Peacetime Casualties

The war was over, but soldiers were still dying.

The News of December 12 carried this brief story:

Word was received Monday that Clarence McDonald, son of Mrs. Otis Guernsey,* residing south of Deep River, had died of wounds received in action in France. Last week they received a message stating he had been seriously wounded. He went to France in June of this year.

Just above that story appeared a fuller report on the death of Edward Abel, 26 years old, who had died in France on November 24 of bronchial pneumonia. The next day's Gazette described Edward's military service:

When Co. F was organized at Gary, he became a member, and in June, 1916, he went with the company to the Mexican border. There he had charge of the construction of army shacks, and after the company was mustered out of the U.S. service, in March, 1917, and again became a state organization, he returned home, but soon war broke out, and again he joined the company that was sent to Camp Shelby. Here he remained until about last October, when most of the remaining members of Co. F were sent overseas. From a letter received later, he arrived in France Nov. 5, or six days before peace was signed.

On December 18 Fremont and Carrie Price received a report that their son James had died — a sketchy, unofficial report, if we are to go by what appeared in the newspaper about it. The Prices were surely stunned and confused; James himself had recently written to them that he was fully recovered from his wound.

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*Minnie Jones Guernsey, and I can't account for the difference in surnames.


Sources:
♦ "Another Hobart Boy Dies in France." Hobart Gazette 13 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Clarence McDonald of Ross Twp. Dies of Wounds Received in Action." Hobart News 12 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Edward Abel Dies of Pneumonia November 24 in France." Hobart News 12 Dec. 1918.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 19 Dec. 1918.