew he loved his mother. Mrs. Jennie Ferguson of Rawlins, Wyoming was thirty-nine when her son enlisted and thirty-nine when he died.[xl] Jack had been working in Howe, Idaho so he hadn’t seen her in awhile. He was called up to the 8th Infantry Company and sent to Camp Grant, just outside of Chicago to prepare for service in France. Just prior to their departure the boys headed by train to Chicago for an inter-camp football game. There was a signaling error and the train collided head on with an oncoming passenger train. Several people were reported dead and wounded.[xli] The November 21, 1918 Rawlins Republican reported his death:
John Wesley Ferguson, born at Vernal, Utah, May 13, 1897. Died November 15, 1918, at Chicago, Ill. He was a Rawlins soldier boy in the 8th Inf., Co. U.S.A. Pneumonia after influenza caused his death. He was in a railroad wreck near Chicago and was in a heavy rain for several hours, which developed into pneumonia, which carried him off. He was on his way to France with his troop when they wreck occurred. He answered his country’s call, but he called for his mother when stricken: she went to him and was with him to the last, and brought his body back to Wyoming to be buried at Rawlins.[xlii]
John Joseph Robertson was born March 20, 1896 in Colorado to Phillip and Johanna.[xliii] Both from Illinois, they had already lost two children when they moved to Darlington, Idaho in the 1900s. John was a mere twenty-one years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Guard on December 15, 1917. An impressive young man, he experienced a rapid rise in rank and experience. By May of 1918 he was training at Paris Island, South Carolina. By July of that year he was a Corporal. In September he became a Sergeant.[xliv] Only a little over six percent of the men who served in the Naval forces became officers.[xlv] By October, Sergeant Robertson was on a vessel assisting with the transportation of fresh U.S. troops to Meusnes, France. He would serve daily without fail until he reported to the hospital at Rockwell Field in California. Three days later, he was gone.[xlvi] Like so many of his day, he would lose his life in his home country to an unseen enemy far deadlier than anything he had encountered overseas. On December 9, 1918 the Ogden Standard announced his death:
Idaho Sergeant Dead on Coast
Salt Lake, Dec. 9. At North Island, Rockwell field. California Sergeant John J. Robertson, 23 years of age, son of P.G. Robertson of Darlington, Idaho, died December 4. The body has been brought to Salt Lake and military funeral services will be held at the Fort Douglas cemetery today at 1 pm., interment following the post cemetery.[xlvii]
Jesse Edgar Bingham was acquainted with John Robertson from working farms together in Darlington. He pulled a draft card number of ten when he registered early on May 6, 1917 yet he wasn’t called up right away.[xlviii] A Cache County Utah boy born on April 9, 1891, his mother brought him to Idaho in 1903. Of medium height with a medium build, he had brown eyes and brown hair that a certain Miss Carma had taken a shine too. Jesse was twenty-six the day he registered. William Jones of Darlington employed him.[xlix] Jesse was single, and had no dependents when he registered but that changed dramatically when he married Carma Mable Stoddard on June 12, 1917.[l] Carma was eighteen when she married Jesse. In quick succession they had two children. Little Laurence Jesse was born and died on February 5, 1918. Lula B. was born in March of 1919, just three months after her daddy died in Portland, Oregon on January 13th from influenza. Carma, widowed at the tender age of nineteen, lived with her parents and little Lula in Arco, Idaho through 1920. Eventually, time would find her in California, but Carma would never marry another.[li]
It is not known whether the nine fallen young men everyone came to recognize as Butte County’s Fallen Heroes knew one another well, yet their names and their fates all came together in a way that would hold them forever tied. With more Idahoans enrolling, there were more of them dying.[lii] After the war their absence would be felt in powerful ways. Sharp declines in farm labor, and agricultural demand led to failed farms, bankruptcies and a diminishing population.[liii] Gone was the innocence of youth, gone were so many whom Ruby had frolicked with. Gone was so much of opportunity and dreams. The war took a terrible toll on the young men of the day, and it left a lasting impact on the young women.
In England, papers warned girls that many of them would never marry. The 1920 British Census showed a two million-member difference between the amount of young men and young women of marriageable age in that country.[liv] Simple math supported the foreboding. While less dramatic, Idaho would experience a like decline in the male to female ratio. Not one to wallow, Ruby readjusted her dreams. Ruby would marry Ira Wayne Boyer on February 11, 1925, a man nineteen years her senior, a widower, and the father of three. Ruby’s best friend, Jane, would likewise marry an older widower. They would go on to live happy, fulfilled lives, though certainly different than what they had imagined as young women sending their friends off to war. Each of them would live as widows far longer than they lived as wives. Adapting yet again, they chose to share a home and live that reality together.[lv]
It may seem trivial to view war through the eyes of a woman who never saw the front. Yet war comes home in many ways. Society recognizes the adjustments that are required by those who serve upon their return home. A 1918 guidebook for the returning veterans, Where Do I Go From Here, included tips for shifting from a “real man’s job to another real man’s job.”[lvi] In 1918, no such guidebook was provided for those left at home. Perhaps there should have been.
It is evident from the care given the memorial program that Ruby always carried the memory within her, though the day she gave the memorial program to her granddaughter is the only day she was known to have talked about it openly. She never wrote about the war in her journals.[lvii] Yet, just as she carefully stored the memorial program for eighty years, she carefully stored the need to remember. This truth is evidenced by the emotional quest she bestowed on her granddaughter with the program – “someone needs to remember.” People have become more are aware of the far-reaching repercussions of trauma and loss over the years. In Ruby’s day all they were aware of were empty chairs and empty hearts where vibrant young men had once been. The impact was magnified by the rural nature of the community Ruby lived in. The silence of their absence was deafening. It is normal for people to look back on his or her teen-age years as being powerfully informative. Ruby’s late teens informed her of a world turned upside down. She mourned a lost age of innocence and dreams in her personal life, her local community, and the world at large.
[i]Butte County’s Fallen Heroes is in the possession of the author. A picture of the document can be found in the Appendix.
[ii]The author of this piece is the granddaughter of Ruby Coon Boyer mentioned in the introductory paragraph.
[iii]E. Buchot, “History of Idaho World War I to Great Depression,” Photographic Book, http://www.voyagesphotosmanu.com/idaho_world_war_I.html (accessed 20 June 2011).
[iv]Ruby Coon, Life History, 1968, 1-60.
[v]Ruby Coon, Oral History Audio Tape,1996.
[vi]Editor, “Germany Has Surrendered,” New York Tribune, November 11, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1918-11-11/ed-1/seq-1/ (accessed 18 July 2011).
[vii]David Nipper, “Idaho Falls Local History,” Museum of Idaho, http://www.museumofidaho.org/j3.php (accessed 6 July 2011).
[viii]Jean Nudd, “World War I Draft Registration,” Greater Waterbury Genealogy & History, http://greaterwaterbury.com (accessed 19 June 2011).
[ix]Tally taken by author of complete collection of Butte County Draft Registration Cards cited in Primary Sources.
[x]E. Buchot, “History of Idaho World War I to Great Depression,” Photographic Book, http://www.voyagesphotosmanu.com/idaho_world_war_I.html (accessed 20 June 2011).
[xi]Tally taken from the nine draft cards of the fallen heroes of Butte County cited in References.
[xii]See Appendix
[xiii]M. Hauues and F.G. Hove, Soldiers of the Great War, http://www.archive.org/stream/soldiersgreatwa02doylgoog/soldiersgreatwa02doylgoog_djvu.txt (accessed 12 July 2011).
[xiv]Blaine County, Blaine County War Dead, http://www.idahogenealogy.com/blaine/blaine_county_war_dead.htm (accessed 16 July 2011).
[xv]Grover Daniel Williams, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin//sse.dll?h=24573583&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xvi]Compiled from 1910 Sheet 12A and 1920 Sheet 1 Butte County Census records as cited in Primary Sources.
[xvii]Compiled from New York Tribune, November 28, 1918 and The Ogden Standard, December 2, 1918 as cited in Primary Sources.
[xviii]William Leland Peterson, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin//sse.dll?h=24573384&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xix]United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Shelley, Bingham County, Village of Shelley. Washington, D.C.: United State Bureau of the Census, 1910. Sheet 3A.
[xx]Compiled from The Ogden Standard, November 27 and November 28, 1918 as cited in Primary Sources.
[xxi]M. Hauues and F.G. Hove, Soldiers of the Great War, 228.
[xxii]Earl Eugene Holland, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin//sse.dll?h=24573105&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xxiii]Compiled from 1900 Sheet 10A, 1910 Sheet 17A Okanogan County Census, and Earl Eugene Holland draft registration records as cited in Primary Sources.
[xxiv]National Cemetery Administration, “Earl Eugene Holland,” U.S. Veterans Gravesites, ca.1775-2006 http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 16 April 2011).
[xxv]Navy Department Library, “Influenza of 1918 (Spanish Flu) and the US Navy,” Naval History and Heritage Command,
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/influenza_main.htm (accessed 15 July 2011).
[xxvi]Complied from multiple Marine Muster records for Maynard Morgan as cited in Primary Sources.
[xxvii]United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1910. Sheet 11A.
[xxviii]United States, Bureau of Naval Personnel. Officers and enlisted men of the United States Navy who lost their lives during the World War, from April 6, 1917, to November 11, 1918. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/united-states-bureau-of-naval-personnel/officers-and-enlisted-men-of-the-united-states-navy-who-lost-their-lives-during--hci/page-73-officers-and-enlisted-men-of-the-united-states-navy-who-lost-their-lives-during--hci.shtml (accessed 16 June 2011), 73 – 81.
[xxix]United States Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1920. Sheet 8.
[xxx]United States, Bureau of Naval Personnel, Officers and enlisted men of the United States Navy who lost their lives during the World War, from April 6, 1917, to November 11, 1918,73 - 81
[xxxi]Editor, “Vern Toombs,” The Logan Republican. November 5, 1918. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/beta/lccn/sn85058246/1918-11-05/ed-1/seq-1/
(accessed 17 June 2011).
[xxxii]Naval History, “World War 1 at Sea,” http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyUS-CasualtiesChrono1918-11Nov.htm (accessed June 16 2011).
[xxxiii]United States Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village, 1920. Sheet 8.
[xxxiv]Navy Department Library. “Influenza of 1918 (Spanish Flu) and the US Navy.”
[xxxv]Harry Frank Paisley, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?h=24573357&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xxxvi]Compiled from United States Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Wea, Miami, Kansas. Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of the Census, 1900, Sheet 13 B and United States Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village, 1910. Sheets 9A and 9B.
[xxxvii]United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village, 1910. Sheet 9B.
[xxxviii]National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Veterans Gravesites, ca.1775-2006, Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: National Cemetery Administration. Nationwide Gravesite Locator. http:www.ancestry.com (accessed 12 June 2011).
[xxxix]John Wesley Ferguson, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?h=24572985&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xl]Compiled from United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Denver, Denver, Colorado. Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of the Census, 1910, Sheet 2A and United States Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900 Population, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of the Census, 1900, Sheet 4
[xli]“Special Train in Bad Wreck,” The Ogden Standard, November 9, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1918-11-09/ed-1/seq-10/ (accessed 23 May 2011).
[xlii]ibid.
[xliii]United States Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900 Population, Pueblo City, Pueblo, Colorado. Washington, D.C.:
United States Bureau of the Census, 1900.
[xliv]Compiled from various U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls as cited in Primary Sources.
[xlv]Joseph, Husband, Naval History, “On the Coast of France,” http://www.navalhistory.net/WW1Book-USOnTheCoast.htm (accessed 16 July 2011).
[xlvi]Utah State Archives and Records Service. Utah Military Records.”John JosephRobertson.”http://search.ancestry.com/cgibin/sse.dll?h=131063&db=UTMilRec&idiv=try (accessed 13 June 2011).
[xlvii]Editor, “Idaho Sergeant Dead on Coast,” The Ogden Standard, December 09, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1918-12-09/ed-1/seq-2/
(accessed 12 June 2011).
[xlviii]Jesse Edgar Bingham, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0. http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?h=24572856&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xlix]ibid.
[l]Upper Snake River Family History Center and Ricks College (Rexburg, Idaho). Idaho Marriages, 1842-1996, “Jesse Edgar Bingham.” http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 15 June 2011).
[li]United States Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1920.
[lii]E. Buchot, “History of Idaho World War I to Great Depression.”
[liii]ibid.
[liv]Michael Duffy, “Women and World War 1,” FirstWorldWar.com, http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_four.htm (accessed 16 June 2011).
[lv]Compilation from Ruby Coon, Oral History Audio Tape, 1996 and Ruby Coon, Life History, 1968, 1-60.
[lvi]William Brown Meloney, “Where Do We Go From Here,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cover-of-book-for-WWI-veterans-by-William-Brown-Meloney-born-1878.jpg (accessed: 16 June 2011).
[lvii]Based on author recollection and compilation from Ruby Coon, Oral History Audio Tape, 1996 and Ruby Coon, Life History, 1968, 1-60.
Butte County, Idaho was awash with possibilities in 1917. The brand new county was creating its own unique identity and luring people to live within its boundaries. It took its name from the buttes that rose as landmarks on the Snake River plain.[iii] Wide-open spaces and rich volcanic soil had lured Ruby’s family to the area just a few short years before. Her father was delighted with the plot of land he acquired. He built their home right along the banks of Big Lost River so he could fish from his front porch.[iv] Ruby was interested in a different kind of fishing. She was delighted with Arco, Idaho when her days became filled with school, friends, dances, parties, and plenty of young men.[v] Her life seemed filled with possibility.
Idaho seemed a long way away from the Great War being waged overseas. At least that’s what everyone felt until April 6, 1917 – the day the U.S. announced its intentions of joining the fray.[vi] Everything changed breathtakingly fast after the war announcement. The next seventeen would see Idaho would raise over fifty million dollars in securities and Red Cross donations and send twenty-five thousand men to serve in the armed forces.[vii] The Selective Service Act was passed on May 18, 1917. On June 5, 1917 all the men in the country between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one were required to register for the draft. The following June and August all of the young men who turned twenty-one since the first draft registered. As the situation grew desperate overseas the call for fresh men grew more desperate as well. On September 12, 1918 all of the remaining men in the country between the ages of forty-six and eighteen answered the command to register.[viii] Eight hundred and twenty-one men registered for the draft in Butte County, Idaho. Not counting enlisted men, one hundred and seventy-five registered men were drafted.[ix] The men of Idaho enrolled at a higher rate than the national average.[x] At twenty-one years of age, John J. Robertson enlisted the first chance he got. Maynard Morgan also enlisted on the April 13, 1817 and Harry Paisley beat the crowds by registering for the draft on May 31, 1917. June 5, 1917 would see Grover Williams, Verne Toombs, Leland Peterson, and Jesse Bingham standing in line to register. Earl Holland and Jack Fergusson turned twenty-one as the year passed and registered on 5 June 1918.[xi] Less than two years after the first mandatory registration, the names of these men would be grouped together on the memorial program, Butte County’s Fallen Heroes.
The four-page booklet entitled Butte County’s Fallen Heroes is less than three by five inches in size, but it is remarkable for its content.[xii] The memorial service held to honor the county fatalities of World War I took place on Sunday, March 9, 1919 at the Latter-day Saint Hall in rural Arco, Idaho. Two services were held with different speakers, prayers, and musical numbers for each session. Twelve people provided the majority of the programs, in addition to a combined choir and the un-named soldiers who spoke. Three presenters took part in both services. Clearly, it was a well-planned and well-attended event. The Roll of Honor contained nine names: Grover Williams, Earl Holland, Maynard Morgan, Verne Toombs, Harry Paisley, Leland Peterson, Jack Ferguson, John J. Robertson, and Jesse Bingham. Some of the boys had grown up in Arco, others were fairly new to the area, but the people of Butte County claimed them equally.
Butte’s Roll of Honor may not be complete. The United States Government's official memorial work, Soldiers of the Great War, printed in 1920 and consisting of three volumes, purports to contain the names of all of the nation’s fallen warriors. However, no Blacks or Indian soldiers were listed in the book and seven of Butte County’s fallen are not listed within any of the volumes.[xiii] Additionally, Blaine County, the parent county of Butte, had nine men on its Roll of Honor as well. It’s interesting to note that five of their fallen are also not listed in Soldiers of the Great War.[xiv] This oversight adds even greater value to the memorial program Ruby saved for all those years. The program does not detail the lives of the fallen men, but surely the details were known and reflected upon in the hearts of those in attendance.
Twenty-six years old when he registered for the draft, Corporal Grover Daniel Williams was tall and slender with blue eyes and light hair. Born September 13, 1890, Grover had been working on the farm for as long as he could remember, but he could read and write well and had a strong and flowing cursive signature.[xv] In the early years he had worked irrigation with his stepfather, James D. Samworth. Recently widowed, his mother, Flora, had already buried her husband and one of her eleven children. Two of her boys, Chester and Grover, registered for the draft together on June 5, 1917. In spite of being single, his mother and two younger brothers were dependent upon Grover for their support. Though Chester was called up with Grover, he would return to Arco to marry his sweetheart, Pearl. They would help maintain the farm with Flora and her new husband.[xvi] Killed in action, Grover would never return to meet his new stepfather or take up his place on the farm. On November 28, 1918, the New York Tribune listed his battle fatality, the news would not make the western papers until December 2nd.[xvii]
William Leland Peterson was just nineteen spaces in line ahead of Grover. He was tall and of medium build with blue eyes and brown hair. Born on December 20, 1892 in Logan, Utah, he was twenty-four years old. Leland was single and working his own farm in Arco, Idaho.[xviii] During his teen years his mother, Elizabeth, had taught him farming skills and he had learned how to run a creamery from his stepfather, James H. Miller, who managed Cache Valley Creamery in Shelley, Idaho. Elizabeth had given birth to eight children and already buried one of them.[xix] On August 28th Leland entered active duty by boarding a train in Ogden, Utah headed for Camp Lewis, Washington with two hundred others. They marched in parade formation to the train behind a marching band after a lavish farewell dinner. An estimated five thousand people lined the streets to see them off.[xx] Part of the massive U.S. troop buildup late in the war, Leland would find himself in France. Like Grover, he was killed in action.[xxi]
Earl Holland followed Leland to Camp Lewis and though he’d never see the battlefront he would face an equally deadly foe. Earl Eugene Holland was born on March 6, 1897 in Ione, Oregon to Francis and Denora Holland. Both born in Missouri, his parents raised a fully literate farming family. Earl was the fourth born of eight children; an older child had died before he was born.[xxii] Single, Earl came to Idaho to work for Holland Brothers in Howe, Idaho. He was working for them when he registered for the draft at the age of twenty-one on June 5, 1918. Earl was tall with a medium build, light brown hair and blue eyes. Ironically, he was sent back to Washington to train. In July 1918 he was a Private serving with Company F of the 37th Field Artillery with the 13th Infantry Division at Camp Lewis in Tacoma, Washington.[xxiii] A mere three months would pass before he would lose his life on October 22, 1918.[xxiv] He never experienced combat, except with the dreaded Spanish Influenza. Influenza came on suddenly. Victims frequently went from good health to death in a matter of hours. Others would linger for days and weeks before finally succumbing to the disease.[xxv]
Maynard Morgan was one who fought influenza for weeks before losing his battle. Enlisting on April 13, 1917, he was immediately called into active duty. A Private, he was assigned to serve in Company B stationed at the Marine Barracks Navy Yard at Mare Island, California. Next, he traveled on the USAT Sheridan to his new post in Cavite, Philippines. After creating a disturbance in the town of San Roque, he gained thirty days restriction. The Philippines took a toll on him physically causing an eight-day hospitalization. By October he was serving as radioman on the USS Constitution. He continued to struggle, once earning a ten-day restriction for having a dirty bayonet. For another full year he would serve as a radioman, occasionally landing in trouble, occasionally serving without remark, until October of 1918. While on active duty he succumbed to influenza induced pneumonia and spent a grueling twenty-six days in the hospital before his death on October 26, 1918. Ultimately overcoming his rowdy nature, his reporting officer listed his character as “Excellent” upon his death.[xxvi]
Malverne Haws Toombs had no chance of escaping his exposure to influenza. Born January 30, 1895 in Logan, Utah to Lydia and John Toombs, he had two sisters and a brother.[xxvii] By 1917 Lydia was a fifty-one year old widowed homesteader living in Idaho. Lydia depended on Verne and his brother, John, to help run the farm in Arco, Idaho, but with war fever running high, the boys would enlist in Salt Lake City, Utah on July 2, 1918.[xxviii] John was sent home to help his mother with the homestead.[xxix] Verne would go on to serve as a Blacksmith 2nd class for the United States Naval Reserve aboard the USS Yacona. His duty was to keep all the nuts and bolts and metal parts of the ship in tip-top shape. The USS Yacona was a patrol vessel guarding the United States coastline.[xxx] By November 2, 1918, Verne would be dead. The Logan Republican shared the sad tale of his passing on November 5, 1918:
“Vern Toombs, son of the late John Toombs, died in the service of the government at Puget Sound, of Spanish Influenza. The young man was 22 years of age and was a resident of Arco, Idaho, but has lived in Logan up until a few years ago. The body will arrive here at 11:30 today for burial in the Logan Cemetery.”[xxxi]
The newspaper, however, left out a most interesting detail. The USS Yacona encountered influenza in New London, Connecticut then sailed on for Puget Sound. Enclosed in tight quarters on the vessel virtually everyone was exposed. When they docked at port the virulent bug had infected over eighty percent of the crew. Verne succumbed to the dreaded disease three days after they reached port.[xxxii] By 1920 Verne’s mother would leave the farming to John, to become the Butte County Treasurer.[xxxiii]
Clearly the danger was not only found at the front. Spanish Influenza hit military bases particularly hard. Death’s were greatest in those between fifteen to forty years old. Onset symptoms included aches, fevers, and sneezing, then the victim’s lungs filled with fluid, followed by terrific nosebleeds and death.[xxxiv]
Harry Frank Paisley would experience such a death. Harry was twenty-six years old when he registered on May 31, 1917.[xxxv] While registering a full year prior to Earl Holland, Harry was called up at the same time to serve with him at Camp Lewis. Harry was a tall man of medium build with blue eyes and dark brown hair. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri to a successful farmer who owned his land free and clear. The family had buried one son back in Missouri, but by 1910 the family had sold out and come to homestead in Idaho where they would stay the rest of their lives.[xxxvi] Harry was single and lived with his parents, Sam and Irene Paisley, in Arco, Idaho. His mother, born far from Arco, Idaho in Virginia, made sure her children could read and write and work hard.[xxxvii] Like Earl, Harry’s enemy was not found in the trenches, but in an epidemic. He died approximately one month after the signing of the Armistice, on December 10, 1918.[xxxviii] He was buried in the Fort Lewis Cemetery just six weeks after Earl.
John Wesley Ferguson went by the name of “Jack.” He registered for the draft the same day as Eugene Earl Holland, just nineteen places behind him. Jack had dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was tall and slender.[xxxix] He didn’t know where his daddy (a rumored convict) was from, but he knew he loved his mother. Mrs. Jennie Ferguson of Rawlins, Wyoming was thirty-nine when her son enlisted and thirty-nine when he died.[xl] Jack had been working in Howe, Idaho so he hadn’t seen her in awhile. He was called up to the 8th Infantry Company and sent to Camp Grant, just outside of Chicago to prepare for service in France. Just prior to their departure the boys headed by train to Chicago for an inter-camp football game. There was a signaling error and the train collided head on with an oncoming passenger train. Several people were reported dead and wounded.[xli] The November 21, 1918 Rawlins Republican reported his death:
John Wesley Ferguson, born at Vernal, Utah, May 13, 1897. Died November 15, 1918, at Chicago, Ill. He was a Rawlins soldier boy in the 8th Inf., Co. U.S.A. Pneumonia after influenza caused his death. He was in a railroad wreck near Chicago and was in a heavy rain for several hours, which developed into pneumonia, which carried him off. He was on his way to France with his troop when they wreck occurred. He answered his country’s call, but he called for his mother when stricken: she went to him and was with him to the last, and brought his body back to Wyoming to be buried at Rawlins.[xlii]
John Joseph Robertson was born March 20, 1896 in Colorado to Phillip and Johanna.[xliii] Both from Illinois, they had already lost two children when they moved to Darlington, Idaho in the 1900s. John was a mere twenty-one years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Guard on December 15, 1917. An impressive young man, he experienced a rapid rise in rank and experience. By May of 1918 he was training at Paris Island, South Carolina. By July of that year he was a Corporal. In September he became a Sergeant.[xliv] Only a little over six percent of the men who served in the Naval forces became officers.[xlv] By October, Sergeant Robertson was on a vessel assisting with the transportation of fresh U.S. troops to Meusnes, France. He would serve daily without fail until he reported to the hospital at Rockwell Field in California. Three days later, he was gone.[xlvi] Like so many of his day, he would lose his life in his home country to an unseen enemy far deadlier than anything he had encountered overseas. On December 9, 1918 the Ogden Standard announced his death:
Idaho Sergeant Dead on Coast
Salt Lake, Dec. 9. At North Island, Rockwell field. California Sergeant John J. Robertson, 23 years of age, son of P.G. Robertson of Darlington, Idaho, died December 4. The body has been brought to Salt Lake and military funeral services will be held at the Fort Douglas cemetery today at 1 pm., interment following the post cemetery.[xlvii]
Jesse Edgar Bingham was acquainted with John Robertson from working farms together in Darlington. He pulled a draft card number of ten when he registered early on May 6, 1917 yet he wasn’t called up right away.[xlviii] A Cache County Utah boy born on April 9, 1891, his mother brought him to Idaho in 1903. Of medium height with a medium build, he had brown eyes and brown hair that a certain Miss Carma had taken a shine too. Jesse was twenty-six the day he registered. William Jones of Darlington employed him.[xlix] Jesse was single, and had no dependents when he registered but that changed dramatically when he married Carma Mable Stoddard on June 12, 1917.[l] Carma was eighteen when she married Jesse. In quick succession they had two children. Little Laurence Jesse was born and died on February 5, 1918. Lula B. was born in March of 1919, just three months after her daddy died in Portland, Oregon on January 13th from influenza. Carma, widowed at the tender age of nineteen, lived with her parents and little Lula in Arco, Idaho through 1920. Eventually, time would find her in California, but Carma would never marry another.[li]
It is not known whether the nine fallen young men everyone came to recognize as Butte County’s Fallen Heroes knew one another well, yet their names and their fates all came together in a way that would hold them forever tied. With more Idahoans enrolling, there were more of them dying.[lii] After the war their absence would be felt in powerful ways. Sharp declines in farm labor, and agricultural demand led to failed farms, bankruptcies and a diminishing population.[liii] Gone was the innocence of youth, gone were so many whom Ruby had frolicked with. Gone was so much of opportunity and dreams. The war took a terrible toll on the young men of the day, and it left a lasting impact on the young women.
In England, papers warned girls that many of them would never marry. The 1920 British Census showed a two million-member difference between the amount of young men and young women of marriageable age in that country.[liv] Simple math supported the foreboding. While less dramatic, Idaho would experience a like decline in the male to female ratio. Not one to wallow, Ruby readjusted her dreams. Ruby would marry Ira Wayne Boyer on February 11, 1925, a man nineteen years her senior, a widower, and the father of three. Ruby’s best friend, Jane, would likewise marry an older widower. They would go on to live happy, fulfilled lives, though certainly different than what they had imagined as young women sending their friends off to war. Each of them would live as widows far longer than they lived as wives. Adapting yet again, they chose to share a home and live that reality together.[lv]
It may seem trivial to view war through the eyes of a woman who never saw the front. Yet war comes home in many ways. Society recognizes the adjustments that are required by those who serve upon their return home. A 1918 guidebook for the returning veterans, Where Do I Go From Here, included tips for shifting from a “real man’s job to another real man’s job.”[lvi] In 1918, no such guidebook was provided for those left at home. Perhaps there should have been.
It is evident from the care given the memorial program that Ruby always carried the memory within her, though the day she gave the memorial program to her granddaughter is the only day she was known to have talked about it openly. She never wrote about the war in her journals.[lvii] Yet, just as she carefully stored the memorial program for eighty years, she carefully stored the need to remember. This truth is evidenced by the emotional quest she bestowed on her granddaughter with the program – “someone needs to remember.” People have become more are aware of the far-reaching repercussions of trauma and loss over the years. In Ruby’s day all they were aware of were empty chairs and empty hearts where vibrant young men had once been. The impact was magnified by the rural nature of the community Ruby lived in. The silence of their absence was deafening. It is normal for people to look back on his or her teen-age years as being powerfully informative. Ruby’s late teens informed her of a world turned upside down. She mourned a lost age of innocence and dreams in her personal life, her local community, and the world at large.
[i]Butte County’s Fallen Heroes is in the possession of the author. A picture of the document can be found in the Appendix.
[ii]The author of this piece is the granddaughter of Ruby Coon Boyer mentioned in the introductory paragraph.
[iii]E. Buchot, “History of Idaho World War I to Great Depression,” Photographic Book, http://www.voyagesphotosmanu.com/idaho_world_war_I.html (accessed 20 June 2011).
[iv]Ruby Coon, Life History, 1968, 1-60.
[v]Ruby Coon, Oral History Audio Tape,1996.
[vi]Editor, “Germany Has Surrendered,” New York Tribune, November 11, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1918-11-11/ed-1/seq-1/ (accessed 18 July 2011).
[vii]David Nipper, “Idaho Falls Local History,” Museum of Idaho, http://www.museumofidaho.org/j3.php (accessed 6 July 2011).
[viii]Jean Nudd, “World War I Draft Registration,” Greater Waterbury Genealogy & History, http://greaterwaterbury.com (accessed 19 June 2011).
[ix]Tally taken by author of complete collection of Butte County Draft Registration Cards cited in Primary Sources.
[x]E. Buchot, “History of Idaho World War I to Great Depression,” Photographic Book, http://www.voyagesphotosmanu.com/idaho_world_war_I.html (accessed 20 June 2011).
[xi]Tally taken from the nine draft cards of the fallen heroes of Butte County cited in References.
[xii]See Appendix
[xiii]M. Hauues and F.G. Hove, Soldiers of the Great War, http://www.archive.org/stream/soldiersgreatwa02doylgoog/soldiersgreatwa02doylgoog_djvu.txt (accessed 12 July 2011).
[xiv]Blaine County, Blaine County War Dead, http://www.idahogenealogy.com/blaine/blaine_county_war_dead.htm (accessed 16 July 2011).
[xv]Grover Daniel Williams, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin//sse.dll?h=24573583&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xvi]Compiled from 1910 Sheet 12A and 1920 Sheet 1 Butte County Census records as cited in Primary Sources.
[xvii]Compiled from New York Tribune, November 28, 1918 and The Ogden Standard, December 2, 1918 as cited in Primary Sources.
[xviii]William Leland Peterson, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin//sse.dll?h=24573384&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xix]United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Shelley, Bingham County, Village of Shelley. Washington, D.C.: United State Bureau of the Census, 1910. Sheet 3A.
[xx]Compiled from The Ogden Standard, November 27 and November 28, 1918 as cited in Primary Sources.
[xxi]M. Hauues and F.G. Hove, Soldiers of the Great War, 228.
[xxii]Earl Eugene Holland, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin//sse.dll?h=24573105&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xxiii]Compiled from 1900 Sheet 10A, 1910 Sheet 17A Okanogan County Census, and Earl Eugene Holland draft registration records as cited in Primary Sources.
[xxiv]National Cemetery Administration, “Earl Eugene Holland,” U.S. Veterans Gravesites, ca.1775-2006 http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 16 April 2011).
[xxv]Navy Department Library, “Influenza of 1918 (Spanish Flu) and the US Navy,” Naval History and Heritage Command,
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/influenza_main.htm (accessed 15 July 2011).
[xxvi]Complied from multiple Marine Muster records for Maynard Morgan as cited in Primary Sources.
[xxvii]United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1910. Sheet 11A.
[xxviii]United States, Bureau of Naval Personnel. Officers and enlisted men of the United States Navy who lost their lives during the World War, from April 6, 1917, to November 11, 1918. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/united-states-bureau-of-naval-personnel/officers-and-enlisted-men-of-the-united-states-navy-who-lost-their-lives-during--hci/page-73-officers-and-enlisted-men-of-the-united-states-navy-who-lost-their-lives-during--hci.shtml (accessed 16 June 2011), 73 – 81.
[xxix]United States Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1920. Sheet 8.
[xxx]United States, Bureau of Naval Personnel, Officers and enlisted men of the United States Navy who lost their lives during the World War, from April 6, 1917, to November 11, 1918,73 - 81
[xxxi]Editor, “Vern Toombs,” The Logan Republican. November 5, 1918. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/beta/lccn/sn85058246/1918-11-05/ed-1/seq-1/
(accessed 17 June 2011).
[xxxii]Naval History, “World War 1 at Sea,” http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyUS-CasualtiesChrono1918-11Nov.htm (accessed June 16 2011).
[xxxiii]United States Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village, 1920. Sheet 8.
[xxxiv]Navy Department Library. “Influenza of 1918 (Spanish Flu) and the US Navy.”
[xxxv]Harry Frank Paisley, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?h=24573357&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xxxvi]Compiled from United States Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Wea, Miami, Kansas. Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of the Census, 1900, Sheet 13 B and United States Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village, 1910. Sheets 9A and 9B.
[xxxvii]United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village, 1910. Sheet 9B.
[xxxviii]National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Veterans Gravesites, ca.1775-2006, Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data: National Cemetery Administration. Nationwide Gravesite Locator. http:www.ancestry.com (accessed 12 June 2011).
[xxxix]John Wesley Ferguson, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0.
http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?h=24572985&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xl]Compiled from United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Denver, Denver, Colorado. Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of the Census, 1910, Sheet 2A and United States Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900 Population, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah. Washington, D.C.: United States Bureau of the Census, 1900, Sheet 4
[xli]“Special Train in Bad Wreck,” The Ogden Standard, November 9, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1918-11-09/ed-1/seq-10/ (accessed 23 May 2011).
[xlii]ibid.
[xliii]United States Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900 Population, Pueblo City, Pueblo, Colorado. Washington, D.C.:
United States Bureau of the Census, 1900.
[xliv]Compiled from various U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls as cited in Primary Sources.
[xlv]Joseph, Husband, Naval History, “On the Coast of France,” http://www.navalhistory.net/WW1Book-USOnTheCoast.htm (accessed 16 July 2011).
[xlvi]Utah State Archives and Records Service. Utah Military Records.”John JosephRobertson.”http://search.ancestry.com/cgibin/sse.dll?h=131063&db=UTMilRec&idiv=try (accessed 13 June 2011).
[xlvii]Editor, “Idaho Sergeant Dead on Coast,” The Ogden Standard, December 09, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1918-12-09/ed-1/seq-2/
(accessed 12 June 2011).
[xlviii]Jesse Edgar Bingham, World War I draft registration card, Registration Location: Butte County, Idaho; Roll: 1452112; Draft Board 0. http://searchancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?h=24572856&db=WW1draft&indiv=try (accessed 15 April 2011).
[xlix]ibid.
[l]Upper Snake River Family History Center and Ricks College (Rexburg, Idaho). Idaho Marriages, 1842-1996, “Jesse Edgar Bingham.” http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 15 June 2011).
[li]United States Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920 Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1920.
[lii]E. Buchot, “History of Idaho World War I to Great Depression.”
[liii]ibid.
[liv]Michael Duffy, “Women and World War 1,” FirstWorldWar.com, http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/womenww1_four.htm (accessed 16 June 2011).
[lv]Compilation from Ruby Coon, Oral History Audio Tape, 1996 and Ruby Coon, Life History, 1968, 1-60.
[lvi]William Brown Meloney, “Where Do We Go From Here,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cover-of-book-for-WWI-veterans-by-William-Brown-Meloney-born-1878.jpg (accessed: 16 June 2011).
[lvii]Based on author recollection and compilation from Ruby Coon, Oral History Audio Tape, 1996 and Ruby Coon, Life History, 1968, 1-60.
Additional Casualties From Arco, Butte County Idaho – Incomplete
John Miller Huston
Norman Ezekiel Radford
Albert Gerald Cameron
Alvin Loren Crow
Clarence Samuel Chase
Donald Clyde Campbell
Earnest Ramsey
Edward William Clark
Frank Jay Collings
Frank Reed
George Robert Collett
Lagrand Chamberlain
Joseph Reardon
Jessie Moore
Lee Emnet Reid
Leeander Carter
Milton Myers
Robert Marion Lawernce Moore
Ronald Lowry
Walter James Callahan
John Miller Huston
Norman Ezekiel Radford
Albert Gerald Cameron
Alvin Loren Crow
Clarence Samuel Chase
Donald Clyde Campbell
Earnest Ramsey
Edward William Clark
Frank Jay Collings
Frank Reed
George Robert Collett
Lagrand Chamberlain
Joseph Reardon
Jessie Moore
Lee Emnet Reid
Leeander Carter
Milton Myers
Robert Marion Lawernce Moore
Ronald Lowry
Walter James Callahan
Primary Sources
Butte County. World War I Civilian Draft Registrations: 1917-1918. http://buttegenwebsite.org (accessed 30 April 2011).
Editor. “Influenza Shows No Sign of Abatement Throughout Nation,” The Ogden Standard. October 12, 1918. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1918-10-12/ed-1/seq-11/ (accessed 10 June 2011).
Editor. “Special Train in Bad Wreck,” The Ogden Standard. November 9, 1918. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058396/1918-11-09/ed-1/seq-10/ (accessed 23 May 2011).
Editor. “Vern Toombs” The Logan Republican. November 5, 1918. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058246/1918-11-05/ed-1/seq-1/ (accessed 21 May 2011).
National Archives. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917 – 1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1917.
National Archives. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917 – 1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1918.
Memorial Services. Honoring Butte County’s Fallen Heroes, March 9, 1919. Arco, ID: L.D.S. Hall, 1919.
United States Bureau of the Census. Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910
Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.:
United State Bureau of the Census, 1910.
United States Bureau of the Census. Twelfth Census of the United States: 1910
Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.: United State Bureau of the Census, 1900.
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Population, Arco, Butte County, Arco Village Precinct. Washington, D.C.: United State Bureau of the Census, 1900.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
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