In anticipation of Veterans Day on November 11, 2024, Blake Watson is providing six short stories from his recently published book, Kansas and Kansans in World War I: Service at Home and Abroad. The book along with other book selections (https://kansaspress.ku.edu/veterans-day-titles-from-upk/) are currently available for 30% off with free shipping* by entering code: 24VETERANS at checkout. *free shipping is for US addresses only*
GOLD STAR MOTHERS AND WIDOWS
By the end of WWI, two new terms—“Gold Star Mother” and “Gold Star Widow”—had been added to the American lexicon to honor the mothers and wives of deceased soldiers. Some of the fallen were returned to the United States, but many remained in France. The Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, located 150 miles northeast of Paris, contains the largest number of American military dead (14,426) in Europe.
In 1929, Congress authorized pilgrimages at government expense to European cemeteries by mothers and widows of members of military services. African-American women were eligible but traveled separately. According to records kept for Kansas, 95 of the 222 eligible women (43%) took part in the program, including 11 from Sedgwick County, 13 from Shawnee County, and 18 from Wyandotte County. The women traveled in groups escorted by military personnel, and some carried Kansas dirt in boxes to sprinkle on graves.
Some of the Gold Star Mothers were elderly or infirm, including Laura Keller of Manhattan. She was supposed to be in the first group to go to France, but died on July 26, 1930, one month prior to her scheduled departure. Grace Kingsbury of Smith Center was also unwell, but she made the trip despite uremic poisoning and a prior stroke. Her son, Private LaRue Kingsbury of the 353rd Infantry, died on the battlefield on October 25, 1918. He was later moved to Plot B, Row 40, Grave 24 of the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery. On September 6, 1930, Grace Kingsbury visited her son’s final resting place, collapsed into an unconscious state, and died six days later. “Is it such a tragedy,” asked the editor of the Pittsburg Booster, “if one closes her tired eyes forever in the land that claimed her boy?”
NEXT: ARMISTICE DAY BECOMES VETERANS DAY.
