WWI Cows and War – Brattleboro, Vermont Holstein-Friesian Dairy Farmers Rally for War Bond Support ca.1918

May 7, 2014May 7, 2014 / portraitsofwar / Leave a comment

Brattleboro Holstein Breeders ca. 1918

Cows and WWI?

War Loan bond rallies came in all forms in WWI and this is a very, very Vermont specific version. The Holstein-Friesian (note spelling difference) is an active group from Brattleboro, VT interested in the breeding, milking and raising of Holstein cattle in the United States. Originally imported from the Netherlands in the second half of the 19th century, the Holstein breed is one of the most popular milking breeds today. Especially in Vermont, the breed is popularly depicted as the the “classic cow” being prominently white with black spots. One of the most famous expressions of Vermont’s love of the Holstein can be seen on the ice cream container of the famous Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, a classic Vermont-based company that started in Burlington, VT. Vermont artist Woody Jackson designed the internationally recognizable logo that can be scooped in over 30 countries worldwide.

Woody Jackson Design (Used without Consent)

Anyway, back to the photo! The shot captures the Holstein-Fresian (spelled differently in 1918?) rallying for war bond support on the Brattleboro, VT common green in 1917 or 1918. I’ve tracked down a web photo of the gazebo today but plan to snap a shot later this summer. Please see below and refer to this site for the source.

Brattleboro Gazebo ca.1918

Brattleboro Gazebo Today

Details regarding this event are hard to track down, but I’m hot on the trail. Please check back for further details. I’m including some close up crops of the initial image to show some of the details. Note the posters, Uncle Sam riding a donkey, US Navy donation bucket, Civil War veteran, plus much more great period detail.

Victory First Then Peace

Save Wheat Buy Bonds

Bond Posters

Brattleboro Civil War Veteran

Holstein-Friesian Banner

WWI Photo – Female YMCA Worker in Germany w/ Good Uniform Details and Rare Beret Cap

April 23, 2014 / portraitsofwar / Leave a comment

YMCA Ladies were sent overseas to help bring a glimmer of American home life into the trenches in France and Germany. YMCA workers were attached to specific divisions and were tasked with putting on events, providing comforts of home, and entertaining the US soldiers with music and reading material. Interestingly enough, female YMCA workers were only selected from a pool of women ranging in age from 25-45 with a few older exceptions. No women whose parents were born in an enemy country could serve and women who were British or Canadian could not be sent to France. The YMCA was often criticized for price gouging US soldiers when charging fees for cigarettes, shaving material and everyday odds and ends.

Through a collecting friend and author I was able to obtain a nice side profile shot of a YMCA woman associated with the 9th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Division. The uniforms for the female YMCA workers was designed by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and was a gray-green in color with a French horizon-blue collar. The pair of US triangles on the upper collar lapel were embroidered in silk and sported red-edged details. This particular woman is wearing an incredibly rare beret stye hat with a felt YMCA patch attached.

WWI YMCA Worker

Winooski, VT WWI Veteran Photo Identification – eBay Photo Yields Vermont History Golden Research!

March 23, 2014April 7, 2014 / portraitsofwar / 1 Comment

This story starts with a 23 year old Earl F. Lavalle scribbling his name on the back of a photo to pass along to a friend during WWI and ends with a full identification of Mr. Lavallee’s life experience. The main goal of PortraitsofWar is to research and seek out every possible lead to identify an early 20th century photograph; recent digitization efforts have enhanced our ability to complete genealogical research from the confines of a remote desktop.

Earl in 1918

Our first accounts of Earl show him being born on November 29th 1894 to Fred Lavallee of Canada and Emma Pollinger of (my current hometown!) Colchester. Earl worked his entire life as a laborer in the American Woolen Co. in Winooski, VT, located along the Winooski/Onion River near Burlington,VT. He lived at various locations during his tenure at the woolen mill including 36 Hood Street, Winooski, 102 Mallets Bay Ave, 22 Park Street and many more.

Earl Lavallee Reverse

Earl enlisted on February 11th, 1918 at Camp Green, North Carolina. He served with Company G, 58th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division until August 21st, 1918 when he was transferred to Supply Co, same regiment. He was overseas from May 7th, 1918 to August 1st, 1919.

Earl was wounded in action on September 30th, 1918. This photograph depicts Earl after his wounding evidenced by his right-hand wound stripe. Earl was discharged on August 7th, 1919.

Earl Lavallee Draft Card WWI

Earl Lavallee WWII Draft Card

Lavallee Signature

Lavallee Family Story

The 1900 US Census from Colchester, VT shows the Lavallee family as a solid unit with five family members comprised of Earl’s dad Fred Lavallee, his mother Emma, brother Charles, sister Florence and himself (Earl).

1900 Census, Colchester, Vt

WWI Red Cross Nurse Photo Identification – Miss Ella Kettels/Voged Describes Wartime Hospitals

January 19, 2014October 14, 2021 / portraitsofwar / 1 Comment

World War One studio photography is dominated by shots of male soldiers posing in European studios in hopes of documenting their wartime experiences for hometown family and friends to enjoy. Little did they know that historians in 2014 would be researching their names, hometowns, photos and military rosters to help paint a picture of the American experience during WWI. One of my favorite research topics is the wartime culture of US nurses while stationed overseas in 1918 and 1919. In this case, I’ve done an extensive series of searches in hopes of tracking down the WWI nurse posed in the photo. I hope you enjoy the research!

Ella (Kettels) Voged in 1918

Ella Kettels of Clinton, Iowa

Miss Ella Kettels (mispelled on the photo) eventually went on to marry at the age of 35 to a man named Theodore Voged. He is listed as a janitor in the 1929 city directory for Clinton, Iowa. The couple lived at 576 1st Ave. in Clinton, IA. I’ve identified the house they lived in and have posted it below:

576 1st Ave. in Clinton, IA.

Her wartime experience is included in her1965 obituary:

“Mrs, Ella Voged, 80, of Clinton, saw the grim side of World War I. She went to France as a Red Cross nurse but soon found herself enrolled as an Army nurse. She had been graduated from nursing school at a Clinton hospital in 1910. Mrs. Voged served as a nurse in a hospital near Paris to which American wounded came in a steady stream from the big front-line battles of that war. . “Sometimes we thought this boy would be all right and they would be gone in the morning,” she recalled. “This was long before the day of antibiotics. They would develop infections in their wounds.”

Although we may never know the full extent of Ella’s wartime hardships, we do know that she will be immortalized on the world wide web as a subject of potential research in the future.

WWI Photo Identification – Base Hospital #10 Doctor and 103rd Field Artillery Officer Fritz Draper Hurd

January 16, 2014November 21, 2014 / portraitsofwar / Leave a comment

Fritz Draper Hurd in 1918

After owning this photo for over a year, I decided to reexamine the image in hopes of properly identifying the sitter. The front is inscribed ” Oh for Some Ice Cream!” with a partial ID of F Draper Hu….. with the surname clipped away. The reverse proved juicy for wartime information, giving some additional information placing the Lt. as being present during the Yankee Division’s experiences at Chateau Thierry, St. Mihiel and Verdun. His name was partially obscured by remnant scrapbook paper. After steaming the affected section with heated and distilled water, the glue separated the paper from the photo and revealed his full name.

F Draper Hurd

Fritz Draper Hurd was born in Williamsport, Maryland in 1894 and attended Pennsylvania College as a member of the class of 1916 but sadly was expelled the night before graduation after a graduation party involving drinking and furniture breaking. A dejected Hurd left home and went to Philadelphia seeking work, eventually landing a job with the Eddystone Remington Arms Company turning out components for the lend-lease British Enfield rifle. After hearing of the US declaration of war on Germany, Hurd signed up with a Philly based Red Cross ambulance unit and went overseas in May of 1917 eventually landing in England. After a quick training he was sent to France to serve as a nurse with Base Hospital #10 – a British hospital for badly wounded soldiers. The initial wave of Pennsylvania men and women was comprised of 23 doctors and 64 nurses – the first Philadelphia body of organized soldiers to leave Philly.

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/collections/gallery/wartime/Base_10.html

Interior Shot of BH #10 Ward

He next attended Field Artillery School and commissioned a Lt. with the 103rd Field Artillery Regiment, a unit of the 26th “Yankee Division”. The photo shown above depicts Hurd wearing a uniform with insignia related to this period of his wartime career. During his time as an artillery liason between the 103rd and the front line infantry units, Hurd was responsible for lugging a wire spool and calling in artillery fire. He also spent some time in an observation balloon and is credited for calling in a barrage that took out three German machine gun nests. He also is documented as being a participant of the last artillery shot of the war- firing only minutes before the official end of the war.

He was able to attend Oxford after the war and later became a distinguished medical profession back in the US. He lived well into his 80s and recorded a memoir which can be found in the Special Collections department of Gettysburg College along with his wartime diary, knuckle duster trench knife, musette bag, scrapbook and assorted ephemera.

Based on the article posted above, we know he had a brother named Mason who also served during the war in a similar set of campaigns as Fritz. Mason Hurd’s record can be found here:

Name: Mason Montreville Hurd
Race: white
Address: Williamsport, Washington Co.
Birth Place: Clearspring, Md.
Birth Date: 07 Jul 1896
Comment: ORC 11/27/17 2 lt FA, (Ft Oglethorpe Ga.); Btry D 77 FA; Btry E 13 FA 5/10/18; Btry A 13 FA 7/-/18; Hq 1 Army Corps 8/13/18; Casual Officers Dep Blois 8/14/18; Hq SOS 8/-/18; 302 Stev Regt 8/29/18; Btry E 13 FA 11/8/18, Hon disch 10/27/19, Overseas 5/22/18 to 7/31/19, Aisne-Marne; Vesle Sector; Meuse-Argonne

Special thanks go out to Sarah M. Johnson for her extraordinary research on the wartime experiences of Fritz D. Hurd. She generously provided me with much of the information included in this blog post. Her official article citation can be found in the footer of this post. Her poster abstract can be found here: http://bit.ly/K4tWaE

Wartime Summary

Johnson, Sarah M. Growing up in the Trenches: Fritz Draper and the Great War. Diss. Gettysburg College, 2013. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

WWI Photo Identification – Wartime Librarian Mary Josephine Booth, ALA in Germany

December 7, 2013February 14, 2014 / portraitsofwar / 3 Comments

Sometimes all it takes to properly identify a photo is a little bit of luck and a lot of patience! In this case, a collector-friend of mine recognized one of my studio postcard photos on a library history blog. Apparently, the photo was saved from a past eBay auction by an intrepid library historian and subsequently identified. I knew the photo depicted a WWI American Library Association worker posing in a German studio in 1919. What I didn’t know was her identity……..

Mary Josephine Booth in 1919

Mary Josephine Booth was born in Beloit, WI on May 24th, 1876 to John Robertson Booth of Fonde, NY. She earned degrees from Beloit College and the University of Illinois Library School.

Her wartime record is incredibly well documented on her 1919 passport application. She was issued US passport #71443 by the US Department of State on November 5th, 1917 and left for France 11 days later on the 16th. She arrived in Paris shortly thereafter and lived at 12 Rue d’Aguesseau in the heart of the city. Click here for a map showing her apartment location.
After the war she became a member of the Women’s Overseas Service League, the American Association of University Women and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Women’s Overseas Service League Logo

A library researcher pulled the image from the eBay auction and put together a nice piece on Miss Booth here: http://libraryhistorybuff.blogspot.com/2012/12/female-librarians-and-alas-library-war.html

I was able to find some additional images of Mary Josephine Booth using ancestry.com and the wonderful archive of public documents recently made searchable. See below for shots from her U.S. Passport applications.

1917 Passport Photo

1919 Passport Photo

1931 Eastern Illinois University Yearbook Photo

1941 Yearbook Photo

WWI Portrait Photo – WWI Pilot Walter V. Monger of Benson, Vermont

November 27, 2013 / portraitsofwar / 5 Comments

World War One Vermonter photos are far and few between, so I always jump on the opportunity to add one to my growing collection. Today’s portrait photo recently arrived in the mail from a fellow collector who discovered it at an estate sale on the West Coast. This crisp and clear 8×10 portrait was sadly damaged during shipping but still retains it’s incredible details depicting the bullion wings and cap insignia.

Walter Monger WWI Portrait

Walter V. Monger was born on December 18th, 1892 and passed away on October 18th, 1975. I’ve tracked down a number of documents on Ancestry.com that can be viewed below:

WWI Draft Registration Card

WWII Draft Registration

1919 School Photo

WWI 37th Division Chaplain Portrait – William P. O’Connor, American Legion National Catholic Chaplain

November 13, 2013November 13, 2013 / portraitsofwar / Leave a comment

Identified chaplain photos have become incredibly popular in the past few years given the ramp-up effort to prepare for the 100 year anniversary of WWI. I’ve made an effort to scoop up as many interesting chaplain photos as possible to share here on PortraitsofWar to help spread the word about the U.S. involvement in the war. A recent eBay duel landed me with a top-notch portrait of a 37th Division (primarily Ohio based division) chaplain posed with his WWI Victory Medal and uniform. The inscription on the bottom ends with a crude signature. I was able to do my typical google, ancestry.com, Library of Congress and Fold3 search to come up with a 100% positive identification.

Lt. William O’Connor

William Patrick O’ Connor was born in Dayton, Ohio on October 7th, 1889 to John and Elizabeth (Kenney) O’Connor. He attended the University of Dayton for his B.A. and followed up with seminary school at Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati. He was ordained in 1913 and served as Curate at Urbana, Ohio, 1913-117; later paston, Church of the Assumption in Cincinnati(Source). William O’Connor has the distinction of being the first Ohio priest to enter the army following the declaration of war in 1917.Father O’Connor served as chaplain with Battery F, 136th Field Artillery as part of the 37th “Buckeye” Division during WWI. At the time of the portrait, he was the chaplain of the 107th Cavalry of the Ohio National Guard. I was lucky enough to track down a 1918 article with a direct quotation from Rev. O’Connor:

“…………… I take this occasion to thank the Knights of Columbus of Cincinnati for their exceeding kindness and consideration to the Chaplain, and to thank all the people of Ohio for their kindness to the soldier boys.

With best wishes, in J.M.J. I am, sincerely yours,

William P. O’Connor,

First Lt. 136th Field Artillery Chaplain”

http://arc.stparchive.com/Archive/ARC/ARC02161918p08.php

Father O’Connor was elected National Chaplain of the American Legion after the third ballot and was in a tight heat with Rev. Ezra Clemmons of Iowa and Rev. Roy Tucker of Baton Rouge, LA. For more info check out the following site: http://arc.stparchive.com/Archive/ARC/ARC11041922p05.php

Newspaper Clipping of Father O’Connor, 1922

58 Ringgold St, Dayton Ohio

And where he lived in Dayton, Ohio

WWI University of Vermont US Army Training Photo – Central Campus by Louis McAllister

November 3, 2013November 14, 2013 / portraitsofwar / 1 Comment

US Army Training Detachment at UVM 1918

My collection of Louis McAllister WWI Photos has grown to include three more shots taken during the WWI training period at UVM in 1918. McAllister was known to have taken panoramic photos of each individual training company in front of Williams Hall. I have shots of Company B and Company C. The photo seen above appear to be all the companies posed together with a series of US Army trucks behind Old Mill and Williams Hall in September of 1918. The panoramics were part of a series of shots I recently purchased from a seller in Rutland, Vermont. The group can be attributed to a WWI veteran named Theodore Maher, a mechanic who served with both the 336th Tank Battalion as well as the 339th Tank Battalion during WWI. A fantastic find!

WWI Nurse Photo Identified – Massachusetts Female Veteran in France, 1918 Base Hospital #6

October 22, 2013 / portraitsofwar / 2 Comments

I’ve been lucky in the past few weeks to pick up some fun WWI shots of US female nurses and auxiliary service members. US women in France were outnumbered by the men, and to be able to positively identify a nurse is a fun way to learn about female service roles during the war. In this case, I was able to purchase a small group of photos and a Thanksgiving menu from a woman in Base Hospital #6 stationed in Bordeaux, France during the war. The standing studio portrait was identified on the reverse as HK Judd of Base Hospital 6. On a whim I searched for Helen K. Judd (thinking that Helen was a likely candidate for H) and came up with a positive hit on a woman named Helen K. Judd from Southhampton, Mass. I cross referenced with the digitized passport records from 1917 and 1918 and had a positive match. Luckily the passport applications come with little snapshots of the applicants. The amount of material available to identify WWI photos is incredible.

J. Sereni Studio Portrait of Helen

1917 Passport Photo of Helen

1918 Passport Photo of Helen

Physical Description

Passport Application Info

Base Hospital #6 Thanksgiving Menu

Portraits of War

Snapshots in Time

wwi photo