Above: Local newspapers like the Gratiot County Herald and the Alma Record regularly published lists of those Gratiot County men who died as the war went on.

       By the end of the World War in Europe a total of 116, 708 Americans had died. Along with these came another 204,000 who were wounded.  From Gratiot County, at least thirty men gave their lives in service to their country and our county.

       When I first considered doing these stories over four years ago, I attempted to find whatever had been written about these thirty men from newspapers like the Gratiot County Herald and the Alma Record. Broader searches into the Detroit Free Press and the Lansing State Journal also occasionally gave tidbits of information. However, most of what we know about these men came from Gratiot County newspapers.

      To attempt to broaden the stories, I turned to records in the National Archives, namely personal files that were put together when a soldier died. Most of our Gratiot men had a file, but a few did not.

       I hoped that by pulling all of these materials more might be known about each of the veterans – their backgrounds, their families, where they lived, where they went to school, what their hopes and dreams were,  as well as how each of them died.

       What I  did learn was that many of the men were single and unmarried. A few of them married and a couple of them had children.  Almost half of those who died did so in combat in Europe. Several died as a result of the Influenza Epidemic, a few as the result of accidents. One came home severely wounded, only to die a few months later. One was a boy, barely sixteen years old. In one case there is still one soldier whose death is as mysterious as his brief service record.

        Still, there are other Gratiot County men whose names appeared in the newspapers that also paid the ultimate price. Their names do not appear with the thirty that we have. Possibly family members chose not to come forward with their names – or there was no family member left after the war to do so. Sometimes more than one county claimed a veteran, depending on where they lived, went to school, or where they enlisted. This situation happened to at least two of Gratiot County’s men.

       One hundred years later, what we have left are distant memories of America’s first war on European soil, a war that Gratiot County was involved with for only twenty months. Many of these men who died during this time are buried in cemeteries within Gratiot County, in forgotten places, with markers and headstones that may be in disrepair or need cleaning.

        We owe them the opportunity to be remembered.

        These were the thirty who dared.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: Samuel B. Derby’s name on the Gratiot County All Wars Memorial in Ithaca; Derby’s registration document.

       Samuel Benjamin Derby was born November 6, 1894, in Hailesboro, New York to John and Patience Derby.  The Derbys moved to Newark Township, and Samuel made a living as a cheesemaker and farmer before the war.

       On June 15, 1917, Derby registered for the draft and officially entered the Army on March 1, 1918. After arriving at Camp Greenleaf, Georgia he became a Private in the Medical Department Post Hospital.  Another record shows that Derby became a Corporal on April 9, 1918, in the Air Service Flying School, but he did not go overseas. On April 19, 1919, he was discharged.

          From there, Derby’s story is somewhat mysterious. In one case, Derby is mentioned as one of thirteen men who perished in a Niagara Falls Power Company accident in North Tonawanda, New York on November 6, 1920. There is evidence that suggests that a man by his name was living in New York in 1941. A marker bearing his name also appears in New York stating that he died in 1962. Which story is accurate?

         So, several questions exist. How and when did Samuel Benjamin Derby die? Since he appeared to die in another state after the war ended, how did his name appear among Gratiot County’s World War I dead?

         Regardless, Samuel Benjamin Derby became the last World War veteran to listed as having served Gratiot County.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: Walter H. Young’s draft registration card; Young’s name as it appears on the Gratiot County All Wars Memorial in Ithaca, Michigan.

      Walter H. Young was born on January 27, 1895, in Ithaca, Michigan to Peter and Cynthia Young. Walter had one brother, James, who died in 1905. His parents made a living as farmers and Walter worked on the family farm when he entered the service. Young spent time on the Texas – Mexico border at Camp Jones, and he served as a private in Battalion B, 10^th Field Artillery.

        The 10^th Field Artillery fought in 1918 in battles such as Champagne-Marne,  St. Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne. At the Meuse-Argonne, the 10^th Field Artillery attained the title “The Rock’s Support” because it helped the 3^rd Division, famously known as “The Rock of the Marne.”  Somewhere Walter Young was severely wounded, and he ended up being in several hospitals before he came home.  Walter continued to suffer from his wounds for over a year. In April 1919, Walter’s mother died which put more pressure on Walter and his aging father to maintain the family farm. Tragedy struck in mid-September 1920 and Walter Young had to be sent to Dr. Hall’s Hospital in Pompeii.

       After struggling for several days, Young succumbed to the hemorrhaging of gastric ulcers. The doctor concluded that the wounds Young suffered in Europe somehow caused this death.

       Funeral services took place at the North Star Methodist Church, and Walter Young was buried in the North Star Cemetery.

      Walter Henry Young was a World War veteran who came home severely wounded, and who paid the ultimate price for his service to our country.

        Walter Young was only twenty-five years old when he died.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: E.M. Ewen’s name as it appears on the Gratiot All Wars Memorial in Ithaca, Michigan.

        E.M. Ewen was born August 25, 1890, in Derryfield,  Wexford County, Michigan. To E.E. and Addie Ewen and they resided at 223 Prospect Street in Alma during the war. It is possible that the family moved here because his father purchased the dry cleaning plant in Alma in 1916. However, the man who did this was known as E.W. McEwen in newspapers, which presents a question. Was the last name Ewen or McEwen?

        Even more perplexing is finding much else about the life of E. M. Ewen.  He did marry a Helen Williard in 1911 in Alma, and the couple did have a son named Gordon. Ewen was also a bookkeeper before the war. After entering the military,  he joined a camp in Alabama in 1918, which is where he died in April 1919. It is not known where he was buried.

       Beyond this information, nothing else is known about E.M. Ewen – a young man who served Gratiot County and who died during the World War.

At his death, E.M. Ewen was 27 years old.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: Agnes Yutzey’s YMCA portrait; Yutzey’s application for a  passport; staff picture from Ithaca Schools, taken prior to volunteering to work with the YMCA.

Author’s note: The following article first appeared in the December 6, 2018 issue of the Gratiot County Herald.

         During World War I, over 13,000 volunteers went to France and England to serve in the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).   It was a favorite place for American soldiers, offering them a place to eat, relax, read and write home.

        Agnes Yutzey, who lived near Middleton, was one of the many volunteers who left her job and went to Europe. During her youth, Yutzey’s parents moved so that she and her two sisters could attend school in Ithaca. A graduate of Central Michigan Normal School, she returned to Ithaca as a teacher before volunteering to head to Europe for the YMCA.

        In 1918, crossing the Atlantic could take a ship as much as three weeks during the war. While on board a vessel, Agnes attempted to pass her time by going for walks, sunning in deck chairs and by trying to keep her food down. Regarding her stomach, she wrote in a letter that some days “the fish won this contest” and she struggled because she did not possess good “sea legs.” However, Yutzey enjoyed serving coffee and tea to soldiers who were onboard.

       Agnes Yutzey’s dream was to make it to France. However, the YMCA sent her to Liverpool, England. She served there for 2 ½ months in the Liverpool Canteen where she worked at 46 Lord Street. Her work involved running a cash desk (checkout) for men who bought food cafeteria style, along with operating a reading room, talking to homesick soldiers and chaperoning those who wanted to see an English play. Yutzey discovered that the average soldier that came to her canteen expected one thing: cream and sugar in their coffee.

       In letters home, she asked Ithaca readers to send her current magazines so that soldiers had new reading material. Occasionally there was an English citizen who walked into the canteen and said that they wanted to meet a real American. Although she initially stayed in a hotel, a local citizen invited Yutzey to live with her in Liverpool. During this time the Influenza Epidemic raged through England, although Yutzey never became sick.  Surprisingly, she did have the good fortune of meeting another Ithaca girl at the Liverpool canteen.

          After a while, Agnes Yutzey eventually made it to the European continent where she worked at YMCA Canteen Number 27 in Coblenz and Number 14 in Trier, Germany.  Yutzey’s service ended in August 1919, and she came home aboard the SS Mobile from Brest, France.

         She returned to live briefly with her parents in New Haven Township before moving to Cedar Falls, Iowa to work at a teachers college. Yutzey next went to George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee. It was there in 1921 that she married James Atkinson, Jr., and moved to Clearwater, Florida where she taught until 1940.

               Agnes Yutzey, a YMCA volunteer, passed away in March 1950.

Eldon Helman, from New Haven Township, and Lyndsi Wolfe, Fulton High School Senior, assisted with research for this article.

Above: Cemetery marker for Eber Grace in Alma’s Riverside Cemetery; Registration Card for Eber Grace.

       Eber John Grace was born July 24, 1892, in Allen County, Indiana to Simon and Marilda Grace. Eber was the youngest of four children to a farm family. Sometime before 1910 the Grace family moved to Bethany Township to farm. Helping on the farm was Eber’s job, and that was what he was doing when he married Sylva Ann Grandy on December 29, 1912, in St. Louis.

         Five years later, on May 24, 1917, Sylva gave birth to their first child. It was also a tragic time as Sylva died from complications due to childbirth. Eber now had a child to raise, and he was a widower. One month later, he was called to register to the draft. Another year passed, and the Army called Eber to military service, and he found himself at Camp Custer on August 28, 1918. Assigned to the 11^th Company, 3^rd B.M., 160^th D.B., Eber Grace was transferred to the Motor Cycle Company by the time he arrived in France.

         A second tragedy befell Eber Grace when on March 11, 1919, in Libourne, Gironde, France when he died due to a motorcycle accident. The only information about Eber Grace’s death could be summed up in the World War I book, Soldiers of the Great War. His name was merely listed under the category “Died of Accident.”

       Sometime after his death, Grace was brought home from France, and he was laid to rest in Alma’s Riverside Cemetery.

       When he died, Eber J. Grace was twenty-seven years old, and he left behind a two-year-old daughter.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: William Shippey’s Registration Card; Shippey’s marker in Oak Grove Cemetery.

        William Lee Shippey was born December 13, 1896, in St. Louis, Michigan to Fred and Kittie (Bell) Shippey. He was the older of two sons; however, the 1910 census listed a daughter in the family. Other references state that there was also another son.

       William worked as a lineman and that he was a theatrical employee for the Frances Kelly Stock Company. He also worked for the State of Michigan. Shippey entered the service in 1916 and went to Camp Grayling. However, on his registration card in 1917, it said that he had been rejected for service. It is unclear why or for what reasons this happened, yet Shippey answered the call for the draft and ended up at Camp Custer on March 29, 1918.

       During his training, he became a Sergeant M.S.T. 414, M.T.C. 442.  Shippey then trained at Camp Johnston, Florida where he received a promotion to Corporal before moving to the 85^th Division, 310^th Engineers. After the Armistice took place, he transferred to the 7^th Army Corps.

     While with the Army of Occupation in Germany, William Shippey contracted pneumonia during the influenza epidemic and died on February 6, 1919. Unfortunately, his body would not be sent home until early September 1920. When it happened, a notice in the Gratiot County Herald stated that his funeral services would be held at the St. Louis Methodist Church and that burial took place in Oak Grove Cemetery.

       William Shippey’s death was different from most of the other veterans from Gratiot County. In his case, he left behind two sons, in addition to his wife, parents, brothers and a sister. William’s son, Norman, became a doctor and his other son, known as “Bill,” became a well-known educator and coach in Lansing, Michigan. Today, the Dean Shippey Capital Diamond Classic, a well known high school baseball tournament, is named in Bill’s honor.

          When William Lee Shippey died in 1919, he was only twenty-three years old.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: The resting place in Breckenridge’s Ridgelawn Cemetery for Ralph W. Sawvel.

         Ralph Warren Sawvel was born August 15, 1897, in Breckenridge, Michigan to Robert and Almeda Sawvel. In 1910, Robert and Almeda resided in Bethany Township on a farm along with their five children. Ralph was the middle child and second son in the family. Ralph’s mother died in 1911 and his father soon remarried.

          A graduate of Breckenridge Schools, Ralph went on and attended Alma College from 1916-17.  Because of his personality, fellow students nicknamed him “Smiles.” On  July 24, 1917, Sawvel entered Fort Wayne in Detroit, and he was a Private in Company H of the 125^th Medical Department, 32^nd Infantry Division. From there, he was sent to Camp McArthur, Texas on October 15, 1917, where he served until January 1918 when the Army sent him to Camp New Jersey. Sawvel sailed for France in early February 1918.

           In the Fall of 1918 word reached Breckenridge that Ralph Sawvel had been severely wounded during fighting that summer. One report stated that he had been injured in late July, another in late August. Another story said that another Breckenridge boy, Ward Doyle, had helped to pick Ralph up and to see that someone cared for his wounds. Although newspapers never explained how severely he was injured, Sawvel was hospitalized. It also said that because of the severity of his injuries, Sawvel was expected to be sent home in October. Tragically, it turned out that he died in a hospital in 1919 in Brest before being transported back to the United States. Newspaper reports read that he died “from wounds received in battle. (Sawvel) carried these wounds for some time and was on his way home at the time of his death.”

          It would not be until late July 1920 that Ralph Sawvel would finally return to Breckenridge. He became the first of all of Gratiot County’s war dead to be brought home. After he arrived in Breckenridge, a short service took place in the home of his grandparents. The Breckenridge American Legion conducted the funeral and Sawvel was laid to rest in Breckenridge’s Ridgelawn Cemetery.

              At the time of this death, Ralph W. Sawvel was twenty-one years old.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: Clyde Hull’s marker in North Star Cemetery; news article from August 12, 1920 issue of the Gratiot County Herald; Hull’s registration card.

         Clyde Franklin Hull was born June 25, 1895, in North Star to Frank and Fannie Hull. By 1900 the Hull family had moved to Bengal Township in Clinton County and family included siblings Jessie, Orpha, and a brother Dillis. Clyde’s father was a farm laborer, and the family probably lived in Saginaw County at one time.

       On March 14, 1918, Clyde married Marie Nass in Ithaca, and they moved to Saginaw, where Clyde worked as a glass worker. Part of Clyde’s tie to Gratiot County was that Marie was from Washington Township.

       Clyde registered for the draft in Saginaw Township, and he was drafted on June 28, 1918, into the Army. The Hulls had been married for just over three months.  Clyde ended up in Camp Custer where he was a Private in Battery D of the 330^th Field Artillery, and he sailed for France in July.

      Clyde was like a few other Gratiot County men who went to France and then contracted pneumonia and died, probably in the wake of the Influenza Epidemic. Sadly, his death came on November 27, 1918, just over two weeks after the Armistice was officially signed. Even more tragic, Marie Hull found out about her husband’s death a few days after the birth of their daughter, Lois.

         Records do not tell us much else about Clyde Hull except that he was unique among the others who died in France: he was the first to be sent home. In late August 1920, his body, accompanied by Private Baird of Company C of the 13^th Infantry, came to Ithaca. The funeral took place at the Ithaca Presbyterian Church, and six Ashley men who served overseas in France served as pallbearers. He was laid to rest in the North Star Cemetery.

          Clyde Hull was twenty-three years old when he died in France.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed

Above: Von Thurn Family plot in Alma’s Riverside Cemetery; Dwight Von Thurn’s headstone; his registration card for the 1917 draft.

         William Dwight Von Thurn was born April 30, 1894, in Helena, Ohio to Jacob and Lydia Von Thurn. They had a total of seven children with Dwight being one of the youngest. The family experienced tragedy when the oldest daughter, Bessie, died in California in 1909. By 1910, the Von Thurn family moved to Pine River Township in Gratiot County where they farmed.

        At some point, Dwight decided to attend Alma College which he was doing when he answered the call for the draft on June 5, 1917. His family suffered another loss when Jacob, Dwight’s father, died in February 1918. A month later, on March 5, Dwight left for the service and was assigned to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Von Thurn entered the Transportation Corps in Motor Ambulance Company Number Two, but the Army transferred him to the Medical Corps where he became a corporal.

      When the flu epidemic reached Fort Oglethorpe, Dwight was among the first to volunteer to care for the influenza patients because there was a shortage of nurses. In the process of nursing other sick soldiers, he contracted the virus and became very ill. A call went out to his mother and sister in Alma that he was gravely ill and they rushed to see him. Sadly, Dwight died shortly before his family reached him.

          About to be promoted to sergeant, Von Thurn’s superior officer wrote about him that “He was one of the most conscientious, more than willing men I have ever had under me and his influence for good over the men about him was very great. He was an artist by nature and his horror of bloodshed so great that to take life, even of an animal, would hurt him for days and yet he conquered it all and gave his life willingly for his country.”

          Von Thurn’s body, along with his mother and sister, arrived back in Alma, along with a brother, Captain Lester Von Thurn, who also had been stationed at Fort Oglethorpe. A private funeral took place in Alma’s Riverside Cemetery. Six other men from the Alma Company of reserves attended the ceremony. The Alma Presbyterian Church, which Dwight attended, added another Gold Star to the service flag that it displayed.

          When Dwight Von Thurn died, he was only twenty-six years old.

Copyright 2018 James M Goodspeed